What is the Samsung UE55KS9000?
The
55-inch UHD UE55KS9000 TV is the first model from Samsung’s brand-new
2016 range. It boasts a revamped version of Samsung’s Tizen-based smart
TV system and, for the first time ever in a TV (rather than professional
monitor), it manages to deliver 1,000 nits of brightness from edge LED
technology.
This is a big deal, since it makes the UE55KS9000 the
first edge-lit TV to meet the specifications required to earn the
HDR-based Ultra HD Premium badge of honour.
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Samsung UE55KS9000 – Design and Features
After
flirting with chunky, boldly angled screen frames on its 2015 high-end
TVs, Samsung has decided to return to slim surrounds for its 2016
models. On seeing the super-sleek UE55KS9000, this is a decision of
which I wholeheartedly approve. The TV look much less intrusive in your
room when it’s turned off, while leaving you more able to get lost in
the picture quality when it’s turned on.
The UE55KS9000 also
continues Samsung’s push for "360-degree" designs. This comes courtesy
of an attractively finished, rivet-free rear that's given added panache
via a strip of glinting metal running across its middle. Also adding to
this is the chrome desktop stand, whose neck angles sharply out of its
centre.
To be honest, I continue to wonder just how many people
really care about the look of the rear. Although I guess the
UE55KS9000’s use of a curved screen does mean it’s marginally more
likely that some of the TV’s rear will be on view in certain seating
positions.
In keeping with the past few generations of Samsung’s
high-end TVs, most of the UE55KS9000’s connections – most notably four
UHD-friendly HDMIs, two USBs and both satellite and terrestrial tuner
feeds – are housed on an external connections box. A further USB and the
Ethernet port are found on the main TV chassis.
You may think
from this external connections box that the UE55KS9000 still supports
Samsung’s Evolution Kit technology, whereby you can keep upgrading your
Samsung TVs with future connectivity options, smart TV systems, and
video processing just by buying a future external connections/processing
box. In reality, though, Samsung has actually ditched Evolution Kit
support for its entire 2016 range.
This is a shame. While few
people actually bothered investing in upgrade kits for their TVs – which
is, according to Samsung, why it’s no longer supporting the feature –
it was always reassuring to know that, in a fast-changing TV world, a
high-end Samsung set could at least keep up for a year or two longer
than rival brand’s units.
There’s
no 3D support at all on this TV, or any other 2016 Samsung model. This
will clearly be a hammer blow to the small but passionate 3D fan base
out there, but Samsung claims there just isn’t enough interest in 3D any
more to justify offering it when there are new features such as HDR on
which to concentrate.
Which is exactly where Samsung is focusing
its efforts for 2016. The brand has completely redesigned the KS9000’s
panels from those used in their JS9000 predecessors to meet the tough
demands of HDR – and the expanded colour gamuts that routinely go with
the technology.
In particular, Samsung has returned to Quantum Dot
colour technology to deliver a wider colour spectrum. The UE55KS9000
claims 96% of the DCI-P3 digital cinema colour range that’s now
seemingly established as the most sensible target for the new generation
of HDR video content. Plus, it's shifted from a horizontal mounting
arrangement for its edge LEDs to a vertical one.
This backlight
adjustment is potentially controversial, since historically, vertical
edge LED lighting – as used by LG LCD TVs, predominantly – has tended to
cause more distracting lighting problems in pictures than horizontally
organised systems.
However, the vertical approach is currently the
only way to get the light output of an edge LED TV to 1,000 nits – and
so far as Samsung is concerned, hitting 1,000 nits is essential if you
really want to express what HDR is capable of.
In fact, 1,000 nits
is apparently the brightness level to which current Ultra HD Blu-rays
are being mastered. As a result, it's only if your screen can deliver
the same brightness will you experience full HDR that hasn’t had its
luminance information "downmastered" to suit a lower brightness screen.
Or so the argument goes.
Samsung
has an extra interest in pushing this argument, of course, since it
raises doubts over the ability of rival LG’s OLED technology to give
full expression of HDR content.
That said, it’s important to
remember that while hitting 1,000 nits enables the UE55KS9000 to earn
the industry’s new Ultra HD Premium badge of honour, that badge can also
be earned by TVs that deliver much less brightness so long as they’re
able to produce exceptionally deep black levels. Like LG’s upcoming new
OLED TVs…
There are two final, potentially cool, new picture
features on the UE55KS9000. The first is its use of a moth eye-style
filter on the screen, which is designed to reduce on-screen reflections
and tackling one of the biggest issues I have with curved screen TVs.
The second is a "SUHD Remastering" system that Samsung claims will
convert SDR content of the sort most of us will still be watching for
the majority of our viewing time into something that looks like HDR.
Unfortunately,
though, SUHD Remastering isn’t yet finalised, so I was unable to test
it. It will apparently be added via a firmware update later in the year.
Samsung
has made some fairly major changes to its Tizen-based smart TV system
for 2016. In particular, it’s added a second tier of icons that’s used
to show content "exploded out of" whichever icon you have selected on
the bottom, original tier. Similar to the system employed in the main
business area of the latest Apple TV
interface, it works well – at least with those apps that support the
‘exploded content’ feature – and makes navigation feel far more
intuitive and connected.
The system is also exceptionally easy to
customise, so that your favourite apps can always have pride of place on
the homescreen.
It’s worth adding that the system carries a
strong range of apps, including the 4K versions of Netflix and Amazon,
and now runs much more quickly and stably than it did last year.
Related: Samsung UE32J6300 review
There’s still something slightly business-like about the interface’s presentation compared with the friendlier look of LG webOS and Panasonic Firefox TV
systems. For the most part, however, Samsung’s latest smart system is a
great improvement on what’s gone before and shows a good understanding
of the sort of simplicity most TV users want from a smart TV interface.
Samsung UE55KS9000 – Setup
The
UE55KS9000 does a decent job of holding your hand through the initial
setup, and Samsung has simplified its onscreen menus in two useful ways.
First, it’s removed some of the largely pointless sub-menus from the
picture set-up menu. And second, the TV’s Game preset – designed to
minimise the time it takes for the TV to render images, to support video
gaming – has finally been moved into the picture set-up menus, rather
than being buried in the System folder.
To get the best from the
UE55KS9000’s pictures, with standard dynamic range content in
particular, I’d recommend reducing the backlight setting to around its 9
level – at least for serious movie viewing in a dark room – to get the
deepest and most evenly lit black levels.
When the UE55KS9000
recognises an HDR input, it will automatically adjust its picture
settings – most notably pushing the backlight right up to its maximum 20
level to deliver the 1,000 nits required.
Each picture preset
offers a slightly different flavour of HDR, however, and unlike the
company's 2015 HDR TVs Samsung lets you adjust every aspect of the HDR
presets. If you want to get that 1,000 nits figure for accurate mapping
of HDR’s full luminance range, though, you’ll need to leave the
backlight setting untouched. Even though this can, as we’ll see, lead to
some backlight issues.
A couple of other, more general points
worth making are that you should ensure all noise-reduction systems are
turned off for HD and 4K sources, and that you don’t use the set’s
motion processing on its highest setting, since this leaves images
looking excessively processed.
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