Samsung DU7200  TV Review

The Samsung DU7200 has poor HDR brightness. Combined with the TV's bad contrast, it doesn't deliver an impactful HDR viewing experience.

Our results are with HDR Tone Mapping set to 'Static.' Below are the results with HDR Tone Mapping set to 'Active':

• Hallway Lights: 248 cd/m²
• Yellow Skyscraper: 229 cd/m²
• Landscape Pool: 187 cd/m²

Although the TV is a tiny bit dimmer in Game Mode, it's not noticeable. Our results are with HDR Tone Mapping set to 'Static.' Below are the results with HDR Tone Mapping set to 'Active':

• Hallway Lights: 240 cd/m²
• Yellow Skyscraper: 215 cd/m²
• Landscape Pool: 186 cd/m²

The Samsung DU7200 has inadequate SDR brightness. It's not bright enough to overcome glare in a well-lit room, so it's best suited for dark or dimly lit environments.

The Samsung DU7200 has bad contrast. Its native contrast ratio is okay, so blacks are somewhat deep during purely dark scenes. Unfortunately, since the TV lacks local dimming, blacks become raised and grayish when brighter elements are also on screen.

This TV doesn't have a local dimming feature, so there's no haloing around bright objects or subtitles in dark scenes. However, as the TV can't brighten highlights without impacting the rest of the image, dark scenes look washed out.

This TV doesn't have a local dimming feature, so it doesn't adjust the backlight of individual areas to brighten up highlights without impacting the rest of the image. This means that there are no distracting flickers or brightness changes as bright highlights move across the screen.

Switching to Game Mode doesn't result in any noticeable difference in dark scene performance. Our local dimming transition video looks different here than it did outside of Game Mode due to a bug; the TV maxes out its brightness whenever you turn on VRR.

The TV has superb black uniformity. There's a bit of cloudiness due to the lack of local dimming, but it's very minor. Relative to newer models like the Samsung U8000F, blacks aren't as deep, but they're far more uniform, with less variation across the screen.

The Samsung DU7200 has poor SDR color volume. It just covers the full range of colors in the narrow BT.709 color space, and its coverage of the wider DCI-P3 color space is sub-par. It has bad coverage of the widest BT.2020 space, where it covers less than half of the possible colors. This lack of coverage means colors looked muted in SDR content that utilizes these wider spaces, and it's a poor choice if you like to increase the saturation of colors by forcing the TV into a wider color space. 

The Samsung DU7200 has inadequate HDR color volume. It's not nearly bright enough to display colors at high luminance levels, and it struggles with displaying darker colors due to its unremarkable contrast.

The TV has decent pre-calibration SDR accuracy. Greens and reds are underrepresented in darker shades of gray, while blues are underrepresented in all shades of gray. This makes the color temperature warmer than our target of 6500K, but it's still pretty close. Its color accuracy is very good overall, but whites, lighter colors, and saturated reds, blues, and greens are a bit inaccurate. Gamma is close to 2.2, but dark scenes and very bright scenes are noticeably darker than they're supposed to be.

The TV has outstanding SDR accuracy after calibration. Reds, blues, and greens are still underrepresented in dark shades of gray, but brighter shades are almost perfect, so the color temperature is now very close to the 6500K we aim for. The inaccuracies with lighter colors are mostly gone, but there are still some minor inaccuracies with some saturated colors. The gamma is the same as it was prior to calibration.

Unfortunately, the TV is a bit difficult to calibrate, as more aggressive changes in the 10–30 point range ended up making the image worse.

See our full calibration settings.

This TV has okay HDR color accuracy out of the box. Its white balance is decent overall, but there's too much blue and not enough red in most shades of gray, which makes the TV's color temperature noticeably cooler than the industry standard 6500K. The overall accuracy of colors is alright, but there are noticeable mapping errors throughout, especially with well-saturated colors. 

After calibration, the TV has great HDR color accuracy, but it's not perfect. Its white balance and color temperature are now outstanding, and the image no longer looks too cool. Unfortunately, the accuracy of colors has only improved a bit, and there are still mapping errors with well-saturated colors. 

