Preliminary Review of Samsungs New PN60F8500 Plasma

[gadgtfreek]

Pros: Vastly improved black level and light output capability combine to deliver a dramatic increase in Contrast Ratio. The panel is processing RGB correctly going well below video black (16) and well above white (235), further improving contrast ratio. Video processing correctly handles 24p Blu-ray content at 96Hz, and also offers a Judder Corrector feature.


Cons: The 2pt and 10pt white balance and Custom Color Space CMS (Color Management System) calibration features seem to interact quite a bit making professional calibration time consuming. Vertical viewing angle is poor at close range, due to the ambient light rejecting filter on the panel, but is not a problem at normal viewing distances.

TweakTV

Looks like this new Samsung is hitting 2012 Panny blacks (only on a black screen though) and will be brighter than 2013 Panny's. Nice tv, my only concern is that will an ANSI pattern up, the black level is higher than with a full black screen (as found by ChadB as well who preferred the VT50 over this Samsung ever so slightly) which puts its ANSI CR below the VT50. This means the blacks do float some, unlike the Panny's which are more stable. To me, this still puts Samsung behind Panny in black level, but they are brighter, usually have a slightly sharper image, and great color (2012 Panny's had great color too). Should make for an interesting shootout this year, but my money is still on ZT60 even though Samsung really improved their game. Should be a great your for plasma flagships.