The Samsung CU8000 is one of the entry-level models in Samsung's 2023 lineup, replacing the Samsung AU8000 in North America. It's part of Samsung's Crystal UHD series of TVs, sitting above the Samsung CU7000/CU7000D and below Samsung's QLED lineup, starting with the Samsung Q60C QLED. It competes with other entry-level models like the Sony X80K and LG UQ8000. It's a simple model that lacks features like variable refresh rate (VRR) and HDMI 2.1 support, except on its 85-inch screen size. It uses Samsung's Crystal Processor 4K, first introduced in 2020 and designed to provide powerful 4K upscaling. It runs a simplified version of Samsung's 2023 Tizen OS interface, which offers most of the features of more advanced models but with a reduced feature set meant to run smoothly on this entry-level TV. It comes with the same great remote as more expensive models, like the Samsung S95C, and it supports voice controls to make it easy to find your favorite content.
Our Verdict
Overall, the Samsung CU8000 is a very decent performer. It's best for watching movies in a dark room, as it has a wide color gamut that tends to lean towards showing dark, saturated images. It's also somewhat good for HDR content due to its wide color gamut, but it doesn't get nearly bright enough for highlights to stand out, and it doesn't have local dimming features to help. Plus, it has poor reflection handling, so it's not a great bright room TV. It also has a bad response time, which is good for reducing stutter in movies, but as it introduces motion blur, it isn't optimal for sports, PC monitor use, or gaming.
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Great low-quality content smoothing.
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Lacks a local dimming feature.
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Doesn't get very bright in SDR and HDR.
The Samsung CU8000 is a great TV for watching movies in a dark room. Its color profile leans towards dark and saturated images, which is good for movies, although the TV's adequate but not good contrast results in dark scenes looking washed out. There's no blooming around bright highlights, and the TV upscales lower-resolution content well, which is excellent for movies on DVD. It also does a good job of removing judder from 24p sources. The TV's slow response time helps to reduce the appearance of stutter in slow panning shots. Sadly this TV doesn't pass through any DTS audio format, so you must connect your player directly to your soundbar or external speakers for the best possible sound.
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Removes judder from 24p sources.
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Wide color gamut.
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Great low-quality content smoothing.
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Good low resolution upscaling.
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Lacks a local dimming feature.
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Doesn't get very bright in SDR and HDR.
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Poor pre calibration accuracy.
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No DTS audio support.
The Samsung CU8000 is just decent for TV shows. It has satisfactory but not good reflection handling, and the TV doesn't get very bright, making it a bad choice for watching shows in brightly lit rooms. It also has a narrow viewing angle, so you can't easily move around the TV to watch your shows while doing your daily chores. It does have very good lower-resolution upscaling and very good low-quality content smoothing, which will make shows on DVDs look good on this TV.
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Great low-quality content smoothing.
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Good low resolution upscaling.
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Doesn't get very bright in SDR and HDR.
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Narrow viewing angle.
The Samsung CU8000 is just alright for watching sports. Fast action, like hockey players skating on ice, is blurry on this TV due to its low response time. It also has a narrow viewing angle, so it's not ideal for big groups, as only people sitting right in front of the TV will get the best image. The TV has barely adequate reflection handling, meaning it won't look good in brightly lit rooms.
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Good low resolution upscaling.
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Fast-moving action is blurry.
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Doesn't get very bright in SDR and HDR.
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Narrow viewing angle.
The Samsung CU8000 is pretty decent as a gaming TV. It has very low input lag in game mode, leading to responsive inputs when playing games. Game Mode doesn't negatively impact the TV's image quality, so you can safely turn it on. It also does a good job of upscaling lower resolutions, so older game consoles will look great on this TV. Sadly, fast action is blurry on this TV due to its poor response time, meaning fast-moving games won't look their best.
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Low input lag in game mode.
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Wide color gamut.
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Good low resolution upscaling.
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Limited to 60Hz and has no VRR support.
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Fast-moving action is blurry.
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Doesn't get very bright in SDR and HDR.