The Samsung DU7200 has great PQ EOTF tracking. Since the TV lacks local dimming, blacks are displayed brighter than intended, and some darker shadows are also a bit brighter than they're supposed to be. However, the TV follows the curve incredibly closely until there's a roll-off near its peak brightness to maintain details in highlights that are brighter than its capabilities.

The Samsung DU7200 has poor low-quality content smoothing. It does an outstanding job at preserving details, but barely any actual smoothing is done, so low-bitrate content still has noticeable macro-blocking.

The Samsung DU7200D does a satisfactory job at upscaling low-resolution content like DVDs or lower-resolution streams. Details are mostly clear, but finer details are very hard to make out.

The Samsung DU7200D has alright HDR gradient handling. There's some noticeable banding in dark grays, dark reds, dark blues, and greens. Fortunately, there's minimal banding in other color gradients.

The TV has incredibly 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.

The TV supports all common resolutions at 60Hz. Unfortunately, 1440p doesn't work in Game Mode.

The TV supports every VRR technology to reduce screen-tearing. Unfortunately, its usefulness is limited since it has a very narrow VRR range and doesn't support sources with Low Framerate Compensation (LFC), so you get screen-tearing when your frame rate dips below 48 fps. Unfortunately, Game Mode doesn't work in 1440p @ 60Hz, so you can't use VRR and game in 1440p.

The TV's CAD at 60Hz is mediocre, and most transitions are pretty slow. Combined with the persistence blur that's present in 60Hz games, fast motion looks blurry. 

This TV doesn't support 120Hz. 

The TV's CAD at 60Hz is mediocre, and most transitions are pretty slow. Combined with the persistence blur that's present in 60Hz games, fast motion looks blurry. 

The Samsung DU7200B is limited to 60Hz with all resolutions, so it only supports up to 4k @ 60Hz on the P55. It has Auto Low Latency Mode, so it'll automatically switch to Game Mode when the TV detects a game console as its input device, which gives you the lowest possible input lag for games. Unfortunately, 1440p doesn't work while in Game Mode, so you can't game in 1440p with low input lag.

The Samsung DU7200B is limited to 60Hz across all resolutions, so it only supports up to 4k @ 60Hz on the Xbox Series X|S. It has Auto Low Latency Mode, so it'll automatically switch to Game Mode when the TV detects a game console as its input device, which gives you the lowest possible input lag for games. Unfortunately, 1440p doesn't work while in Game Mode, so you can't game in 1440p with low input lag. The TV also doesn't support Dolby Vision.

Due to this TV's quicker response time, it does a decent job with stutter in 24p content like movies and shows, but there's still some minor stutter with slower camera movements.

The Samsung DU7200D removes judder from native 24p signals, like DVD or Blu-ray players, as well as from native apps. Unfortunately, it doesn't remove judder from 60i or 60p sources, so movies played from satellite/cable boxes aren't judder-free.

The TV has an okay response time when watching movies, shows, and sports. Most content looks clear enough to enjoy, but motion in faster sports is a bit blurry. 

The TV uses pulse-width modulation (PWM) to dim its backlight, which introduces flicker that can bother people who are sensitive to it. The amount of flicker varies depending on what picture mode the TV is set to and what settings you're using. When using 'Filmmaker Mode,' the TV flickers at 120Hz with all brightness levels. It flickers at 480Hz in all other picture modes with the brightness set above '19' and flickers at 120Hz with the brightness set to '19' and below.

The 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 and reducing the amount of persistence blur. The BFI feature on the TV flickers at 60Hz, and there's noticeable image duplication present.

The TV has optional motion interpolation to help smooth out low-frame-rate content. It does an okay job with smoothing slower-moving scenes, but it struggles so much with faster scenes that there are noticeable artifacts and a screen-tearing type effect. At times it stops interpolating altogether, which causes motion to look inconsistent and is distracting. 

The Samsung DU7200D has poor handling of direct reflections. The intensity of light sources facing the screen are barely reduced, so any lamps or windows opposite the screen are visible and distracting. 

