Is Samsung TU8000 A Worthy Successor To Samsung RU8000?
Under the 2020 lineup of TVs, falls TU8000, one of Samsung's recently launched TVs. This TV is available in 43, 50, 55, 65 and 75 inches’ variants. Here, we will be reviewing its 55-inch variant, based on which, we will infer whether it is a worthy successor to the last year's model RU8000 or not.
Design Samsung TU8000
The bezel-less design of this TV is highly appealing, better than RU8000, which had ultra-thin bezel in grey. The almost bezel-less design of this TV imparts a feel of a bigger viewing area, which in turn augments the viewing experience.
The tabletop stand seamlessly blends with the black bezel of this TV and stands in perfect harmony with the overall design. Without the need for screws, these two pieces of tabletop stand snap into the holes provided at the base of the TV, which is truly a delight. Even when seen from the sides, this TV is ultra-slim making it aesthetically pleasing. The back has been imparted a clean look with minimal joints. For clean cable management clips have been provided to hide the wires behind the tabletop stands. Though fully constructed out of plastic, the overall built quality looks premium with no visible gaps between the joints, as commonly seen in budget TVs. The overall design of this TV can be termed as premium and stylish.
Beneath the Samsung logo, a physical button has been provided, in case you temporarily misplace your remote. However, accessing the various settings by short and long pressing this single button is really confusing that requires much practice.
Connectivity Options Samsung TU8000
This TV comes with 3 HDMI and 2 USB ports. Along with HDMI eARC, you also get HDMI CEC on this TV. The second HDMI port is eARC, which is the next generation of HDMI ARC. Here, eARC stands for Enhanced Audio Return Channel. The main benefit of eARC is a big improvement in bandwidth and speed. It allows you to send higher-quality audio from your TV to a sound-bar or AV receiver. TVs that have eARC, give a much better sound output when connected to a home theatre. The HDMI of this TV comes with HDCP version 2.2.
Apart from this, this TV has a digital optical port, an Ethernet port, an AV port and also composite input ports to connect your old devices with it, like DVD players etc. It has a dual-band Wi-Fi and comes with Bluetooth version 4.2. You can connect your headphone, keyboard, mouse and gaming controller, wirelessly with this TV. It also comes with DLNA connectivity.
Picture Enhancement Technology Samsung TU8000
In this TV, Samsung boasts of a crystal display and a Crystal processor 4k Engine. Apart from this, it has Samsung's old Pur Color Technology too. Samsung TU8000 gets the support of all three, HDR, HDR10+ and HLG. Its picture quality index is 2100 and in the company's jargon, it comes with mega contrast and a contrast enhancer. Samsung, Sony or LG never reveal the real value of the brightness and contrast in their TVs. Samsung uses this terminology 'Mega Contrast' to describe the contrast ratio in its TVs.
Samsung TU8000 Panel Type
As this TV comes with a VA panel, its contrast ratio is admirable. You will get to see deep blacks on this TV that have good uniformity over the entire screen. However, the same cannot be said about the gray uniformity of this TV's screen, as here and there, black patches can be seen on the edges and center of the screen.
Samsung TU8000 Brightness
The peak brightness of this TV falls near 300 Nits, which is certainly not even a decent value for an HDR-enabled TV. Wide Color Gamut, too, goes missing on it, because of which the HDR content played through Netflix and Amazon Prime seems lackluster that fails to deliver the picture quality intended for an HDR10 TV.
Samsung TU8000 Backlighting
This is an edge-lit TV, which fails to display local dimming. Though it has Frame dimming, it hardly seems to be effective and instead tends to darken the scene even more, during dark scenes, thus hiding the details in them.
The good contrast ratio of this TV makes it perfect for viewing in a dimly-lit room, where its performance is at its best. Its reflection handling capacity is decent enough, but in a fully-lighted room where the light falls directly on it, it struggles to display a good performance.
Samsung TU8000 Colour Reproduction
In a dimly lit room, when lights do not fall directly on the screen, the 4k videos look pretty attractive with good color reproduction and decent clarity.
Samsung TU8000 DTH Performance
The performance of this TV especially through the TataSky HD Set-Top box is pretty good. HD channels are displayed with clarity and one can really enjoy them. SD channels though not very clear can be comfortably viewed on this TV without irritation.
Samsung TU8000 Picture Upscaling Capability
The picture upscaling capability of this TV is good, 720p videos played through USB turned out in an up-scaled resolution. FHD videos too performed well.
