SAMSUNG 55-Inch Class Crystal 4K UHD AU8000 Series HDR, 3 HDMI Ports, Motion Xcelerator, Tap View, PC on TV, Q Symphony, Smart TV with Alexa Built-In (UN55AU8000FXZA, 2021 Model)

I bought a Samsung TV in 2009 and it still works today. Unfortunately this TV lasted only 13 months before developing several issues. Initially I was blown away by the picture. It was unbelievably colorful and crisp and just a huge improvement from 1080p. I'm old school so all the things I could do with it were amazing as well. I have one of the first apple tv's and paid a few bucks for it but this tv has it built right into it which amazes me. I don't have home internet so I really didn't even use most of the bells and whistles on this TV but using my Hotspot I was able to check some of them out. When I turned the TV on the startup image alone was absolutely amazing and everything else followed suit but now here I sit watching you tube videos trying to decide if I even wanna bother fixing it. My old Samsung had an issue with the main board that cost me around $60 to fix and it was well worth it considering I paid somewhere around $2000 for the TV. This one was considerably cheaper and I'm just not sure I want to be bothered. I guess I most likely will end up trying to fix it though because I can't afford another TV. So here's what happened. I noticed black horizontal lines near the bottom of the screen. Than a few weeks later when I tried to turn the TV on I had trouble getting it to power on. When I did there were black inky looking spots on the screen. From there it got harder and harder to get it powered on and sometimes that black inky look would go across the entire screen. The picture quality has suffered overall when it does work. At this point those are all intermittent issues besides the horizontal lines which are constant. So yes the TV is usable for the most part but since I doubt it'll fix itself I guess I'm left forking out the money and time it'll take to fix this thing and it's disappointing at best. So it's a tough call for me as to whether I would recommend this TV or not. The picture was great, it has some nice features, it's extremely lightweight and compact compared to earlier models which explains why people aren't afraid to mount them on their wall or ceiling, and the price would be great too if it worked like it should. Maybe I just got a bum TV and if that's the case I'm not surprised but that's why I guess I gotta say you get what you pay for. If you want something you can depend on your luck and your money will probably have to invest in something with a bigger price tag. Eventually I will be digging into the problem with mine and I'll update this review with what I come up with at that point.

Likes; very sharp, seems to have a broad color range. On some of the newest material the picture almost appears to be 3D it is so detailed. Everyone that has seen the quality of the picture has been impressed. Other reviewers have mentioned two complaints which aren’t an issue for me. Poor remote. I have only used mine once to set up the TV. Since I have no need to change the settings it sits in a drawer. I use satellite TV so use that remote. I don’t get internet so I rarely stream except through my phone’s portable hot spot and I have had no issues with that. The other issue that is often mentioned is sound quality. Ultra thin TV’s can not physically reproduce quality sound. To reproduce high quality sound you have to push a certain volume of air at different frequencies. The tiny speakers in these TV’s aren’t up to the task and never will be because they are physically incapable of doing so. I am impressed that they do as well as they do. Besides, why would you buy such a large TV and not use a surround sound system, or at the very least a high quality sound bar? I realize some people may not want to have a sound system that probably costs more than the TV , just don’t expect these tiny speakers to give you a movie theater experience. Delivery was terrible. I was supposed to get delivery to inside my house, have the TV unboxed and set up to see if it worked. The delivery person just got it off the truck , had me sign the delivery receipt and started to leave. When I informed him that he was supposed to deliver it to inside the house he seemed stunned. I had to show him what Amazon said was included with delivery so he at least helped me carry it inside. He didn’t even wait around to make sure it was not damaged. I purchased a different 86 inch LG TV from Best Buy a few months earlier and they delivered it the way it should have been. Not suggesting you buy from Best Buy, but considering how many people have complained about delivery from Amazon ….. Overall I am very happy with this TV. Time will tell if it lasts.

