Samsung in the US has made a second entry into the UHD market with a series of ultra high definition TV sets, the 4K version of UHD, dubbed the F9000 line. It will offer 55 inch and 65 inch devices with pre-order starting July 21 in Korea and the US. These devices will include both voice and gesture controls.
The 55 inch device will retail for $5,500 and the 65 inch for $7,500 to ship in August. Samsung entered the technology with an 85 inch device earlier in the year which retails for $40,000, and this is the first attempt at genuinely affordable UTVs for the mass market from Samsung.
There was a lot of hype from Samsung in talking about revolutionizing the TV experience, in the announcement but presumably to unseat the early entry Sony made into the UHD market, by shifting the goalposts.
In May Sony added three new 4K TVs with a 55 inch model at $5,000 and 65 inch for $7,000 and an 84 inches for $25,000, so it looks like Samsung thinks its devices are worth a $500 premium on the Sony devices.
The new design uses Samsung’s proprietary Quadmatic Picture Engine, a four-step process including signal analysis, noise minimization, UHD up-scaling and detail enhancement so that it upconverts SD, HD or Full HD content to UHD picture quality. Both the TV and its software can be upgraded to be compatible with future UHD standards with a separate Evolution Kit.
The new models feature Samsung Smart TV, which has its proprietary search S Recommendation and the new Smart Hub interface, which organizes content into what’s on TV, Movies and TV Shows, Social, Apps as well as Photos, Videos and Music. Samsung has added something called Smart Interaction, using hand gestures or voice commands to navigate the TV
It has its usual LED Precision Black Local Dimming technology, for high contrasts and also features Micro Dimming Ultimate, which adds some new algorithms to enhance contrasts. The F9000 series comes with 3D technology as well as built-in Wi-Fi and an embedded camera for video conferencing and a quad-core processor. It looks like no-one told Samsung that 3D was a flop.