The Samsung CU8000 is good for watching the latest hit movies in HDR. It has a wide color gamut, so HDR10 or HDR10+ content will look good. However, the TV doesn't get nearly bright enough for highlights to stand out, which stops this TV from being a truly great HDR performer. The lack of local dimming means that the TV doesn't have any distracting blooming around bright objects and no lighting zone transitions, but it also makes dark scenes look washed out due to the backlight always being on at the same intensity.
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Removes judder from 24p sources.
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Wide color gamut.
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Lacks a local dimming feature.
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Doesn't get very bright in SDR and HDR.
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Poor pre calibration accuracy.
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No DTS audio support.
The Samsung CU8000 is good for playing the latest HDR-enabled games. It has very low input lag in game mode, leading to very responsive inputs when playing games. Game Mode doesn't negatively impact the TV's image quality, so you can safely turn it on. The TV supports 10-bit 4k @ 60Hz, and has a wide color gamut, leading to saturated colors in HDR. However, it doesn't get nearly bright enough to do HDR content justice, and it doesn't support 120Hz or any VRR technologies, which isn't optimal for newer consoles. The TV's response time is poor, making fast action look blurry in games.
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Low input lag in game mode.
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Wide color gamut.
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Lacks a local dimming feature.
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Limited to 60Hz and has no VRR support.
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Fast-moving action is blurry.
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Doesn't get very bright in SDR and HDR.
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Poor pre calibration accuracy.
The Samsung CU8000 is alright as a PC monitor. It has a narrow viewing angle, making the screen's sides look washed out if you sit close to it. It also has a poor response time, leading to trailing behind the mouse cursor or when moving windows around. It does have low input lag when set to Game Mode, which makes for responsive mouse or controller inputs. Sadly, it's not optimal for PC gaming as it'll have motion blur due to its bad response time, and the TV is limited to 60Hz and has no VRR support. The TV's wide color gamut is great for professional design work, but unfortunately, the TV has poor color accuracy and some uniformity issues. However, the TV displays chroma 4:4:4 properly in 'PC mode', which is important for text clarity, but unfortunately, this TV uses a BGR subpixel layout which will impact text clarity.
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Displays chroma 4:4:4 subsampling.
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Low input lag in game mode.
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Wide color gamut.
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Limited to 60Hz and has no VRR support.
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Doesn't get very bright in SDR and HDR.
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Inaccurate color profile.
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Poor pre calibration accuracy.
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Narrow viewing angle.
- 7.4 Mixed Usage
- 8.2 Movies
- 7.1 TV Shows
- 6.5 Sports
- 7.4 Video Games
- 7.6 HDR Movies
- 7.5 HDR Gaming
- 6.7 PC Monitor
- Updated May 17, 2023: We bought and tested the Samsung Q60C QLED and added a few relevant comparisons below.
- Updated May 04, 2023: We've added a mention of the newly-reviewed Samsung CU7000 in the Response Time section of this review.
- Updated Apr 28, 2023: Review published.
- Updated Apr 13, 2023: Early access published.
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Differences Between Sizes And Variants
We bought and tested the 65-inch Samsung CU8000, and these results are also valid for the 43-inch, 50-inch, 55-inch, and 75-inch models. The 85-inch CU8000 uses a very different panel and supports advanced features not found on the smaller sizes. Note that the last five letters in the model number (FXZA in this case) vary between retailers and individual regions, but there's no difference in performance.
| Size | US Model | Short Model Code | Refresh Rate | VRR support |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 43" | UN43CU8000FXZA | UN43CU8000 | 60Hz | No |
| 50" | UN50CU8000FXZA | UN50CU8000 | 60Hz | No |
| 55" | UN55CU8000FXZA | UN55CU8000 | 60Hz | No |
| 65" | UN65CU8000FXZA | UN65CU8000 | 60Hz | No |
| 75" | UN75CU8000FXZA | UN75CU8000 | 60Hz | No |
| 85" | UN85CU8000FXZA | UN85CU8000 | 120Hz | Yes (FreeSync Premium) |
Our unit was manufactured in February 2023; you can see the label here.
