Samsung AU8000  TV Review

The TV has a surprisingly premium design for an entry-level model. It comes with new feet compared to 2020's Samsung TU8000, and they sit flat against the table. It has thin bezels all around and looks nice in any setup.

After 14 months on our accelerated longevity test, the Samsung AU8000 has developed multiple serious issues and has been removed from the test. Multiple LEDs have failed, causing backlight uniformity issues. The standoffs that normally support the light guide plate (LGP) also melted from the heat of the LEDs, causing the LGP to slide down. The heat from the LEDs this close to the LGP caused cracks and visible lines in the display. The reflector sheet is also warped, causing the Rorschach-like patterns on the screen.

As part of our two-year test, which has so far subjected 100 TVs to over 10,000 hours of accelerated testing, we found that edge-lit TVs like this one have significant durability issues. These issues range from warped reflector sheets and cracked light guide plates to completely burnt-out LEDs. You can read the full results of our investigation here.

The stand consists of two plastic feet that support the TV well. You can customize the feet to place the TV in a higher vertical position (in photo) to place a soundbar in front without blocking the screen, or it can be placed closer to the table as seen here.

Footprint of the 55-inch stand: 42.6" x 11.1". The height of the lower position is 1.78", and the higher one is 3.08".

The back of the TV has similar etched horizontal lines as other Samsung TVs. It doesn't offer much in terms of cable management, but you can run cables through the clips in the feet and the tracks in the back panel. The ports all face to the side, but because they're placed inside a cutout on the back, they're nearly impossible to access when the TV is wall-mounted, so a mounting arm that pulls out from the wall is recommended.

This TV has decent build quality. It's made entirely of sturdy plastic, and everything is well-built with no significant issues. The back panel flexes a lot near the center and inputs, which is noticeable when plugging in HDMI cables, but this is common and won't cause any issues.

The TV has disappointing contrast. Its native contrast ratio is alright, but since the TV lacks a local dimming feature, blacks aren't deep, and they become raised and washed out when bright highlights are on the screen.

Since this TV lacks a local dimming feature, there's no blooming around bright objects in otherwise dark scenes. Since the entire backlight is always on at the same intensity and it has a low contrast ratio, dark scenes look washed out.

This TV doesn't have a local dimming feature; the entire backlight is always on at the same intensity, so there's no distracting flicker or brightness changes as bright highlights move across the screen.

Switching to 'Game' mode doesn't result in any noticeable difference in contrast or blooming.

The HDR brightness is poor. It's not bright enough to display HDR content properly, and small bright highlights in dark scenes are dimmed considerably by the TV's frame dimming feature.

These measurements are after calibrating the HDR white point with the following settings:

• HDR Picture Mode: Movie
• Brightness: Max
• Contrast: Max

Unfortunately, the TV is significantly dimmer in the 'Game' HDR Picture Mode.

These measurements are after calibrating the HDR white point, with the following settings:

• HDR Picture Mode: Game
• Color Gamut: Auto
• Color Temperature: Warm 2
• Brightness: Max
• Contrast: Max

This TV has great PQ EOTF tracking, ensuring that most HDR content is displayed at the correct brightness level. Like most TVs with no local dimming, near-blacks are raised a bit. Midtones are also slightly too bright, but it's very close overall. There's a very smooth roll-off near the TV's peak brightness, so fine details in bright scenes are preserved.

The SDR brightness is okay. It's bright enough to overcome glare in a moderately lit room, and there's no noticeable variation in brightness with different content. Unfortunately, when gaming in SDR in the 'Game' Picture Mode, very small highlights in near-black scenes are dimmed considerably, flashing briefly at 145 nits before dropping to 104. This is extremely rare in most games.

These measurements are after calibration with the following settings:

• Picture Mode: Movie
• Brightness: Max
• Contrast: Default
• Gamma: 2.2

The Samsung AU8000 has a decent HDR color gamut, with very good coverage of the DCI P3 color space. This results in vibrant colors when watching most HDR content, but it can't display the full range of colors available, so some content can look dull and muted. It has very limited coverage of the wider Rec. 2020 color space that is increasing in popularity, so it's not very future-proof.

Due to the narrow color gamut, the color volume is sub-par. It displays darker colors fairly well but struggles more with brighter colors.

With just a few quick settings changes out-of-the-box, the Samsung AU8000's accuracy before calibration is good. Most colors are slightly inaccurate, but reds, yellows, and cyans are the most off. The white balance is okay, but brighter shades of gray are a bit off. The color temperature is near the 6500K target, and gamma follows the 2.2 target very well.

The accuracy after calibration is fantastic. Any remaining inaccuracies to the white balance and most colors are almost impossible to notice, except for saturated reds, which are a bit off. The color temperature is also closer to the calibration target of 6500K. It's very easy to calibrate, and it features a full-color calibration system, which is uncommon for entry-level TVs.

You can see our full calibration settings here.

This TV has just decent gray uniformity. There are a few patchy areas throughout the screen, which are distracting when you're watching anything with large areas of uniform color, like sports.

This TV has excellent black uniformity. The screen is cloudy throughout but very uniform, so it's not very distracting. Sadly, there's no local dimming feature to reduce the cloudiness of the screen.

The Samsung AU8000 has a narrow viewing angle. Colors start to shift, and the image looks darker as you move off-center, so it's not ideal for a wide seating area or if you like to move around your room with the TV on.

