Samsung UE55ES8000U Pro Reviews

When it comes to looks, the 55ES8000 is a clear winner, delivering the kind of design panache we have come to expect from Samsung. The bezel-less frame and ultra-thin chassis give the impression of a black mirror that looks as striking when its off as it does when its on. The quad stand of last year has been replaced by the new 'arch flow' design that is reminiscent of the tracks on a toboggan and whilst it looks attractive and provides a narrow footprint, it does mean you can't swivel the panel. At the top of the frame there is a small bump that contains a built-in camera and microphone, allowing you to make Skype video calls and to utilise the voice and motion controls. The 55ES8000 comes with two remote controls, one is the standard Samsung remote and the other is a touch pad remote that makes navigating the Smart TV features easier. Overall the remotes work very well but the removal of the aspect ratio button from the standard remote is a real nuisance. The 55ES8000 includes an IR 'blaster' which when paired with the TV allows you to use the touch pad remote to control your set top box and blu-ray player as well. The 55ES8000 also includes two pairs of Samsung’s latest RF active shutter glasses and although they look strange at first we found they grew on us thanks to their incredible lightness and the lack of tint to the lenses. At the rear there is a reasonable set of connections, although there are only three HDMI inputs, compared to four last year.

The Samsung UE55ES8000 is a high quality edge LED LCD HDTV. It produces good black level depth in dark rooms, and blacks that look exceptionally inky and deep in brighter environments. Crucially, the review sample we received had significantly less screen uniformity issues than last year’s models. Some mild clouding was visible in darker areas, but there were no effects where the top of the panel appeared brighter or darker than the bottom, for example: no uniformity errors were really visible in practice, other than a very slight lightening near the edges of the bezel. Like most LCD-based displays, it is in bright environments where the UE55ES8000 excels. It can produce huge amounts of light to produce a clearly visible picture in brighter, sun-filled environments, and its Ultra Clear Panel does a fantastic job of giving the panel a glossy appearance while keeping reflections down. Performance in darker rooms is better left to Plasma TVs, but the Samsung ES8000 puts up a very good fight here too, with blacks remaining suitably deep and involving provided the user sits face-on with the HDTV.

The Samsung UE55ES8000 is much bigger and far flatter – and, as long as you speak distinctly and don’t mumble, you can control it by speaking to it. And that’s not even the Samsung’s party-piece. Well, not its only party-piece, anyway. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. First things first: this is a handsome TV. There aren’t many things people will pay more for to receive less of, but the bezel around a flatscreen TV is one of them.

The UE55ES8000 marries ‘impossibly’ lovely looks with more ground-breaking features than we’ve arguably ever seen on a single TV before. And then it chucks in some superlative 2D and 3D picture quality for good measure. In doing all this it delivers a much bigger leap forward from last year’s Samsung models than we’d expected, as well as setting the bar intimidatingly high for the rest of the 2012 TV jetset.