Compared To Other TVs
The Samsung CU8000 is a basic entry-level 4k TV with decent overall performance. It's similar to 2021's Samsung AU8000 and isn't worth the upgrade if you already own that panel. While it's comparable to some of its competitors, like the LG UQ8000, it's worse value for the money when compared to the Hisense U6H, Hisense U7H, or the TCL 5 Series/S555 QLED.
If you're still shopping for the best TV for your needs, see our recommendations for the best budget TVs, the best 4k TVs, and the best 65-inch 4k TVs.
The Samsung CU8000 is slightly worse than the Samsung AU8000. The CU8000 is better in a few areas, as it has a wider color gamut, better color volume, higher HDR brightness in game mode, and much better low-quality content smoothing. The AU8000, however, has much better reflection handling, better build quality, much better color accuracy both pre- and post-calibration, and is easier to calibrate. It also has much better black uniformity, but this can vary between units. The newer CU8000 does have an upgraded version of Tizen OS, which now supports MultiView on this TV.
The Samsung CU7000 and Samsung CU8000 are surprisingly comparable TVs, each having particular strengths. The CU8000 has a wider color gamut and slightly higher peak brightness, making it more pleasant to look at. It also has a more premium, slimmer design. However, it's a particularly slow TV; its response time is poor, which makes it ill-suited for watching sports or for playing fast-moving games but helps with watching movies as a slow response time reduces perceived stutter. One of the CU7000's primary strengths is its fast response time, especially in bright scene transitions, making it suited to sports and fast games. Ultimately, the CU7000 is likely cheaper and of particular interest to those wanting a cheaper TV to play games on and watch sports, while the CU8000 has a premium look and outputs more impressive images due to its wider color gamut and slightly higher peak brightness.
The Samsung Q60/Q60B QLED is better overall than the Samsung CU8000. It has better contrast, gets brighter in SDR and HDR, has much better PQ EOTF tracking and color accuracy, and far superior black uniformity, although this can vary between units. The CU8000 does have much better low-quality content smoothing, however, so if you watch a lot of low-quality content it could be a better option.
The LG UQ8000 and Samsung CU8000 are decent TVs with different panel types. The LG uses an IPS panel with wide viewing angles, while the Samsung has a VA panel with better contrast. The CU8000 has a wider color gamut, but the UQ8000 has a better HDR Native Gradient and much better color accuracy. The LG also uses a traditional RGB subpixel layout (except for on its 50 and 70-inch models), making it better suited as a PC monitor.
The Samsung CU8000 is better than the Sony X80K. The Sony X80K uses an IPS panel, which gives it a wider viewing angle than the CU8000. The CU8000 has a VA panel, so it has far better contrast and better black uniformity. The CU8000 also has far superior low-quality content smoothing and can remove 24p judder from native apps. However, the X80K has a traditional RGB subpixel layout, so it displays clearer text when used as a PC monitor than the CU8000, and it gets a bit brighter than the Samsung in both SDR and HDR. The X80K also supports passthrough of DTS audio formats, as well as a 7.1 uncompressed LPCM signal.
The Samsung Q60C QLED is a bit better than the Samsung CU8000. The Q60C gets a lot brighter, so it can better overcome glare in a moderately-lit room, and HDR looks better.
The Hisense U7H is better than the Samsung CU8000. It's better built, has significantly better contrast, and has full-array local dimming. It also gets much brighter than the CU8000 in both SDR and HDR, has better color volume, much better color accuracy, supports passthrough of DTS audio formats, and has more gaming features like 4K @ 120Hz and VRR.
The Samsung CU8000 isn't as good as the 2022 TCL 5 Series. The TCL has dramatically better contrast and full-array local dimming. It also gets much brighter than the Samsung TV in both SDR and HDR and has better color accuracy and HDR gradient handling. The TCL has a much better response time than the Samsung, so fast action in games and sports will look better, and it also supports VRR, unlike the Samsung. However, the Samsung TV's speakers sound a bit better, and it upscales a 480p input much better than the TCL, as well as having better low-quality content smoothing.
