HD PICTURE QUALITY HD picture quality was nearly consistently Excellent. Reproduction of fine HD image detail was Excellent. Color accuracy was Very Good, with flesh tones in particular, looking natural. 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—with Excellent deep black levels that 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. Its reproduction of smooth edges on image content was generally Excellent and free of "jaggies" (jagged edges), whether it was "up-converting" HD-to-UHD images, deinterlacing 1080i video, or detecting the film mode of 1080i film-based content.
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 generally 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 wide viewing angle overall, better than that of most TVs. It will provide fairly consistent picture quality, with fewer problems than most TVs, for typical viewing conditions—say, if your family is seated across a long sectional or in chairs off to the sides. Our examination at various viewing angles indicated reasonably good consistency. 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 the image had some loss of quality. The picture showed a slight loss of color. Black levels brightened slightly. 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 saw Very Good vertical viewing angle performance, with minimal changes in color, contrast, and black level.
