Reviewed in the United States on September 1, 2019
So I bought this TV, specifically for gaming with my Xbox1x after reading a TON of reviews (I'm not sure I got the best for my situation, but I did get overwhelmed researching & finally just caved on this). I had my old 42" Panasonic 1080p plasma for 10 years (It still held up well, but somewhere in its life cycle it got a big scratch on its screen, in the center) & I needed a replacement. Anything above 55" I've read is bad for console gaming from a latency perspective. SO that's why I went with this unit.
So far, so good... 4K content, looks amazing.. well anything at 2K, 1440p or whatever, resolution looks pretty sharp. Its a noticeable bump for me, from 1080p.
But that being said, older resolution stuff, has not aged well at all. You know the 480 p, 720p... Its rough going watching youtube clips uploaded by people. (As we all know this is really what the Xbox1X was meant to do, youtube videos #humor)
I don't know if the unit is trying to upscale stuff or what.. if it is, its not the most effective.
-UI is pretty straight forward. It's not too hard to navigate.
-Cable TV app on the home screen, for some reason, you have the option to remove it from the main shortcut screen, but like some zombie that will not die, everytime I've removed it, it comes back.. haunting me. Which is annoying being a gamer, & not caring for any apps other than what I want on the main screen.
-Hardware Design: So the TV has REALLY adequate feet on it. They are very solid, I am seriously impressed.. it holds the unit up well. NOW they did not clip into the bottom of the TV like they were supposed to. I mean from what the instructions acted like they would do. Slide in, and *pop* be solidly connected. MINE just slid in without any real. *click*
Another thing on the Hardware side, is the placement of all the ports, instead of having a more neutral placement in the middle, they are ALL on the right side, but not completely, located near the bottom of the unit.... which is weird for me, because I have every console to the left of the unit. That's my setup. I had to change things about.
Remote control is OVERLY simplified.. like its a small fragile thing as well. As much as a remote is going to get used, that needs to be something robust, simple.. straight forward. What Samsung designers have done in their not so infinite wisdom, is they've given some of the buttons dual purposes, so the volume button, is also a mute button, & you press up on in gently, to turn volume up, or press/drag down, to lower volume. To me it screams "I'm going to break at the worst possible time".. And then what?
Well they have a little control box at the bottom of the TV screen, that's part of the hardware, I think it might have a volume control on there. But I can't tell because its at the bottom of the TV screen & its literally impossible to see it unless I pick up the TV. That's not happening. Why flipping Samsung, didn't go with, on the side of the unit controls, for this TV, I don't know.. To me this was a pretty expensive TV, even at 1500 usd.. (It's come down in price by 500 bucks since I was eyeballing it)
Anyways, The overall design of this TV, it is slim.. it is clearly a fragile piece of tech. I was super gentle getting it out of the box. I'm a decent sized guy though, 6'1" with a long arm reach.. I unpacked it by myself.
And if you unpack this TV, your going to need a big super smooth flat area, covered with some that is both soft, smooth, non scratchy or pokey.. I'd recommend one of those cheap camping/banquet tables made of plastic.. that has the fold down locking legs.. For me, I end up using a bed, which has a firm mattress with a bamboo sheet on top.
The specific product if your curious: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01N7LNK4F/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
So I haven't had any of the issues, that popped up in the pictures other people posted like, screen damage right out of the box. I have had some weird happenings though.
For once, when I had a game paused, a solid black vertical line, appeared on the screen. Like all the pixels just decided not to show up. Very weird. BUT going back playing the game, it disappears, no problem. And it just randomly shows up when it feels like it?
Another issue I had, was the TV decided to not detect the audio from my Xbox1x for some reason. It's a smart TV so it tries to link up/control everything, so that might be the issue? I restarted my console, and basically it fixed it.
Here's the thing, in all the time, my console, from my Xbox1, to my Xbox1X, to even back in the day with the 360 on my Panasonic 1080P HD plasma.. like it NEVER ONCE had an issue like that.
Make of that what you will.
If I had a wishlist for this unit..
Hardware wise, It would be to, even if it made one side of the TV thicker.. I'd I have all the ports, closer to one side, they'd be easy to access.. and I'd have the hard controls on the TV, like menu, volume, power.. on that side as well where it could be easily accessed by the user. I mean, this TV screen is huge, its fragile, you don't want squeeze it to hard, you don't want to move the unit to hook things up.. its a piece of high tech. It cost a lot. Fixing it, if that's even possible is going to be expensive. Samsung designers should know this. They should account for it.. & be practical.
I understand trying to make something sleek..but it should not get in the way of function & life of the unit, and quality of life functions.. any serious A&V end user, and then the regular consumer.. are ultimately going to care about functionality over everything with the price point. Only a select few are going to care what the unit looks like, and those people ultimately won't matter. They'll be on to the next TV fad, 6 months down the line or whatever so it won't make a hill of beans worth of difference.
On that note, I'd take a thicker screen, made of gorilla glass, if that's possible.. so I could clean the thing without fear of damaging it accidentally.
Software wise, I just wish the TV wasn't so smart that it was messing things up. Like until we get AI .. "Smart anything" is going to be a joke. Its going to be hit & miss. Luckily you can turn off a lot of these features on the TV.
TL:DR my ramblings. I've not gotten enough 4K sources to appreciate what this TV can display. I did recently watch MIB: International in UHD... as far as I know. One sharp looking movie!
As for games I've played, #Remnant From The Ashes, #Anthem, they both look great on the TV!
I also tried to "tighten" up the picture, I.e. calibrating the picture a bit. That's still a work in progress.
Anyways, I'm hesitantly optimistic about this purchase.
*June 2020 Update* So the TV continues to be solid as far as picture quality goes. But I got upset at the Audio quality and end buying a sound bar. It works great.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00SMBFZNG/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Also I don't connect my TV to the internet. I know some others have complained about "Bixbi voice" or whatever, so this is my solution.