The Hisense U6H is better than the Samsung CU8000. It has better contrast, helped by its full-array local dimming. It gets brighter than the Samsung in both SDR and HDR, has much better color accuracy, and supports DTS audio formats passthrough. It also supports VRR for gaming. The Samsung has slightly better speakers, has less stutter in both 24Hz and 60Hz content, and has much better low-quality content smoothing.
Test Results
The Samsung CU8000 looks very good for an entry-level model. It has the same feet as 2021's Samsung AU8000; they're on the bigger side but sit flat against the table. The TV looks slim, with thin bezels and a premium look.
The stand has two plastic feet which support the TV well. The footprint of the 65-inch stand is 42.6" x 11.1". The feet are height adjustable with two positions. One position is high enough that most soundbars will fit below the screen, while the other position, which you can see in the photo, puts the screen closer to the table. The height of the lower position is 2.01", and the higher one is 3.03".
The back of the TV is plastic and has etched horizontal lines that are nearly identical to the Samsung AU8000. The Samsung CU8000 offers little in terms of cable management, but you can run cables through cable channels on the back of the TV and then through asmall clip set on the back of the feet. The input ports are placed within a cutout on the back of the TV, and one port is directly on the back panel, making them very hard to reach if the TV is wall mounted. For that reason, if you want to wall-mount this TV, a mounting arm is recommended.
The Samsung CU8000 has okay build quality. It's made entirely of plastic which feels good but looks a bit generic. However, the TV has a large amount of wobble; if you shake one corner of the TV, the whole panel wobbles. The back panel of the TV also feels loose, almost as if it isn't properly attached to the TV. Overall, a downgrade from the Samsung AU8000.
The Samsung CU8000 has an okay contrast ratio, similar to 2021's Samsung AU8000 but worse than 2020's Samsung TU8000. Nevertheless, this TV has deep blacks in a dark room.
As this TV lacks a local dimming feature, there's no blooming around bright objects or subtitles in dark scenes. Since the backlight is always on at the same intensity and the TV has a low contrast ratio, dark scenes look washed out.
The Samsung CU8000's black crush performance is decent. There's some loss of fine shadow detail in SDR content, but it's satisfactory.
This TV doesn't have a local dimming feature, so the entire backlight is always on at the same intensity. The lack of lightning zone transitions means that there's no distracting flicker or brightness changes as bright highlights move across the screen.
Switching to 'Game' mode doesn't make any noticeable difference in dark scene performance.
The TV's SDR brightness is acceptable. It's not bright enough to overcome glare in a well-lit room but will do fine in moderate lighting conditions. There's no noticeable variation in brightness with different content, which is good.
These measurements are after calibration with the following settings:
- Picture Mode: Movie
- Backlight: Max
- Color Tone: Warm 2
- Gamma: 2.2
The HDR brightness is disappointing. It's not bright enough to display HDR content properly. Bright highlights don't stand out, and overall this TV doesn't provide a good HDR experience.
These measurements are after calibrating the HDR white point, with the following settings:
- HDR Picture Mode: Movie
- Brightness: Max
- Contrast: Max
- Color Tone: Warm 2
Although this TV is slightly brighter in game mode, its overall HDR brightness in game mode is still disappointing.
These measurements are after calibrating the HDR white point, with the following settings:
- HDR Picture Mode: Game
- Brightness: Max
- Contrast: Max
- Color Tone: Warm 2
- Color Gamut: Auto
- HDR Tone Mapping: Static
The Samsung CU8000 has just decent PQ EOTF tracking. Its near-blacks are raised a bit, and midtones aren't as bright as they should be. HDR content is displayed more accurately near the TV's peak brightness, followed by a rough roll-off resulting in a loss of fine detail in bright scenes.
The TV's gradient handling is alright. There's some banding in dark grays, blues, and greens, as well as in saturated greens, and there's bad banding in dark reds.
