**Samsung's KS9500 4K Blu-ray TV: A Preview of What to Expect**
As I started playing around with Samsung's new KS9500 4K Blu-ray TV, I couldn't help but feel a mix of excitement and caution. As a prototype, this wasn't an official review of the production model, but it gave me a glimpse into what Samsung has in store for us when the TV starts shipping in a few weeks. The user interface was one of the first things I noticed, and while I appreciated the refresh in design, I did find myself missing some features that were present on previous models.
The new menu system is definitely easier to navigate, with access to commonly used settings and features more readily available than before. However, as soon as I dove deeper into the calibration settings, I was slightly annoyed by the lack of a reverse scroll function - it forced me to keep scrolling until I reached the end of the menu. On the other hand, I loved the two remotes that came with the TV: the Smart Style remote and the standard clicker. The former is likely Samsung's best smart remote yet, allowing for seamless switching between sources and minimizing loading delays.
The real standout in terms of user experience was the Tizen Smart TV interface. Switching instantly between sources was a breeze, and I appreciated how Netflix picks up right where I left off with no loading delays. Additionally, I loved the fact that if I needed to quickly switch from binge-watching my favorite show to checking some game scores, I could come back seamlessly without any interruption. The streaming apps themselves were also impressive, offering access to 4K content from Netflix and Amazon Prime with HDR support.
However, there was one notable exception - Samsung's deal with Direct TV for 4K satellite content. Unfortunately, all other apps would max out at 1080p, which was a bit of a letdown. On the other hand, I was thrilled to see how the movie mode performed right out of the box. The color after calibration was spot on, and more importantly, I appreciated how the picture improved significantly with expanded color content like Ultra HD Blu-rays.
The TV's 1,000 nit peak brightness helped make for an extremely brilliant picture, especially when watching HDR content. The spectral highlights truly made a difference, delivering a dazzling picture that left me impressed. I was also pleased to see how the TV handled brightness uniformity across the screen, making it ideal for sun-soaked living rooms. Upscaled Blu-ray discs looked excellent on this set, and the TV did an impressive job of cleaning up compressed cable and satellite feeds.
But there's one major caveat - the backlighting system. While I appreciated the TV's slim design, having the backlight at the bottom edge resulted in some significant drawbacks. The screen showed itself more frequently, with issues like bouncing logos and vertical bands of light becoming distracting. The local dimming algorithm also seemed a bit wonky, often fully brightening before darkening back up. Perhaps most annoyingly, the Cinema black feature was gone - that pesky gray glow that used to darken the letter box bars was now a constant annoyance.
Finally, I was disappointed by the poor off-axis viewing experience. Standing up to watch the TV washes out the blacks, and color takes a bit of a hit as you move left or right into the narrow sweet spot. It's a shame, really - style can sometimes trump substance, but in this case, it seems like Samsung prioritized looks over functionality.
In conclusion, while the KS9500 4K Blu-ray TV has its strengths, it also leaves some things to be desired. If you're looking for just a gorgeous stunning TV with excellent picture quality, you may want to wait for the upcoming KS9800 model later this year that promises even better features and improved performance.