The reflection handling is impressive. It handles a moderate amount of light well, and even though it struggles more with stronger light sources, it's still better than most entry-level TVs.

The gradient handling is excellent, which is a significant improvement from the Samsung TU8000. There's a bit more banding in the reds and greens, but it's not too noticeable. The Noise Reduction setting, which is designed to smooth out gradients in low-quality content, doesn't appear to do anything at all.

The TV has poor low-quality content smoothing. Although it preserves details well, there's no noticeable smoothing done, and artifacts are still present in dark scenes.

The Samsung AU8000 upscales 480p content, like from DVDs, without any issues.

The panel is different from the Samsung TU8000 and looks like an MVA panel, which is a type of VA panel and performs the same. There's dithering with blue pixels, but it's only visible with a full white screen. It has BGR subpixel layout, which negatively affects text clarity when using it as a PC monitor.

The Samsung AU8000 has an okay response time. Transitions in dark scenes are very slow, resulting in a long trail behind dark objects, known as black smearing. Motion looks blurry because of this slower response time, and there are noticeable duplications due to the TV's backlight flicker.

The Samsung AU8000 uses pulse width modulation (PWM) to dim its backlight, which results in flicker that can cause headaches and eye strain. It's flicker-free in the 'Movie' Picture Mode with the Brightness set to anything '25' and above, but it flickers at 480Hz at '24' and below. It flickers at 120Hz with Picture Clarity enabled or in Game Mode. It also flickers at 120Hz in the 'Dynamic', 'Standard', and 'Natural' Picture Modes, but it's flicker-free in those modes if the backlight is set to its max.

The Samsung AU8000 has a backlight strobing feature, commonly known as black frame insertion (BFI). BFI is designed to improve the appearance of motion by reducing the amount of persistent blur. It flickers at 60Hz outside of Game Mode if you enable LED Clear Motion, but once Game Mode is enabled, there aren't any motion settings and it always flickers at 120Hz, which leads to motion duplication. Unfortunately, the flicker introduced is poorly timed, resulting in noticeable crosstalk, so the overall usefulness of this feature is limited.

The Samsung AU8000 has the option to interpolate 30fps content up to 60fps, which gives motion the 'Soap Opera Effect'. It looks okay in slower scenes but stops interpolating altogether during busy scenes, which is distracting due to the sudden change in frame rate.

Since the TV has a slower response time, there's very little stutter when watching low frame rate content, like movies.

Like the Samsung TU8000, this TV can only remove judder from sources that can send a true 24p signal, like a Blu-ray player or a streaming box with a "match frame-rate" feature. It can't remove judder from sources that don't have this feature, like most cable boxes.

This TV has a basic 60Hz panel without any variable refresh rate support. If you want a budget-friendly TV with VRR support, check out the Vizio M6 Series Quantum 2022.

This TV has incredibly low input lag as long as Game Mode is enabled. Surprisingly, input lag is still low enough for most casual gamers even outside of Game Mode.

The Samsung AU8000 supports most common resolutions, but only at 60Hz, as it doesn't support a 120Hz refresh rate. Chroma 4:4:4 is displayed properly when the TV is set to 'PC' mode, which is important for clear text from a computer.

Since it's a 60Hz TV, it only supports 4k games up to 60fps from the PS5. It has an Auto Low Latency Mode that automatically switches the TV into Game Mode to get the lowest input lag possible when a game is launched.

Since it's a 60Hz TV, it only supports 4k games up to 60fps from the Xbox Series S|X. It has an Auto Low Latency Mode that automatically switches the TV into Game Mode to get the lowest input lag possible when a game is launched. Unfortunately, the TV doesn't support Dolby Vision.

Unlike the Samsung TU8000, the Samsung AU8000 has no component or composite inputs. You'll need an external HDMI adapter to connect older devices like retro game consoles.

Even though the Samsung AU8000 doesn't have HDMI 2.1 bandwidth inputs, it still supports eARC. This allows you to pass uncompressed audio in the Dolby Atmos via TrueHD format to a compatible receiver over a single HDMI connection. It can also pass through a DTS 5.1 signal through ARC, which is great, although it can't do the same through optical, nor does it support advanced DTS formats through eARC.

The frequency response is mediocre. It doesn't produce much bass, and there are compression artifacts at its max volume. You have to listen at moderate levels if you want a more well-balanced sound profile.

The distortion performance is mediocre. Although there isn't too much at moderate listening levels, it increases quite a bit at its max volume.

The Samsung AU8000 comes with an upgraded version of Tizen compared to 2020's Samsung TU8000; the menu navigation feels smoother, and it's easy to use. However, it has fewer features than some higher-end models like the Samsung Q80/Q80A QLED as it lacks things like MultiView.

Sadly, there are ads on the home page and app store, and there's no way to disable them.

Samsung's app store has a great selection of apps, including all major streaming services.

This TV comes with the same new redesigned remote as other Samsung TVs in 2021, except it requires disposable batteries instead of a rechargeable one. There are shortcut buttons to popular streaming devices, and the voice control gives you access to Bixby, Alexa, and Google Assistant. You can ask it to change settings and switch inputs, but you can't ask it to search for specific content in apps.

A single button below the Samsung branding on the bottom right side can be used to adjust the volume, change channels, switch inputs, and turn the TV on/off.

• Remote control (with 2x AA batteries)
• Power cable
• Clips for cable management
• User guides