The Samsung CU8000 has a very good color gamut, with excellent coverage of the DCI-P3 color space. Its reds are undersaturated, and its color accuracy is way off for less saturated colors. But overall, HDR content on this TV looks colorful and vibrant. It has adequate coverage of the wider Rec. 2020 color space, so future content will look okay on this TV. This TV's spectral power distribution (SPD) confirms that it's using a PFS phosphor coating, resulting in a much wider color gamut than traditional non-QLED TVs from Samsung, like the Samsung CU7000 (SPD). In fact, the color gamut of this TV is just as wide as Samsung's entry-level QLED, the Samsung Q60C QLED (SPD).
The color volume is adequate, especially in the DCI-P3 color space, which is the most common for HDR content. The TV doesn't display darker colors well but can display brighter colors than the Samsung AU8000. It displays saturated blues but is limited with greens and reds. It does a poor job covering the wider Rec. 2020 color space; however, this isn't surprising for an entry-level model.
The TV has passable pre-calibration accuracy. Its color temperature is very warm; colors have a reddish hue. The TV's white balance accuracy is inadequate; darker shades of gray aren't accurately portrayed. It's also shown in the TV's gamma curve, with darker shades of gray being significantly darker than the reference. Gamma is darker than the 2.2 target, reinforcing that this TV is better suited for a dark room. The TV's color accuracy is alright, with colors slightly deviating from the reference throughout.
The Samsung CU8000's post-calibration accuracy is excellent. White balance accuracy is close to reference, and its color temperature, while warmer than the 6,500 K reference, is superb. The TV is hard to calibrate for, however, and its color accuracy, while very good, is still off from reference. In particular, its dark reds and blues are still over-saturated.
You can see our recommended settings here.
The Samsung CU8000 has decent gray uniformity. The sides of the screen are darker than the center, and there are some obvious uniformity issues. There are patchy areas throughout, which is noticeable in scenes with large areas of uniform color. Near-dark scenes fare better, although the sides of the screen are noticeably brighter than the center.
The Samsung CU8000 has just decent black uniformity. There's a noticeable amount of clouding on a black screen, and as the screen isn't very uniform, this is distracting in dark scenes.
The Samsung CU8000's viewing angle is inadequate. The colors lose their saturation and accuracy as you move off-center, and the image quickly appears darker as you move toward the sides. This TV isn't ideal for a wide seating area or if you want to move around while watching.
The TV's reflection handling is decent. Considering that this TV doesn't get very bright, you're better off not putting this TV in a bright room or in front of a bright light source.
The Samsung CU8000 has surprisingly great low-quality content smoothing. This was a low point of previous models like the Samsung AU8000 and TU8000, but this time it does a great job smoothing out low-quality content when Noise Reduction is set to 'Auto'.
The Samsung CU8000 uses a BGR (Blue-Green-Red) subpixel layout instead of the traditional RGB layout. For video or gaming content, this doesn't cause any issues, but for PC monitor use, it can be a problem as it can impact text clarity.
480p content looks great on the Samsung CU8000. Content from sources like DVDs is upscaled well without any issues.
1080p content looks outstanding; almost as good as native 4k content.
The Samsung CU8000 displays native 4k content very well. Like on the Samsung AU8000, there's some dithering, but you won't notice it unless viewing an entirely white screen.
The Samsung CU8000 has a poor response time, a clear downgrade from 2021's Samsung AU8000 and 2020's Samsung TU8000. A slow response time leads to significant motion blur, so it's not ideal for fast-paced action in sports or games. In particular, this TV is bad at dark screen transitions, which results in significant ghosting in dark scenes; this isn't the TV for fans of games like Resident Evil. The Samsung CU7000/CU7000D has a much better response time, so check that one out if response time is of particular importance to you.
The Samsung CU8000 uses pulse width modulation (PWM) to dim its backlight, resulting in flicker that'll annoy users who are sensitive to it. This TV is never flicker-free at any brightness level, and changing picture modes doesn't change anything on this front. The PWM Dimming Frequency is set to 480Hz, fast enough that it won't be noticeable to most users.
