HD PICTURE QUALITY HD picture quality fell short, overall. Reproduction of fine HD image detail was Excellent. We did note some added edge enhancement processing which makes the image look a little less realistic. Color accuracy was Excellent, so colors, especially flesh tones, look very natural and lifelike. Contrast—the difference between the darkest blacks and brightest whites—was Good, so images had some depth, but it was not the best. Black levels were overly bright, unfortunately, worse than many TVs. The quality appeared worse as we viewed from the sides—see our Viewing Angle results, below. Image brightness was Good (with the Brightness backlight control turned up), making it a suitable choice for all but the sunniest rooms. There was a strong display non-uniformity in our test sample—it appeared as brighter cloudy areas that were very distracting in dark scenes—the severity can vary from model to model. Its reproduction of smooth edges on image content for "up-converted" HD-to-UHD images fell short with some visible "jaggies" (jagged edges); deinterlacing of 1080i video was Excellent; and film mode detection from 1080i content was Excellent.
4K UHD PICTURE QUALITY Overall 4K UHD picture quality was Very Good, overall. 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 had very limited effectiveness. In our tests, the display's lack of high peak brightness capability (by HDR standards) limited its ability to show the benefits of our HDR 4K content. It could not reveal much contrast between the moderately bright and very bright highlights, while the brightness levels in the mid-to-lower tones, like those in an indoor scene, were slightly low. 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. There was no visible loss of detail within the highlights of the brightest areas. Brightly colored objects were lacking in saturation.
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. 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 visibly brightened, and reduced the contrast especially on dark scenes. 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.
