Conclusion
Samsung D8000 is very slim and very elegant. The new extremely thin bezel looks great and all inputs on the back of the TV are either pointing down or to the side. Samsung’s new Smart TV platform is very interesting, with an App Store, social TV and a built in browser that actually works and supports flash. Add to that tons of other multimedia functions such as DLNA streaming, USB recording (in Europe), USB playback and remote controlling with smartphones, and we have one of the most promising Smart TV platforms available today on D8000. The same Smart TV platform is also found in cheaper Samsung LED variants and plasma TVs.
Picture quality on D8000 is generally great and Samsung has made a number of improvements compared to last year’s LED models. Black depth is beautiful and as low as the best Edge LED based TVs and even on par with Panasonic GT30 (2011 plasma). The TV has almost no clouding or backlight bleeding and the viewing angles are wider than previous LED models from Samsung (although contrast is reduced from angles). Also, response time is fast because of the scanning backlight system and we did not notice overdrive trailing either. All these factors help D8000 deliver good SD picture quality and fantastic HD picture quality.
However, out-of-box color accuracy could have been better and the Movie preset is not very accurate either. We managed to get proper color accuracy after calibration but I really wish that Samsung would integrate more accurate picture presets in the future. Color gradation is not perfect either and shadow detailing leaves room for improvement. On the other hand Samsung has improved 3D picture quality considerably and crosstalk is much, much lower than on the 2010 models. That also means that Samsung D8000 has fairly good 3D picture quality with impressive depth control and D8000 delivers a much more pleasant and enjoyable 3D experience. That is certainly a big plus in my book, based on the fact that the 2010 LED models were almost useless in 3D mode.
D8000 a huge improvement over C8000 from 2010 and I am very pleased to see that Samsung continues to improve picture parameters on their TVs. I feel Samsung has made some significant improvements to picture quality in 2011 and D8000 is in my opinion the best Edge LED based TV we have tested so far.
The gap between Edge LED and backlit LED TVs has narrowed with the launch of D8000 and I feel that D8000 is the first Edge LED model from Samsung that I can truly recommend as a great TV competing with plasma TVs in the high-end area. Therefore I also award Samsung D8000 with our Top Recommendations Award.
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