This TV supports backlight strobing, more commonly known as black frame insertion (BFI). The feature is designed to improve the appearance of motion by strobing its backlight; this reduces the amount of persistence blur. It flickers at 60Hz when enabled outside of Game Mode and 120Hz when Game Mode is enabled. This results in bad motion duplication since this TV uses a 60Hz panel. The flicker on the Samsung CU8000 is poorly timed, resulting in noticeable crosstalk. Also, black frame insertion lowers the TV's brightness, which can annoy some users.
The Samsung CU8000 can interpolate a 30fps input up to 60fps, more commonly known as the 'Soap Opera Effect'. It looks decent in slower scenes but doesn't stop interpolating when the action ramps up, leading to artifacting and haloing.
This TV has great performance regarding stutter. There's very little stutter when watching low frame rate content, like movies, on this TV.
This TV can remove judder from native 24p signals, like DVD or Blu-ray players, as well as from native apps, but can't remove judder from 60i or 60p sources. It means that movies played from satellite/cable boxes won't be judder free.
This TV doesn't support any variable refresh rate technologies. Note that the 85-inch variant of the Samsung CU8000 does support FreeSync Premium alongside a native refresh rate of 120Hz.
This TV has remarkably low input lag when used in Game Mode. To have low input lag while transmitting a chroma 4:4:4 signal, you need to set the input to 'PC' and enable Game Mode. Unlike the Samsung AU8000, the Samsung CU8000's input lag is high outside of Game Mode, so gamers need to make sure that they enable it for the best performance possible.
The TV supports all common resolutions at 60Hz. It can also display proper chroma 4:4:4, which is important for text clarity when using this TV as a PC monitor. Note that the 85-inch variant of the Samsung CU8000 supports 4k @ 120Hz.
The Samsung CU8000 is a 60Hz TV, so it only supports 4k @ 60Hz on the P55. It has Auto Low Latency Mode switching, so it'll automatically switch to Game Mode when the TV detects a game console as its input device, giving you the lowest possible input lag for games. Note that the 85-inch variant of this TV supports 4k @ 120Hz, as well as VRR.
The Samsung CU8000 is a 60Hz TV, so it only supports 4k @ 60Hz on the Xbox Series X|S consoles. It has Auto Low Latency Mode switching, so it'll automatically switch to Game Mode when the TV detects a game console as its input device, giving you the lowest possible input lag for games. Note that the 85-inch variant of this TV supports 4k @ 120Hz, as well as VRR.
Note that the 85-inch variant of the Samsung CU8000 supports HDMI 2.1 bandwidth. The smaller sizes are limited to HDMI 2.0 bandwidth.
The Samsung CU8000 is limited to HDMI 2.0 bandwidth but has eARC. This allows you to passthrough better audio than with an ARC connection, like Dolby Atmos via TrueHD. Unfortunately, the TV doesn't support DTS, which is disappointing as many DVDs and Blu-rays use DTS as their audio format.
The TV's frequency response is just okay. The speakers don't sound thin but don't produce much bass. The TV sounds well-balanced at moderate levels but sounds progressively worse as the volume increases. At maximum volume, which isn't very loud, the TV doesn't sound great, so it's better suited for a quiet environment.
The distortion performance is decent. It's a clear improvement from the Samsung AU8000, especially at maximum volume, where this TV performs significantly better than its predecessors.
The TV comes with the 2023 version of Samsung's proprietary Tizen OS but with a reduced feature set compared to more expensive models. Unlike 2021's Samsung AU8000, the Samsung CU8000's implementation of Tizen does have MultiView and is overall very easy to use.
Like most TVs, there are ads on the home screen, and you can't disable them.
Samsung's app store has an impressive selection of apps, giving you access to all major streaming services.
The Samsung CU8000 has an excellent minimalistic remote similar to 2021's Samsung AU8000. This time, however, the remote has a rechargeable battery that you can charge via USB-C or solar power. It has buttons for popular streaming services, and the voice control gives you access to Bixby and Alexa. You can ask it to change settings, change inputs, and answer basic questions, but it still can't look for content within apps.
