Samsung KS9000 TV Review

The Samsung KS9000 pleases the eyes with its high end look and thinness. The materials it's made of all seems to be of high quality. From its chrome stand to its thin metal borders and even its textured back, this TV is sure to look great in any room. It has the same overall look as the Samsung KS9500 minus the curved screen. 

The stand of the TV has a nice chrome finish. It has a fairly large footprint and goes a long way toward the back of the TV. It could not be ideal if you want the TV to lay against a wall.

Footprint of the 55" TV stand: 33.9" x 15"

Even the back of the TV is both sleek and attractive with its textured finish. A cover that is included with the TV hides the back inputs that won't be in the way to wall mount the TV.

The borders of the TV are thin and have a nice metal polish to them.

It is reported that the 75" variant of this TV has thicker borders.

Very thin from a 90 degree angle. The bottom part of the TV is thicker. The maximum thickness measurement include the horizontal metal looking plastic border that goes across the back of the TV.

Impressive black level and very high native contrast ratio. This result in a picture that pop in most content, even on dark scenes. Top and bottom black bars in movies nearly doesn't emit light which is good.

The local dimming feature on the KS9000 doesn't work very well. It does darken the blacks but some small highlights too like the dot in our test video. Although it isn't that much apparent in the video, local dimming sometimes creates big vertical blooming areas on big highlights depending on the scenes. It is more noticeable in person. For this test, we set local dimming ('Smart LED') to 'High'. A TV with a full array backlight can produce much better results.

The KS9000, like the curve KS9500 has a good SDR peak brightness performance and is, whit the rest of the KS Series, one of the brightest TV of 2016. Unlike other TV that is less bright when outside of HDR mode, the KS9000 is almost as bright when watching standard content like TV shows.

Very impressive and similar results to the Samsung KS9500. Highlights can get extremely bright and as a whole the screen can also maintain a high level of brightness. As the KS9500, brightness vary on a static screen but is not a problem on regular content. On the downside, very bright highlights can create big blooming areas. We used local dimming ('Smart LED') set to 'High' to get as high peak brightness.
Update: Updated with sustained brightness.

The left and right edges are darker and top and bottom brighter. Compared to most LED TVs, the gray uniformity on the Samsung KS9000 isn't a big issue with no obvious banding problem occurring on camera pans over playing fields of uniform color.

At an angle, colors shift and blacks appear less deep. This is a common issue for LED TVs of this type (VA) but we have seen worse viewing angle.

Very faint clouding spots that won't ruin even the darkest scenes. Good black uniformity performance.

Nearly perfect gradient. Some very minor irregularities in the darker red band but nothing that can be seen in regular content. Fine level of colors overall.

Very low white balance and color dE which results in an excellent out of the box state.

Like other Samsung TVs, calibration went smoothly and helped reduce both white balance and color dE to a very low level.

The Samsung KS9000 can produces a great picture even with low resolution content like DVDs or SD channels.

Cable is also looking very sharps on the KS9000.

Blu-rays and other 1080p content looks very good once upscaled. No details is lost and the final image looks very good.

4k UHD Blu-rays and streaming content looks gorgeous with all its fine details well displayed.

Good coverage of colors in DCI P3 and fair score for the Rec 2020 colorspace. This TV is able to produce very deep colors and HDR content benefit from this.

The KS9000 has a similar color volume to Samsung's top 2016 models. It can produce very bright saturated colors but performs worse than some other TVs in dark scenes.

The screen of the KS9000 does reflect lights but less than most other TVs. Even in a bright room the picture of the KS9000 stays visible.

There are TVs with faster response time but there is no big issues with how the KS9000 handles motion. Not much blur can be seen in fast action scenes. In the picture, only a faint trail is following the moving logo.

No special settings needed to remove judder from 24p sources although to get the same result on 60i and 60p content, 'Auto Motion Plus' has to be set to 'Custom' with both sliders set to 0. This doesn't add the soap opera effect.

Motion Interpolation can be activated with the 'Auto Motion Plus' setting. This will work for all sources up to 60 fps.

Very low 1080p input lag which is great. The responsiveness you get from controller inputs nearly can't be felt. Players that like first person shooter, racing or combat games will like gaming on the KS9000. Unfortunately, motion interpolation ('Auto Motion Plus') bring the input lag too high to consider using that option. When sending and HDR signal at 1080p resolution under game mode, the input lag is 22.6ms.

Except for 1080p @ 120Hz, the KS9000 doesn't have problems with most PC inputs. To get 4k @ 60Hz @ 4:4:4, 'HDMI UHD Color' has to be turned on. For 4:4:4 in other resolutions, just edit the HDMI input to 'PC' (hover the current HDMI input used from the input list and press up on the remote, then 'Edit' and select 'PC').

The TV supports 5.1 passthrough for Dolby Digital and DTS, but it is necessary to select the correct audio type in the sound settings, since it doesn't change automatically.

Good frequency response. The low-end cutoff and maximum loudness are decent, for a TV. However, at higher volumes, there is pumping and compression present.

Poor distortion results. Although there is no dramatic rise in distortion as the volume increases, but the overall level of distortion at all levels, is elevated.

YouTube, Netflix and other popular apps are available and menu navigation is straightforward. As a whole, the smart platform presentation is neat compared to what Samsung had to offer in 2015.

Sporting the new Samsung 2016 smart platform, the Samsung KS9000 offer a good experience with most of the popular apps at the disposal. Menu navigation is straightforward although a remote with a pointer would have helped for text input. The KS9000 offers plenty of inputs, more than enough for most home setups.

When a new device is detected (such as when a computer is woken from sleep while plugged into an HDMI port) the TV automatically switches to this device. This may be an annoyance if you are watching other content at the time.

Even if it comes at a premium, the KS9000 still has ads on the home screen.

A button that offers basic TV controls such as changing inputs, volume and turning the TV on and off, is located underneath the Samsung logo on the front of the TV. It can be accessed when the TV is wall mounted.

For the most part, the minimal remote is sufficient but at times can be hard to use in the dark since not all buttons have tactile feedback. It also doesn't work as a pointer which can make text input a little awkward.

- Remote
- Batteries
- Wall mount adapters
- One Connect box with cable
- Cable management accessories
- Manuals