Samsung PN60F8500 60″ 1080p 600Hz 3D Smart Plasma HDTV Review

Samsung’s F8500 Series is considered and is proven by consumers, enthusiasts, and reviewers, as one of the best plasma TVs ever made. The PN60F8500 is a 2013 model held over to this years 2014 line-up and currently is noted as the best plasma TV still in production. And once you’ve had the opportunity to see this TV in action, I believe you would definitely agree.

Design/ Features

The F8500 is a very handsome HDTV featuring a slim and trim metal flow titan black bezel, but what’s even more attractive in my opinion is the beautiful “bowed” stand design which is also showcased in titan black.

This TV is absolutely loaded with features; which personally I like to see in my electronic devices even though I may never use all of them. As for the F8500, I will comment on some of its main features in this review.

What helps give this display its awesome picture quality is Samsung’s Super Contrast Panel which contains the sets Real Black Pro filter. Together, these two elements bring you superb brightness and contrast, and outstanding black-level reproduction. This panel also reduces screen reflections by absorbing room light and keeps it from being refracted back out into your viewing environment.

Samsung’s Smart Hub is an excellent smart TV platform. There are five main pages consisting of Apps, On TV, Movies & TV Shows, Photos, Videos and Music and Social. These pages give you access to all available apps. Controlling these apps is done with the touchpad remote, voice recognition via the remote and hand gestures.

The F8500 is 3D capable and is supplied with four pairs of active 3D glasses. This set also provides 2D to 3D conversion. Personally, I don’t care much for this function on any 3D capable TV, and in my opinion, the results aren’t very good when compared to normal 3D viewing.

Remote Control

The supplied remote is a TouchPad design and has universal functionality to control your TV, cable/satellite boxes, Blu-ray player and other devices.

The remote features voice recognition for control of TV functions including volume and channel change. You can also control the Smart Hub with your voice and access your favorite apps like Netflix and YouTube and many more.

Connection Ports

• 4 HDMI
• 1 component
• 1 composite shared with component
• 3 USB
• 1 optical digital audio out
• 1 Ethernet
• 1 RF input for antenna/cable

Performance

Viewing the PN60F8500 was a sheer pleasure to experience… the picture was absolutely outstanding and delivered some of the best plasma TV picture images I have ever seen. There are only two other plasma displays that deliver equal or better picture quality in my opinion… they are the Panasonic VT and ZT Series.

Two of my favorite characteristics of all plasma displays are the very natural and smooth-looking images they produce, and the F8500 definitely had this characteristic in abundance.

The black levels on this set were simply outstanding. For example, when I viewed white text against a black background, the blacks were very deep and inky, which contrasted well with the white text. Shadow detail was also excellent.

The display’s brightness was above average for plasma TVs and can compete with many LED/LCD TVs in screen brightness.

The images I viewed contained excellent detail, depth and clarity. The images also contained very good textures and were well refined.

Colors were vibrant and well saturated and added to the realistic look of the images displayed on this set.

Conclusion

Samsung’s F8500 Series will go down in history as one of the best plasma TV line-ups ever made. And the PN60F8500 has rightly earned this spot with its incredible picture performance and fully loaded feature suite.

As most of you already know, all plasma HDTVs will eventually be phased out of production. However, in the meantime, there are still plenty of TVs available including the awesome 60″ F8500 reviewed here.

So if you’re in the market for the best plasma HDTV still readily available, look no further. And have a good look at the PN60F8500. It may still be a bit pricey compared to other similar sets, but in my opinion, it’s worth the extra cash. Highly recommended.

I would like to hear your comments regarding this remarkable HDTV display.

You may also like Samsung’s PN64H5000 plasma HDTV.