As this TV comes with a VA panel, the viewing angles are not very good. If you watch this TV directly from the front, the picture quality will look the best, but as you shift to various angles, the colours tend to get washed off.
Unlike Samsung RU8000, which came with a refresh rate of 120 Hz, TU8000 has a refresh rate of 60 Hz. However, it comes with a black frame insertion feature that tends to speed up the frame rate. This feature can be accessed through the LED clear motion setting. Though, not very much visible, you cannot escape motion blur in this TV too. RU8000 had a much better motion handling capacity than this TV.
Samsung TU8000 Gaming Performance
For gamers, this TV can be a good option as it has low input lag and is graced with Game Motion Plus Settings feature, which can control motion blur to some extent while playing various games. This feature was missing in Samsung's last year model RU8000.
However, lack of brightness and missing wide colour gamut makes the HDR gaming performance of this TV, lacklustre.
This TV is pretty good to be used as a monitor. It has a feature, which allows you to access your office PC on this TV by logging in to your account. To facilitate office work, this TV comes with MS word and Excel. With the help of this TV, you can complete your unfinished official work even from your home.
Samsung TU8000 Sound Quality
Now coming to its sound! Samsung TU8000 comes with two 20 Watts channel speakers that support Dolby Digital Plus. However, DTS support goes missing on this TV. For normal usage, the audio of this TV is sufficient for even a large-sized room, measuring around 15'x20'. The dialogue clarity is pretty good and the bass is deep enough for a normal listener. Music can be enjoyed on this TV as the audio is clear with a fair tuning of bass and treble. However, if you desire window-rattling bass you need to go for a separate home theatre with this TV.
You also get the option for a virtual Music Player on this TV, which is certainly a treat for music lovers. Here, you also get a few live music applications like Gaana, through which you can play your favourite songs. While playing music, you get the option to change skins or to convert your TV into an aquarium. To save power, you can also turn off the TV screen, though the music will still get played in the background. You can also wireless connect your phone with this TV, through Bluetooth, and play songs stored on your phone.
Samsung TU8000 comes with Tizen 5.5 Operating system so you will not be able to install outside applications on it. Amongst others, it comes preloaded with applications like Netflix, Amazon Prime and YouTube. There is no Google Play Store on this TV, but, you can download applications from its Samsung store.
This TV even keeps on displaying a large number of entertaining contents on the home screen, like free movies and shows. A click on any of them takes you to the application or channel where they are, or, are being broadcast.
TU8000 TV comes with built-in Alexa, Google Assistant and Bixby. The remote is voice-enabled and it has dedicated buttons for Amazon Prime, Netflix and Samsung TV Plus. The AmbientOne Feature of this remote allows you the liberty to use it as a universal remote to control even those devices that are not CEC compatible.
Google Dot and Alexa, both work with this TV to make your home a smarter one.
This TV comes with one tap casting. By tapping this TV with your phone, you can cast its contents on this TV's big screen. The casting ability of this TV is superb. Videos get cast smoothly as if they were playing on the TV itself. Apart from this, it has Airplay 2 for providing connectivity to Apple devices.
Samsung TU8000 Remote
The remote is graced with an ambient mode button, using which you can convert this TV into a photo frame and display your precious memories on it, alongside displaying the time, date and weather information. The background of the pictures can be adjusted according to the colour of the walls in the room to make the pictures look more pleasing. Till now, only the QLED TVs of Samsung came with this feature. Though in this TV, it is somewhat a downgraded version of that found in Samsung, The Frame, it looks tempting.
The maximum power consumption of this TV is 140 Watts, however, through ECO mode the power consumption can be taken care off.
Overall the performance of this TV can be termed as decent. It is an entry-level mediocre TV from the house of Samsung, which has a picture quality more or less at par with Samsung's last year model RU7100, though, it can be comfortably termed as its upgraded version. However, in comparison to RU8000, it lags behind in many aspects.
More than its picture quality, its features look tempting. If you too think the same you can certainly opt for it.
Why you should buy Samsung TU8000?
Pros
1. Good Contrast Ratio
2. Deep blacks
3. Ambient Mode
4. eARC
5. Game Motion Plus Setting
6. Good bezel-less design
7. Built-in Alexa, Google Assistant & Bixby
The dampeners
Cons
1. Low brightness
2. No Wide Color Gamut
3. Lackluster HDR performance
4. Not so good viewing angles
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