"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthe Samsung js9500 was one of the best televisions we ever tested so would stand to reason that the TV behind me the ks9500 would have the same kind of performance here's the thing though the ks9500 is not the top of the line this year it actually sits just below the top of the line as the second tier and that's important because this TV doesn't have a full array backlight and that's the kind of spec that can make a huge impact on the TV performance make no mistake it is very much a premium TV though Ultra HD premium certified as a matter of fact so you get Ultra HD resolution hdr10 compatibility with 1,000 nits of peak brightness and it can produce about 96% of the colors in the DCI P3 color spec which basically means it gets very close to the color you see in a digital cinema you'll pay about 3500 for the 65in model you see here and about 2500 for the 55 in so premium pricing but a little less last year's model let's take a close look at the design because it's clear Samsung placed a lot of importance on how this TV looks even when it's turned off the most obvious design element is the bezel which is ultra thin and kind of integrated into the glass panel so it feels seamless that's going to turn a lot of heads in the store right there and then there's the back of the TV which as far as backs of TVs go is pretty attractive I think most of the connections go in this one connect box so there's a minimum of that on the back of the TV and you don't see any exposed Bol bolts or rivets you've just got the Visa mounting holes and then you've got this shearing pattern on the back so from a designer perspective that's really cool but on the other hand when was the last time you called up your buddy and said hey dude come over and check out the back of my TV never that's when it's a sexy TV no doubt about it and I was excited to get in this prototype if for no other reason than to connect the Samsung Ultra HD Blu-ray player to see what 4K Blu-ray was going to look like but as a prototype this isn't an official review we only Review production model TVs so consider this a sort of preview on what to expect when this TV starts shipping in a few weeks let's get going with the user interface first off Samsung's menu system got a bit of an overhaul and for me this is refreshing because I feel like it's a lot easier to get at the commonly accessed stuff than before but then I get into the deeper calibration settings and I'm slightly annoyed because I can't do a reverse scroll to get to the end of the menu faster you got to keep on scrolling until the end the next element in the user interface is the remote the TV comes with two remotes a Smart Style remote and a standard clicker if you like the old school W style like I do it's good to know one is still available still this may be Samsung's best smart remote yet finally the bright shining star in terms of user experience is the tysen Smart TV interface you can switch instantly between sources and that comes in really handy if you need to bounce between say cable and Netflix Netflix picks up right where you left off with no loading delays at all and I love that if I'm just popping out of my binge session to check some game scores and want to come right back as for the streaming apps themselves you get access to 4K content from Netflix Amazon Prime with HDR and MGO Samsung has a deal cooked up with Direct TV for some 4K satellite stuff but all other apps will max out at 1080p as for picture quality there's some really impressive elements color after calibration is right on but more importantly I think is that the movie mode is decent right out of the box you don't have to do a ton of playing around to get a really gorgeous picture and when you go to Ultra HD Blu-rays with expanded color you can see how this TV is going to pay off down the road when content like this is more readily available this TV's 1,000 nit Peak brightness helps make for an extremely brilliant picture especially when watching HDR content the spectral highlights do make a difference and you get a picture that's just that much more dazzling I'm interested to see how movie producers are going to take advantage of this feature as they continue with their film making in a new era I also feel like the brightness uniformity across the screen is pretty good as well this is certainly a TV that can do battle in a sun- soaked living room Samsung puts top-notch processing in their TVs and I feel like upscaled Blu-ray discs look excellent on this set the TV also does a good job of cleaning up compressed cable and satellite feeds as well but beyond excellent upscaling I feel like the tv offers some great motion resolution and relatively blur-free picture even with the motion smoothing turned off so far so great right but now we get to a pretty major caveat the TV's backlighting system leaves a lot to be desired to be fair the TV is as sexy as it is because they mooved the back lighting to the bottom Edge and this resulted in just that much thinner a TV but the trade-off is too much if you're at all serious about watching movies especially in the dark the problem with having Edge lighting at the bottom of the TV instead of at the sides is that the backlight shows itself a lot and in multiple ways take this screen saver logo for instance it's bouncing around the screen and now not only do you see the edge lighting plain as day on the bottom you get these vertical bands of light and then there's this local dimming algorithm which I'm not sure why it goes fully bright before darkening back up you can see that happening right here worst of all though since the light is at the bottom there's no Cinema black feature to darken the letter box bars that was one of my favorite Samsung specific features and now it's gone this means that the lower letter box bars on a movie will always look a little gray calling attention to the backlight more than I find acceptable also off access viewing is not very good just standing up off AIS washes the blacks out and color takes a bit of a hit As you move off to the left and right the narrow sweet spot is the other big complaint I have about this TV kind of pains me to say it but sometimes style really does Trump substance I mean that works for TVs too and I think anybody looking for just a gorgeous stunning TV is going to be infatuated with the ks9500 with that said it's not a video files TV so if you like to to watch a lot of movies in the dark and you love excellent black levels I think you should dig deep into your pockets and be a little patient for the ks9800 that's