Samsung does seem to have pulled its finger out over its Evolution Kit for smart TVs from 2012 onwards, while also slashing the price in response to complaints over that. So while the headline news is that Samsung has now made its Evolution Kit 2013 available across all markets after its April kick-off in South Korea, the real story is that it has largely succeeded in rebuffing critics who accused it of being an over-priced and clunky fudge.
Cutting the price from €500 to €300 did a lot to allay criticism on that front, while last minute refinements to the module coupled with growing exposure to comprehensive tests have helped convince reviewers that it really does represent a substantial upgrade. Of course the final verdict will be delivered by consumers and to some extent it will be a subjective judgment as to whether the kit really does deliver essentially a new TV or merely enables it to continue participating in an evolving connected TV world. Earlier criticisms had highlighted the kit’s lack of ability to upgrade the picture quality, but that was missing the whole point, which was to bring the lifespan of the smart TV processor into line with the display unit. After all in the past a TV did not lose any meaningful functionality with age and was replaced only when the display eventually failed, which with modern flat screens is often after a decade or more.
But in any case it is not entirely true that the Evolution Kit does not upgrade the display. Of course the kit cannot change the display technology, by upgrading conventional LED to OLED (organic light-emitting diode) for example, or making the TV at a stroke ultra HD capable. But a significant part of picture quality now comes down to processing and here the TV Evolution Kit does score.
The key point here is that the Evolution Kit itself is not just a firmware update but total replacement for the CPU, comprising quad core chipsets that run all the software, also incorporating new video processing algorithms. As such the current kit has improved execution of SD up-scaling to HD as well as enabling better handling of motion and more sophisticated color handling. Even experts, never mind average consumers, would be hard pushed to tell that these quality improvements had nothing directly to do with the display.
The kit also delivers the expected updates, such as replacing the 2012 menus with the new multi-hub menus of Samsung’s 2013 TVs. These support Samsung’s new Recommendations system, where the TV learns your viewing habits and makes viewing recommendations based on it, so the effect here is more of upgrading the service rather than the TV itself.
Among other improvements are more advanced voice and gesture controls, along with a new touchpad-based remote enabling a pop-up shortcut menu. In functionality the kit does fully convert the 2012 into the 2013 model and Samsung has also paid some attention to physical design in order to minimize its visual impact. The kit is a lot larger than the average dongle or for that matter PCMCIA upgrade card, measuring 127 mms wide x 91 high and 16 deep. It is at least handsomely finished to make it look like a desirable consumer device in its own right rather than just a bolt on. The greatest remaining criticism concerns the upgrade process itself, with the kit being hard to attach and causing some artifacts on the screen before it settles down. Perhaps these will have been ironed out in the 2014 version.