by smohundro

Samsung Un55B7000 Led – The Best Tv Of 2009, Neat Amazon Video Features! Weak Speakers

CNET called the Samsung UN55B7000 LED the TV with the second best picture quality of any TV they tested behind the discontinued Pioneer Kuro plasma. However, since the Samsung Samsung UN55B7000 LED is much more energy efficient, thinner, lighter, is 240 HZ, and includes two remotes, I’d say the Samsung UN55B8500 is probably a contender for the best TV ever made.

The black levels are amazing! It’s actually hard to tell where the black bars of a widescreen movie end and run into the bezel since the Samsung is so close to absolute black.

On the other hand, I found that the speakers on the TV were pretty mediocre. This TV’s picture quality is superb, but not the sound. You’ll want to buy extra speakers of some sort.

The 4 HDMI ports are nice to have, but there’s only one component/RCA input (which will be taken by your Wii if you own one). The TWO included remotes are great; One is small and simple, the other is an RF remote featuring a spinwheel among other controls.

The other strong surprise is just how well the TV works with Amazon! Once you register your TV with Amazon (a slick 5 minute process online), then any movie you rent via the Amazon website will be available to watch on the TV set, and I discovered that sometimes when purchasing Blu-Ray movies from Amazon, you can watch a free digital version of it on your TV while you wait for the mail to come! It works super well, you just browse Amazon as you normally would, and your purchased/rented movies automatically show up as available movies on your TV!

Granted the Yahoo! widgets (including the one for Amazon VOD) are pretty slow, but it’s tolerable .

Otherwise the TV is just great! Note that you’ll want to upgrade your firmware when you first get the TV to avoid the “crop circle” problem, but once you do, your movies and TV shows are going to be even more fun because of the outstanding punch of the picture. I love mine so far!

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