Among the best designed and feature-filled plasmas in this year’s HDTV releases, the Samsung PN64D8000 is expected to delight many with its superb styling and amazing image quality. Although it is expected to cost a little more than comparable size 3DTVs, and with little flaws that may diminish its appeal to some people, Samsung’s 2011 flagship plasma certainly belongs to the top of the shopping list for true videophiles.
Design
With a slim and compact styling that is sure to catch immediate attention, the PN64D8000 stands proud alongside its sleek and stylish siblings in the Samsung lineup with its thin side-bezels and titanium-like
Samsung PN64D8000
body. This 3DTV is remarkably similar to last year’s Samsung flagship plasma, although the unique four-footed swivel stand in shiny chrome is somewhat out of place and may not sit well with some buyers.
A two sided clicker – containing standard remote buttons on a well-laid out pattern on one side and a full QWERTY keyboard on the flip-side –is shipped with the PN64D8000. The remote automatically senses which side is up and shuts down the controls for the other side, making it easy to use. The one-line screen on the keyboard side makes typing inputs easy particularly for inputting passwords and other text, though the absence of button backlighting makes it difficult to type in dimly lit rooms. The Bluetooth-powered remote works rather nicely with the revamped Samsung menu that features more readable text and more helpful illustrations and explanations all throughout.
Screen/Picture Quality
The PN51D8000 displayed really great pictures with blacks so deep these are definitely out-of-the-league of all current generation plasmas. Coupled with almost perfect color accuracy and exceptional screen uniformity, this 3DTV definitely rocks even if shadow details are somewhat not up to par particularly in very dark scenes. The more than ample picture controls and the superb filtering of reflections under bright lighting conditions are also very nice amenities that certainly add value to this high-quality HDTV.
Under the proprietary CinemaSmooth mode, the Samsung PN64D8000 resolved 1080p/24 effortlessly without the usual stutters and film cadence errors, but black levels suffer slightly when this mode is turned on, resulting in less vivid screen images. But the real strength of this plasma is in handling 3D sources and up-converting 2D materials, as it consistently rendered clear and bright images with perceivable depth, without the usual crosstalk often encountered in other 3DTVs.
Features
Samsung remains generous as it ships two pairs of active shutter, Bluetooth-powered eyeglasses with the PN64D8000, to ensure always immersive and spectacular 3D viewing experiences. Other goodies built into the unit include WiFi and a rudimentary web browser that allows Internet access for social networking and light online surfing. Rich online content is assured via the Smart Hub portal that offers not only the all-time favorites like Hulu, Vudu and Youtube, but also exclusive offerings such as Fandango and Gymbox.
The PN64D8000 is outfitted with four HDMI slots, one port each for composite and component video inputs, a VGA-style PC connector, three USB ports and a Ethernet port.
Being top-of-the-line surely befits the rather expensive price for the Samsung PN64D8000. After all, being able to watch movies in cinema-like 3D quality, along with all the awesome goodies that comes with it are definitely worth good cash. More discerning consumers would surely expect nothing less.
| Do you own this TV? Submit your rating… | |
 | GD Star Rating loading... |
