Samsung TU8000  TV Review

The TV looks much better than most budget models. It looks similar to Samsung's entry-level TV in the QLED lineup, the Samsung Q60/Q60T QLED, except its borders are a slightly darker shade of gray. Overall, it has a simple and modern design with thin bezels.

Update 08/09/2023: The backlight on this TV has started to fail, giving it a noticeable blue tint. It's especially noticeable in the 50% gray uniformity slide, but it's noticeable in real content, too.

The Samsung TU8000 has a similar stand to the Samsung RU7100. The feet are inserted into the TV but aren't reversible. The stand supports the TV well, but there's still some wobble.

Footprint of the stand on the 55 inch TV: 40.2" x 9.9".

The back is plastic with a textured finish. There are clips on the feet for very basiccable management. The inputs face to the side and are easy to access.

The borders are very thin and aren't distracting.

This TV is decently built. It's made entirely of plastic, but it's sturdy, with just a bit of wobble. There are no obvious gaps between the panel and the edges of the TV.

The Samsung 8 Series has fantastic contrast, resulting in very deep blacks in a dark room. Unfortunately, there's no local dimming feature to improve contrast.

The Samsung TU8000 has mediocre peak brightness in SDR. There's very little variation in peak brightness, which is great, but small highlights in dark scenes are dimmed considerably by the TV's global dimming feature (also known as CE dimming, or frame dimming). Sadly, it's not bright enough to overcome glare in bright rooms.

These results are from after calibration in the 'Movie' Picture Mode, with Gamma set to '2.2', and Brightness at its max. These are the most accurate and the brightest settings available.

There's no local dimming feature. These videos are still filmed on the TV, though, to show you how the backlight performs and make it easy to compare it with a TV that has local dimming.

There's no local dimming feature on this TV. These videos are still filmed on the TV, though, so you can see how the backlight performs and compare it with a TV that has local dimming.

The Samsung TU8000 has poor HDR peak brightness. It's slightly less bright in HDR than in SDR, and again, small highlights in dark scenes are dimmed considerably by the TV's frame dimming. The EOTF doesn't follow the target curve very well, and most scenes are darker than the content creator intended. The roll-off near the TV's peak brightness is smooth, so there's no loss of fine details in bright scenes.

These measurements are with the 'Movie HDR' Picture Mode, with Gamma ST.2084 set to '0', and Contrast and Brightness at their max. The 'Movie HDR' Picture Mode, with Advanced Contrast Enhancer, Contrast, and Brightness at their max is a bit brighter, reaching a peak brightness of 344 cd/m² in the 10% window.

If you find HDR too dim, use the 'Movie HDR' Picture Mode with Advanced Contrast Enhancer, Contrast, and Brightness each at their max, and Gamma ST.2084 set to '+3'. This results in a noticeably brighter image, as you can see in this EOTF, but the TV's peak luminance is the same.

Most scenes are a bit brighter in 'Game' mode than out of it, but the TV's frame dimming is more aggressive, so small highlights in dark scenes are even darker than out of 'Game' mode.

The gray uniformity of this TV is just okay. The edges of the screen are noticeably darker, and there's visible dirty screen effect in the center, which is distracting when watching sports or browsing the web. Uniformity in near-dark scenes is much better, with no noticeable issues.

The TV has remarkable black uniformity, so dark scenes look uniform. There's a bit of clouding throughout the screen, but it's only noticeable in extremely dark scenes. Sadly, there's no local dimming feature to improve the uniformity, but it wouldn't change much in this case anyway.

Unfortunately, the Samsung 8 Series has disappointing viewing angles. The image fades and loses color accuracy as you move off-center, so it's not a good choice for a wide seating arrangement. If you have a wide seating arrangement or like to move around with the TV on, a TV with an IPS-type panel, like the Sony X800H, is a better choice.

This TV has decent reflection handling overall. It struggles a bit with direct reflections, though, so it's not for a room with lots of windows or bright lights. Due to its low peak brightness, it can't overcome glare in a bright room.

This TV has decent accuracy out of the box. Most colors have decent overall accuracy, but pure blues and reds are a bit off, and the color temperature is a bit warm, so there's a slightly reddish tint. The white balance is a bit worse, as most shades of gray are noticeably off. Gamma isn't flat, as dark scenes are a bit too dark and bright scenes are too bright.

After calibration, the overall accuracy of this TV is fantastic. The color temperature is very close to the 6500K target, and the white balance is nearly perfect. Unfortunately, colors are still a bit off, especially pure reds and blues.

You can see the recommended settings here.

480p content, like DVDs, is upscaled without any issues or artifacts.

720p content, including most cable TV channels, displays properly, with no signs of artifacts.

1080p content, like Blu-rays, looks almost as good as native 4k content.

Native 4k content displays without any obvious issues.

This is a 4k TV that doesn't support 8k content.