The good: Slim, lightweight, Brilliant OS, One intuitive remote, great color, stunning picture in quality 4k The not-so-good: Black not as deep as possible, lack of true quality 4k content Samsung makes a really great product with this TV. It’s very slim and lightweight – I hung our 55” without any help from anyone, if that gives you an idea. The OS and interface are great – you can get anywhere you want to go in a few clicks. As a matter of fact, the OS and apps are so good that we have stopped using our Fire TV stick (we own 4 – now only 3 are in use) because we found it more convenient than switching back and forth between inputs and using two remotes. This is saying something, because we’ve been Fire TV fans from day 1 and own a stick for every TV in the house. The remote itself is just as brilliant as the OS and is also a match for the FireTV remote – we use the Samsung as our sole remote now. Despite the low price, this thing has incredible color and picture quality. You’d expect that for an affordable TV you would get a noticably lower quality picture, but you just don’t. With quality 4k content (for example, Sir David Attenborough’s Netflix content), you can tell the difference 4k makes without having something to compare it to. Only a couple of complaints here. The blacks on this TV aren’t as deep as the more expensive sets out there. However, we weren’t interested in paying 5 times as much for an OLED just for deeper blacks. There is also a distinct lack of content out there that’s true 4k with the brilliant picture quality and insane color like you’ve been conditioned to expect. Plenty of content is technically 4k nowadays, and quality is decent, but the picture quality simply doesn’t pop like you’d think it should. Neither of these two complaints are the fault of Samsung’s product here – just facts of life to be aware of while shopping. Bottom line, we will go for a Samsung TV next time we need one, no question. Samsung does make a great product, and this is a prime example of that fact.

(Because some people don't read all the way though long reviews, I'm editing my original review of the 43" Samsung AU8000 that I ordered from Amazon. Please read the manual!) For a quick bottom line, the picture can be superb. The Handmaiden, a superb S. Korean thriller that's in 4K Ultra HD - had superb color and clarity after the settings were adjusted. (more later) Initially, while I got good to excellent images on broadcast streaming news channels (ABC, CBS and NBC), some Amazon Prime movies lacked sufficient brightness in dark scenes, regardless of Brightness and Contrast settings. (Goliath was particularly dark.) The Samsung rep I contacted suggested using the Dynamic setting. However, this isn't an accurate setting in test reports, and while brighter than the other modes, actually produces less detail than Filmmaker or Movie mode. And on my Samsung sample, there was some backlighting bleed, particularly in corners, with brightness turned to the max. setting. Under Picture/Expert Settings, I had the best results not by turning up Brightness and Clarity to the maximum settings (I keep both between 25 and 35, and sometimes bump Color up from 25 to 30-35; Sharpness remains at 0), but by making adjustments to: Gamma, and Shadow Detail. (Gamma adjusts the mid-range brightness of the picture, and Shadow Detail adjusts the brightness of dark images.) I experimented with each one separately, and in combination with the other. Voila! Moving each from 0 to 1 or 2, depending on the movie or program (Gamma has 3 settings when watching UHD/HDR; Shadow Detail has five) allowed me to see the images in dark scenes of Goliath and Bosch much more clearly. Again, this was with the Brightness control set in a more moderate range of 25-35, rather than at the maximum of 50. That meant there was less back lighting bleeding through on dark fields, and it increases the life of the TV. On "regular" programming, this isn't necessary; the TV was bright enough with all the settings at the mid-point, and with the picture set on Movie mode, which seems to give the most accurate image, while preserving detail. (Filmmaker mode was a bit darker.) I gave the TV a rating of 4, but on some programming, I'd give it a 4 1/2...possibly even a 5. (The Handmaiden detail and color were fantastic!) For the price, the AU8000, when adjusted properly, is a good deal..an excellent deal, in fact. Everything has worked as expected, though I've admittedly had it set up for just a month. As I add apps for streaming services, and maybe an antenna for local programming, I think I'll enjoy it even more. Highly recommended, but read the manual, and experiment with the settings.

I finally decided to replace my HP 42 inch plasma television that’s like 20 years old. It’s always worked good enough, so I’ve never decided to replace it. I am so glad I did. Technically, this is my first smart TV. I know, what rock did I crawl out from under lol. Anyways, I will say I did have some remorse after purchasing the TV, because I read so many bad reviews here on Amazon. Let me start by saying, as long as it arrives in tact, I don’t see how anyone could not like this television. Perhaps you could purchase one with a clearer and better picture. Perhaps you could find one that is larger or fits your space better. But I can tell you this, for the price, there is absolutely nothing wrong with this television. The picture quality is nice. The colors are vibrant. The screen is very large and the television is still relatively light. I am able to move, install, and wall hang the television by myself. Update- The television is great, but after the using the remote control for a longer period of time, I hate it. I hate the remote control. If I even look at it wrong it switches to Netflix prime or Samsung TV is very frustrating when watching a movie or something that is time sensitive and you get ripped away from it. They need to fix the button layout or do something about the sensitivity of it. I’m gonna throw the remote control away and get an aftermarket one because I love the television.

