HD PICTURE QUALITY HD picture quality was Excellent. Reproduction of fine HD image detail was Excellent. Color accuracy was Excellent, so colors, especially flesh tones, look very natural and lifelike. Excellent contrast—the difference between the darkest blacks and brightest whites—gave images great depth and dimension. Black levels were Excellent, and delivered very deep blacks that enhanced contrast in dark scenes. Samsung's full-array local-dimming feature helped. Excellent deep black levels were among the best we've seen, and gave dark scenes great depth. This was among the brightest models we've tested (with the backlight control turned up), so the picture was well suited for a very sunny room—a lower setting is recommended for a dimmer viewing environment. However, the quality appeared worse as we viewed from the sides—see our Viewing Angle results, below. Its reproduction of smooth edges on image content for "up-converted" HD-to-UHD images was generally Excellent and free of "jaggies" (jagged edges). Deinterlacing of 1080i video, and detecting the film mode of 1080i film-based content were both Excellent.
4K UHD PICTURE QUALITY Overall 4K UHD picture quality was Excellent. In our UHD testing, we played native-4K movies and test videos (non HDR) thru the TV's HDMI input, and found their image detail was all there. For color, contrast and black level, the TV performed similarly to its HD picture quality.
HIGH DYNAMIC RANGE (HDR) PERFORMANCE HDR performance was very effective. In our tests, the display's very high peak brightness capability was Excellent, and greatly helped reproduce the realism of our HDR 4K content. It excellently revealed the contrast between moderately bright and very bright highlights, while the brightness levels in the mid-to-lower tones, like those in an indoor scene, were preserved. It did a good job reproducing a greater range of nuanced shadow detail, from black to white, with no obvious banding within the gradually shaded areas, but we noted some loss of detail within the highlights of the brightest areas. Brightly colored objects remained nicely saturated.
VIEWING ANGLE This Samsung model has a narrow viewing angle overall, below-average performance among TVs. Only those seated directly in front of the screen will see the best picture quality. We examined the image quality at various viewing angles—its image quality notably decreased as we moved away from the center position. In our tests, the picture did show some slight dimming from the sides, but not to a distracting degree. When we viewed the TV from the sides image quality degraded significantly. The picture showed a strong loss of color, so flesh tones looked very washed out. Black levels brightened significantly, and made dark scenes look hazy. Halo effects around objects in darker scenes (a side effect of the local dimming feature) also become more prominent at off angles. Lastly, we viewed the image from above and below center screen, and noticed Good vertical viewing angle performance, with only slight changes in color, contrast, and black level.