This TV uses a BGR subpixel layout, which causes text clarity issues when used as a PC monitor. You can read about it here.

This TV has an okay color gamut, but it can't display the full range of reds and greens used by most recent HDR content, including UHD Blu-rays. This results in less vivid colors and an overall less lifelike image.

The Samsung TU8000 has mediocre color volume. It displays dark, saturated colors well thanks to its high contrast ratio. It's limited by its incomplete coverage of the DCI P3 and Rec. 2020 color spaces, and bright saturated colors aren't as bright as pure white. Overall, colors are dull and muted.

The Samsung TU8000 has disappointing gradient handling. There's banding with all colors, and it's especially noticeable in darker shades. It's much worse than most comparable TVs, and the Noise Reduction setting doesn't improve it at all. The replacement to this TV, the Samsung AU8000, has much-improved gradient handling.

Unlike most VA panel TVs, there's temporary image retention on the Samsung TU8000 immediately after a static image is exposed, but it disappears quickly.

VA panels likely won't experience permanent image retention, as the VA panel in the long-term test appears immune.

The Samsung TU8000's response time is decent. There's some motion blur behind fast-moving content, but it's not very distracting. Unfortunately, there's noticeable image duplication due to the TV's low-frequency backlight flicker.

This TV uses pulse width modulation to dim its backlight, causing noticeable flicker at any backlight setting below 45. The flicker frequency decreases to 120Hz in 'Game' mode, and with Picture Clarity set to 'Auto', resulting in a noticeable image duplication in motion.

There's an optional backlight strobing feature, commonly known as black frame insertion, to help reduce persistence blur. Unfortunately, the flicker is always at 60Hz, and its timing is off, resulting in image duplication. Note that the score here is based only on the refresh rates supported by this TV's BFI feature, not how well the feature performs.

The Samsung TU8000 can interpolate lower frame rate content up to 60fps. Enabling it causes the backlight flicker frequency to decrease to 120Hz, causing duplications in motion.

There's not much stutter on this TV when displaying lower frame rate content.

This TV removes judder from any 24p source, like a Blu-ray player or an external streaming box with a 'Match Frame Rate' feature, like an Apple TV. It's important for smooth motion when watching low frame rate content, including movies. Sadly, it can't remove judder from sources that can only send a 60Hz signal, like cable boxes.

This TV has a native refresh rate of 60Hz, and it doesn't support any variable refresh rate (VRR) technology to reduce screen tearing. If you want a TV with a 120Hz refresh rate and VRR support, check out the Samsung RU9000.

The Samsung TU8000 has remarkably low input lag at all resolutions with Game Mode enabled, ensuring a responsive gaming experience. It's higher with motion interpolation enabled, but overall, it responds quickly to your inputs.

This TV supports most common resolutions at 60Hz. It displays chroma 4:4:4 signals properly at 1080p and 4k, which helps it render text clearly when using the TV as a PC monitor. To display chroma 4:4:4, set the input icon to 'PC' for the HDMI port in use.

This TV only supports the most basic formats supported by the PS5 and the Xbox Series X. It automatically switches to 'Game' mode on the Xbox, but it doesn't support advanced gaming features like variable refresh rate technology or 4k @ 120Hz gaming.

The Samsung TU8000 has eARC support, allowing you to send high-quality, uncompressed audio to a compatible receiver through an HDMI connection. Sadly, it doesn't support any DTS formats, which is disappointing, as many UHD Blu-rays use DTS for their lossless audio tracks.

The frequency response is decent. It has a well-balanced sound profile, which is important for hearing clear dialogue, but it doesn't produce much bass. It doesn't get very loud, and there are some compression artifacts when listening at its max level.

The distortion performance is sub-par. There's distortion at moderate listening levels, and it's more noticeable at its max volume.

The Samsung TU8000 comes with a simplified version of Tizen OS, with fewer animations and a simpler interface. The interface is clear and easy-to-use.

Like some other Samsung TVs, there's a bug with the overscan, but you can fix it by going into the aspect ratio menu and changing the settings to 16:9 and Fit to Screen.

There are ads and suggested content on the home page and the app store, and they can't be disabled.

Samsung's app store has a large number of apps, and they run smoothly for the most part. The built-in media player can play most common audio and video formats from a USB drive.

This TV comes with a new, sleeker-looking remote with more features than the one for the Samsung RU7100. It has quick-access buttons to Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Samsung TV Plus, and you can use it as a universal remote even with devices that don't support CEC. You can also use voice control to ask for most common demands, like switching the input, changing the brightness, or asking for the weather, but you can't use it to search for specific content within apps like Netflix.

There's a single button located beneath the front of the TV. It allows you to turn the TV On/Off and change channels, volume, or inputs.

• Remote control
• 2x AA batteries
• Quick setup guide
• Manual
• Cable management clips (not shown)