Samsung UE55HU7500: 3D Picture Quality

The UE55HU7500 is a mostly good 3D performer. Its pictures are bright and colourful by active 3D standards, and detail levels are extremely high from 3D Blu-rays. The sense of depth in the image is enhanced, meanwhile, by the TV’s excellent contrast range, which means that even dark 3D scenes still enjoy a natural 3D space.

Motion looks much more fluent than it has tended to on previous Samsung TV generations too, thanks presumably to the improved processing engine.

There are one or two problems. If your room is very bright you can feel aware of the 3D glasses flickering, and there’s also a little crosstalk ghosting noise over some background content. This crosstalk is subtle enough not to dominate the frame very often, though, so detail lovers will consider it a small price to pay for seeing 3D with UHD resolution levels.

Samsung UE55HU7500: Sound Quality

Considered against the turgid backdrop of the overall history of sound in flat TVs, the UE55HU7500 sounds quite presentable. The mid-range sounds clear and detailed, especially where voices are concerned; there’s an at least half-hearted attempt to inject some bass into proceedings; and the speakers can get pretty loud without falling prey to distortion and/or phutting.

However, the soundstage doesn’t expand as much as we’d like when asked to accommodate an action sequence, and treble details can sound a bit wimpy.

These shortcomings are particularly apparent if you run the Samsung alongside the spectacular sonics delivered by Sony’s new X9005B 4K TV range.

Other Things to Consider

The UE55HU7500 ships with two remotes: a small, crowded but still decently usable one and a ‘smart’ one. The smart one looks cool with its built-in touch pad, button-lite design and comfortable elliptical shaping. It’s designed to be used with just your thumb, and it delivers quite nicely on that promise – once you’ve got used to it. It’s just that the amount of functionality focussed into a very small section of the remote can lead to some teething problems in the form of accidental mis-selections of onscreen options.
It is worth persevering, though, as while there’s room for improvement, it does ultimately feel like a better fit with Samsung’s smart interface than the standard remote.

You can also control the TV using apps for your smartphones or tablet computers – apps which additionally provide you with the facility to send multimedia from your smart devices to the TV’s screen or, even better, share the content of the TV’s tuners with your portable devices.

Samsung has long fancied itself as a friend of gaming. But the need to upscale HD game feeds to UHD has the potential to greatly increase its TV’s input lag figure – as in, the time the screen takes to render images after receiving image data at its inputs. Our measurements of the UE55HU7500’s input lag registered a figure of 70ms – a figure that is indeed high enough to impact your gaming skills (ideally we’d be looking for 30ms or less).

Should I buy a Samsung UE55HU7500?

From the UHD/4K TVs we’ve seen so far this year, the Samsung UE55HU7500 has only a couple of serious contenders. The first is Samsung’s own step-up HU8500 range, which delivers even better picture quality along with a curved design – if you like that sort of thing.

The other alternative is Sony’s X9005B range, which deliver stunning pictures and sound at an aggressive price, as well as less input lag – if you can live with their extremely large-form design.

Verdict

Despite a disappointingly high input lag figure, the UE55HU7500 is another outstanding UHD TV from Samsung, providing a superb flat-screen alternative to the (more controversial?) thrills of Samsung’s HU8500 curved UHD range.

Next, read our Samsung HU8500 Review

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