Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Hands on with the massive Samsung UN-85S9 85-inch 4K TV


CNET - The UN-85S9 is massive, and massively expensive. At a special event in LA, we got to spend some time with it, watching 4K, Blu-ray, some test patterns ... even DVD

This thing is huge. There's just something about a TV this size that dominates a room. Even a big room. It plays tricks on the eyes, in a way, as your brain isn't accustomed to seeing a TV of such girth.

The UN-85S9 isn't just massive in size (85 inches, 189 pounds), but massive in price ($40,000) and resolution (Ultra HD "4K," of course).

I got to spend some time with it, and here's what I found out.

As you might have noticed, from the lack of "review" in the title, this isn't a full review. We only had limited time with the TV, and it wasn't at the CNET labs. Also, my name is not David or Ty. I did have access to a variety of equipment and test gear, though, so consider this a mostly-there-but-not-quite-full review.

Big

My "TV" at home is a projector on a 102-inch screen, and even I think this is a big TV. There's something about the presence of a device-of-unusual-size that is impressive. The easel design for the stand, which I thought looked odd at best, weird at worst, at CES, actually sort of works. It makes the TV look even bigger, and makes it look different from your average television. That makes sense for something this price.

Like Samsung's OLED and a few of its other new TVs, the UN-85S9 comes with the OneConnect box, an external input box where you connect all your sources, and then a single cable goes to the TV. Honestly, I like the idea. I think for most people it would make setup easier. More importantly, with HDMI 2.0 immanent, it's a lot easier to replace a OneConnect box than cracking open a TV and replacing the input board (or more).   More