There's only some minor black level raise in a room with ambient lighting, so you still get deep blacks with your lights turned on.

The total reflected light of this TV is sub-par. You easily see reflections on your screen during dark scenes when viewed in a bright room, and there's some obvious light banding present, which is distracting.

The TV has sub-par color saturation when used in a well-lit room. There’s barely any difference with the vibrancy of colors whether you’re in a dark room or a bright one, although darker colors look slightly more washed out. Still, the TV has limited color volume to begin with, so colors lack vibrancy regardless of your lighting conditions.

The Samsung DU7200D has a mediocre viewing angle, so it's not suitable for a wide seating arrangement. It's not too bad from a slight angle, but there's significant gamma shifting, color shifting, and color washout that worsens the further you move to the sides of the screen.

The TV has mediocre gray uniformity overall. There's some dirty screen effect towards the center of the screen, and the sides are quite a bit darker than the center. On a near-black screen, its uniformity is good, with only the sides and bottom edge being a bit lighter than the rest of the screen.

The TV uses a BGR (Blue-Green-Red) subpixel layout instead of the traditional RGB layout. This doesn't cause any issues for video or gaming content, but it can be a problem for PC monitor use as it impacts the text clarity, although not everyone notices this.

The panel doesn't use any KSF phosphor or Quantum Dot enhancement film to achieve better color separation, which contributes to its relatively narrow color gamut. 

The TV has HDMI 2.0 bandwidth on all three of its ports. It supports HDR10, HDR10+, and HLG, but it doesn't support Dolby Vision.

The TV has eARC support, which allows it to pass uncompressed high-quality audio from a connected source to your home theater system or soundbar. Unfortunately, it doesn't support any DTS formats that are commonly used on many Blu-rays.

7.1 channel LPCM only works with sources that allow you to manually override the EDID, like a PC. If you can't override the EDID, it's limited to 5.1.

The Samsung 65DU7200D looks pretty good for a cheaper model. Its bezels are thin enough that they don't stand out when watching the TV, but they aren't as thin as what you get from more premium models.

The TV uses a pair of plastic feet that can be adjusted into different positions depending on your needs. The narrow position (pictured above) brings the feet close together, which is great for smaller tables. You can also keep the feet close together and lower the height. If you're more worried about stability, you can widen the feet and set them to either a high or low position. In the higher position, the feet lift the TV about 3.54" above the table, so almost any soundbar fits underneath.

The footprint of the 65-inch stand is 40.28" x 10.5" in the wide position and 11.8" X 10.5" in the narrow position.

The back of the TV is made from plastic. All of the inputs are on the right side of the TV when facing the front, but they're in a recessed cutout that makes them quite hard to access if you have it wall-mounted. The back has grooves and a clip that can be attached to one of the feet to help with cable management.

The TV has alright build quality overall. It wobbles a bit when you're cleaning the screen, but it settles quickly and doesn't cause any issues. There's quite a bit of flex on the back panel that becomes more pronounced near the VESA mounting points, but it doesn't prevent you from wall-mounting it.

Unfortunately, our unit has a stuck pixel on the left side of the screen towards the middle.

The TV comes with the 2024 version of Samsung's proprietary Tizen OS but has a reduced feature set compared to more expensive models, so you don't get features like Samsung's Multi View.

Like most TVs, there are ads on the home screen. You can't disable them completely, although you can turn off targeted ads.

The TV comes with a simpler remote than the Samsung DU8000. It requires external batteries and lacks solar charging. It still has buttons for popular streaming services, but it doesn't have an integrated microphone for voice controls. Overall, a very simplistic but functional remote.

There's a single button underneath the Samsung branding on the right side of the TV. You can use it to turn the TV on/off, change channels, adjust the volume, and select inputs.

• Remote control (with 2x AAA batteries)
• Power cable
• Clip for cable management
• User guides

The TV has an alright frequency response. Like most TVs, deep bass is pretty much non-existent, but the sound is well-balanced at most volume levels. At maximum volume, the sound profile does become more unbalanced, but dialogue is still clear enough to understand. Unfortunately, the TV speakers don't get very loud.