Samsung JS9500 TV Review

The Samsung JS9500 looks and feels like a high-end TV. It is quite heavy and thick, due to its full array local dimming backlight. The stand, too, is quite stable, given the weight of the TV.

Dimensions of 65" TV stand: 41.75" by 15".

Turning on the local dimming didn't change our contrast ratio measurement at all (we measure it on a checkboard pattern). The native contrast on this TV is only average.

The local dimming is quite responsive, but there is some noticeable blooming around bright objects.

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Given the same HDR footage, the difference between how well two TVs display HDR content is based on how wide of a dynamic contrast range they can display. To test this, we display a 2% white window and put the backlight and local dimming to the max. We then measure how bright that rectangle is.

We measured 726.7 cd/m² on the Samsung UN65JS9500, which is quite bright. You can see a big blooming area around it though, but at least the edges of the screen are completely turned off.

Of course, this test is far from perfect. When the HDR format gets standardized in a few months, we will update the review with a more meaningful test.

Unfortunately, the gray uniformity isn't very good. You can see a few darker spots and edges. Curved TVs tend to have worse uniformity than their flat equivalent.

Like all VA panels, the colors are not the same when you sit at an angle. You will need to watch in front to appreciate this TV's picture quality.

Update 01/06/2017: We have changed the methodology of testing. Since this is an old TV which we don't have anymore, we extrapolated the results from 2016 TVs.

The black uniformity is average. Turning on the local dimming feature helps a little bit to hide this issue, but you can still see some clouding in some dark scenes.

The white balance isn't far off from the pre-calibration.

The colors don't get much better than this TV once it has been calibrated.

This TV doesn't have any problem upscaling lower-resolution content, DVDs looks good and not too soft.

Cable content looks also very good and is not too soft either.

The 1080p upscaling is good. It looks the same as on the cheaper 4k Samsung TVs.

Note that to get the full benefit of 4k, you'll need to watch genuine 4k material, and also sit close enough to the TV to see the extra detail. We talk about this in more detail here.

Selecting 'Native' as the color space increases the gamut quite noticeably. It is still far from the full Rec. 2020, though.

The glossy screen does a great job at reducing reflected ambient light. However, direct lights are more defined, and also have a rainbow glare around them.
It can get very bright. It is great for a bright room - unless you have a window right in front of the TV. The reflection will be quite defined, which is distracting.

The 3D is good. A little bit of crosstalk, but nothing noticeable during normal scenes.

The JS9500 has very little motion blur. We measured an average response time of 15.6ms, which is quite good. You won't have any problem in sports or video games.

Watching movies over a Blu-ray player in 24p has no judder, but you might see some when watching movies over a 60p or 60i source, because it can't always do the reverse 3:2 pulldown (sometimes it works, but not always). 'Auto Motion Plus' gets rid of this, but it comes with the soap opera effect.

In game mode, the input lag is very low. PC mode has a higher input lag of 56.6 ms, which is a bit unfortunate if you want chroma 4:4:4.

It doesn't support 1080p @ 120fps, which is a bit of a shame, considering this is Samsung's best TV. To get 4k @ 60Hz @ 4:4:4, you must enable both PC mode and UHD Color.

The One Connect box is quite big. It also has a fan inside, which produces a little bit of noise.

There are only two connections on the TV: the AC power and the One Connect. Everything must go through the One Connect box.

The low-end cut off is excellent for a TV, and it gets loud too. However, the frequency response suffers at higher volumes, most likely due to pumping.

The distortion is good at very low listening levels, but it becomes significant as the volume increases.

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Samsung's smart platform is really good, and the included remote is likewise pretty great. It includes voice and motion controls, so navigation is pretty simple.

Unique to Samsung's and Sony's smart offerings is the 'Playstation Now' game streaming feature. If you connect a DualShock 4 controller to this TV, you'll be able to subscribe to a game streaming service that offers old PlayStation games, playable directly from your TV.

The included remote, which doubles as a cursor pointer, is useful for navigating the smart features. The only downside is the lack of number pad directly on it.