coming out later this yearthe Samsung js9500 was one of the best televisions we ever tested so would stand to reason that the TV behind me the ks9500 would have the same kind of performance here's the thing though the ks9500 is not the top of the line this year it actually sits just below the top of the line as the second tier and that's important because this TV doesn't have a full array backlight and that's the kind of spec that can make a huge impact on the TV performance make no mistake it is very much a premium TV though Ultra HD premium certified as a matter of fact so you get Ultra HD resolution hdr10 compatibility with 1,000 nits of peak brightness and it can produce about 96% of the colors in the DCI P3 color spec which basically means it gets very close to the color you see in a digital cinema you'll pay about 3500 for the 65in model you see here and about 2500 for the 55 in so premium pricing but a little less last year's model let's take a close look at the design because it's clear Samsung placed a lot of importance on how this TV looks even when it's turned off the most obvious design element is the bezel which is ultra thin and kind of integrated into the glass panel so it feels seamless that's going to turn a lot of heads in the store right there and then there's the back of the TV which as far as backs of TVs go is pretty attractive I think most of the connections go in this one connect box so there's a minimum of that on the back of the TV and you don't see any exposed Bol bolts or rivets you've just got the Visa mounting holes and then you've got this shearing pattern on the back so from a designer perspective that's really cool but on the other hand when was the last time you called up your buddy and said hey dude come over and check out the back of my TV never that's when it's a sexy TV no doubt about it and I was excited to get in this prototype if for no other reason than to connect the Samsung Ultra HD Blu-ray player to see what 4K Blu-ray was going to look like but as a prototype this isn't an official review we only Review production model TVs so consider this a sort of preview on what to expect when this TV starts shipping in a few weeks let's get going with the user interface first off Samsung's menu system got a bit of an overhaul and for me this is refreshing because I feel like it's a lot easier to get at the commonly accessed stuff than before but then I get into the deeper calibration settings and I'm slightly annoyed because I can't do a reverse scroll to get to the end of the menu faster you got to keep on scrolling until the end the next element in the user interface is the remote the TV comes with two remotes a Smart Style remote and a standard clicker if you like the old school W style like I do it's good to know one is still available still this may be Samsung's best smart remote yet finally the bright shining star in terms of user experience is the tysen Smart TV interface you can switch instantly between sources and that comes in really handy if you need to bounce between say cable and Netflix Netflix picks up right where you left off with no loading delays at all and I love that if I'm just popping out of my binge session to check some game scores and want to come right back as for the streaming apps themselves you get access to 4K content from Netflix Amazon Prime with HDR and MGO Samsung has a deal cooked up with Direct TV for some 4K satellite stuff but all other apps will max out at 1080p as for picture quality there's some really impressive elements color after calibration is right on but more importantly I think is that the movie mode is decent right out of the box you don't have to do a ton of playing around to get a really gorgeous picture and when you go to Ultra HD Blu-rays with expanded color you can see how this TV is going to pay off down the road when content like this is more readily available this TV's 1,000 nit Peak brightness helps make for an extremely brilliant picture especially when watching HDR content the spectral highlights do make a difference and you get a picture that's just that much more dazzling I'm interested to see how movie producers are going to take advantage of this feature as they continue with their film making in a new era I also feel like the brightness uniformity across the screen is pretty good as well this is certainly a TV that can do battle in a sun- soaked living room Samsung puts top-notch processing in their TVs and I feel like upscaled Blu-ray discs look excellent on this set the TV also does a good job of cleaning up compressed cable and satellite feeds as well but beyond excellent upscaling I feel like the tv offers some great motion resolution and relatively blur-free picture even with the motion smoothing turned off so far so great right but now we get to a pretty major caveat the TV's backlighting system leaves a lot to be desired to be fair the TV is as sexy as it is because they mooved the back lighting to the bottom Edge and this resulted in just that much thinner a TV but the trade-off is too much if you're at all serious about watching movies especially in the dark the problem with having Edge lighting at the bottom of the TV instead of at the sides is that the backlight shows itself a lot and in multiple ways take this screen saver logo for instance it's bouncing around the screen and now not only do you see the edge lighting plain as day on the bottom you get these vertical bands of light and then there's this local dimming algorithm which I'm not sure why it goes fully bright before darkening back up you can see that happening right here worst of all though since the light is at the bottom there's no Cinema black feature to darken the letter box bars that was one of my favorite Samsung specific features and now it's gone this means that the lower letter box bars on a movie will always look a little gray calling attention to the backlight more than I find acceptable also off access viewing is not very good just standing up off AIS washes the blacks out and color takes a bit of a hit As you move off to the left and right the narrow sweet spot is the other big complaint I have about this TV kind of pains me to say it but sometimes style really does Trump substance I mean that works for TVs too and I think anybody looking for just a gorgeous stunning TV is going to be infatuated with the ks9500 with that said it's not a video files TV so if you like to to watch a lot of movies in the dark and you love excellent black levels I think you should dig deep into your pockets and be a little patient for the ks9800 that's coming out later this year\n"
