I thought I was going to buy a Samsung, November 22, 2010

I recently decided I was going to purchase a new TV. I went online and spent a lot of time researching everything. It seemed like the Samsung UNC8000 was a well liked set by most reviewers. It is a edge lit LEd set with the added feature of local backlight control.

So I go to BB to look at this set. I’m in a relatively bright area and I see flashlights in the bottom corners. No guessing where the light source is located. I think to myself, “self, how terrible will this look in lower light?” So I go into the Magnolia room and spot the Samsung UNC9000, the flagship. Really beaytiful looking set. Turn it on and it is flashlighting also. I ask the guy to turn on the other TV in the room. We are watching Beowolf and the scene goes black. The Samsung turns dark gray with corner flashlights and the other TV goes pitch black. I can’t tell the bezel apart from the screen. “Oh my God!”, I said, asking what TV I was looking at. Turns out it was the Sony HX909. I didn’t remember reading much about it. More about the PQ. Gorgeous is all I can say. The colors were dead on. The trumpet in Beowulf was gold like a trumpet should be. Turn around and it is dull yellow on the Samsung. The dark blacks of the Sony create so much contrast that all you can say is Wow! I really tried to get the Samsung to match the Sony. I lowered the backlighting, made sure it was in cinema mode and that it had its backlight control on. It still looked terrible compared to the Sony. I then tried to make the Sony look bad. I put it in torch mode and there was no flashlighting and it was still pretty impressive.

So I knew I needed to research a little more. Turns out what separates this set from the masses is its full array back lighting. Said another way, Most sets use LED lighting along the sides. This allows for cheaper manufacturing costs and thinner profiles with the downside of poor screen uniformity and annoying flashlights and waterfalls of bright light on a dark screen. The backlit sets puts the LEDs in the back behind the display. This adds the benefit of a more uniform appearance and much better black levels. The only downside I have heard of with these is the cost and halos around bright objects on dark backgrounds. Last year several manufacturers made full array sets. Samsung made the UNB8500, which cnet rated as one of the best sets they ever tested. Now all they make are edgelits. It seems that Sony, LG, and Vizio are the only makers left. Rumor has it that Sony is getting out of the game. Having seen the two technologies side by side, The full arrays are worth every penny. Better get one while you can as it looks like the manufacturers are taking a step backwards in PQ and focusing more on thinner, gadgets, and 3D. I guess that they are too expensive to make and thus hard to market and sell.

I have not seen the Vizio. The LG 9500 IMO is a really nice set but did not have as nice of blacks as the Sony. For the Sony…Televisioninfo.com rates this TV very highly except for its MSRP of ,500. Cnet also rated it very good, criticizing it for some blue tones on black and also for its price. My set is calibrated (You can get very good settings for free off of AVS forums) and I see no blue tones on black. If you look around you can find this set for ,300 online, which in my opinion makes the best LED out there at a good value.

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