Avoid. Replaced our 9 year old broken 60 inch Samsung with this 65 inch and despite doing what we were told to do under settings turning full screen to "on" instead of "auto" most of the shows we want to stream end up cropped, which didn't happen on our old Samsung. So now most shows are 50 inch and squished despite buying a tv that is 5 inches bigger than our old one. Great. It would be swell if this came with a manual having to rely on the really annoying voice to walk you through set up or the online manual is cumbersome - you end up on YouTube instead. We quickly googled how to turn that really terrible voice off. Despite having a fast internet connection, it's very slow to load anything and glitches often. No warning your remote is low on battery so you spend a lot of time trying to figure out why the tv will turn on but won't work. And the remote isn't that intuitive to use either. Using a firestick isn't that easy since you can't plug it into the Xbox like we did with our old Samsung so spent a lot of time trying to figure out why it wouldn't recognize it so just plugged it into the tv instead but it is hard to get to. Picture quality is fine when it works. Going through returning this will not be fun. Our old Samsung was great and hard to believe after 9 years they did the opposite of improving it and could make something so awful. Update: now the sound won't play at all and after doing all the troubleshooting and even giving Samsung remote help access to the TV they still couldn't get the sound to play. No it wasn't on mute. Short of having to reset everything, which means any apps that have been downloaded would have to be downloaded again or any apps we've logged into we'd be logged out of and have to relog into again along with resetting settings to preferred settings all over again. And that's a unlikely to fix the issue I don't know why it would. And even if it did, how many times do you want to have to do something like that just to hear your tv? Update two: had a night's rest and the sound worked in the morning. Called Samsung support and they were stumped as to why. I noticed when attempting to find the button on the tv that allows you to control channel volume etc. that the tv was hot - likely from a few hours of gaming or just being on. It was allowed to cool over night and then worked. This is just a hypothesis but all other troubleshooting didn't work. Not something I feel like dealing with. AVOID. Update three: audio cut out again and couldn't turn up the volume using the remote or the tv. Called and turns out the a "cold reboot" is necessary if you switch ports (xbox, firestick, live samsung tv/smart hub.) After awhile if you switch sources a lot throughout the day the audio will "time out." It's a flaw since how many people using game devices and things like roku or firestick etc? They need to fix this with a software fix or something what a pain. You have to press the power button for 10 seconds to do a cold reboot when turning the tv on. Update: decided to go for a replacement instead of a return. And while so far so good this one isn't having sound issues and they did get rid of the annoying autovoice, it is so slow to load channels for the samsung tv plus app. It often just doesn't work and don't even think about changing channels easily. And it did have a brief color issue where everything had a pink hue during a marvel movie in disney plus. If we have any issues we'll have to go through the inconvenience again of taking it off the wall and getting something else. They were willing to send someone out to fix because it is still under warranty but they did want to charge us to get it down off of the wall.

I’ve had my tvs for years and they’re still really nice. Love the size. Definitely worth buying if you’re looking for an 85.

I've love the Crystal UHD TV from Samsung, and this is my second one I've owned. The first one crapped out after only two years, but I'm not going to get all negative about that because the fact is that I would quite often leave the house, and leave the TV on for hours and hours. At the end, it would just turn itself off and on, off and on so it was impossible to use, so I just replaced it with another. I was told by a TV service person that with TV's like this, basically I was "cheaping out", and it was to be expected that it would crap out after a short period. I don't call almost $500 "cheaping out", but apparently if I'm not spending $1000's on a TV, it's to be expected to get crap quality. Anway, that all aside I am quite pleased with this TV. The picture quality is outstanding, and everything just pops! Navigating the various menus, and using the apps is pretty much straightforward and idiot-proof. The remote is mimimalistic, and seems to be a perfect size, not too big or too small. I do hope with all my heart that this TV will last me longer than the first one of its type I had, and I've taken steps to ensure that if I know I'm going to be out of the house for awhile, that I shut the TV off when I leave. Samsung is a great company, and I've enjoyed other products of theirs, such as soundbars. You can buy this with confidence, I belive. I hope this review is helpful to others considering this purchase.