Samsung U8000F  TV Review

The Samsung U8000F has bad peak brightness in HDR. Although it's slightly brighter than the Samsung U7900F, it's still too dim to deliver an impactful HDR experience. Bright, specular highlights like the lamps in the hallway scene or the skyscraper in the cityscape don't stand out at all, and bright scenes look flat.

These measurements are in the Filmmaker Mode with 'HDR Tone Mapping' set to 'Static'. Below are the results with 'HDR Tone Mapping' set to 'Active', which doesn't do anything to increase peak brightness during most scenes.

• Hallway Lights: 249 cd/m²
• Yellow Skyscraper: 235 cd/m²
• Landscape Pool: 200 cd/m²

Switching to Game Mode slightly increases the peak brightness of some scenes, but it's not a noticeable difference. It's still far too dark to deliver an impactful HDR gaming experience. The TV's global dimming feature, also known as CE dimming, dims near-black scenes. This can't be disabled.

Results with 'HDR Tone Mapping' set to 'Active', which doesn't do much to increase peak brightness during most scenes. 

• Hallway Lights: 273 cd/m²
• Yellow Skyscraper: 245 cd/m²
• Landscape Pool: 218 cd/m²

The peak brightness in SDR is poor. It's not bright enough to overcome glare in a bright room, so it's best suited for a light-controlled environment or at night in a moderately lit room. The TV's global dimming feature, also known as CE dimming, dims near-black scenes. This can't be disabled.

The Samsung U8000F has poor contrast. The VA panel's native contrast is good enough for dark scenes with no bright areas, but since it lacks local dimming, the entire screen lights up and looks slightly washed out once there's a bright area in the scene. Still, it's better than some comparably priced competing models like the LG UA77.

There's no local dimming feature, so there are no lighting zones. This means there's no haloing around bright elements against a dark background or subtitles, but the entire image looks gray and washed out.

This TV doesn't have a local dimming feature, so it can't adjust the backlight of individual zones to brighten up highlights without impacting the rest of the image. This means that there are no distracting flickers or brightness changes as bright highlights move between dimming zones.

Switching to Game Mode has no impact on dark details.

The Samsung U8000F has very good black uniformity. Blacks aren't very deep when there's a highlight in the scene like the test cross here, but they are relatively uniform, with just a few cloudy patches throughout.

This TV has poor color volume in HDR. It can't display the full range of reds or greens at any luminance level, resulting in a narrow color gamut. It can't display the full range of colors that make up the BT.709 color space used by most SDR content, let alone much of the wider DCI-P3 or Rec.2020 color spaces used in HDR.

The HDR color volume is disappointing. It's limited by both the low peak brightness of the display and the narrow range of colors that it can show. Bright colors are dull and lifeless overall, and it can't display dark, saturated colors well, either.

This TV has excellent accuracy in SDR out of the box. The overall color accuracy and white balance are both great; there are just a few noticeable issues with saturated reds and blues. Gamma is a bit low, though, making everything slightly too dark. The color temperature is very close to the target.

The accuracy after calibration is fantastic, but it required a very aggressive calibration to achieve these results, and there are still some issues. Saturated reds and blues didn't improve much after calibration, but gamma, white balance, and the color temperature are nearly perfect.

See our full calibration settings.

The HDR accuracy before calibration is decent. There are noticeable mapping errors in all colors, but the white balance is great overall, with just a few issues in darker shades of gray. The color temperature is very cool, and it has a noticeable blue tint out of the box.

After calibration, the color accuracy in HDR is very good. However, it didn't improve much, as it's limited by the range of colors it can produce, so the color temperature is still quite cool. The white balance is fantastic, though, with just a few issues in very dark shades.

This TV has excellent PQ EOTF tracking. Most content tracks the creator's intent properly, but near-blacks are raised due to the low contrast ratio and lack of local dimming. There's a slight roll off near its peak brightness, preserving some gradients, but it's so dim that most bright details are lost. Content mastered at 4,000 nits performs a bit worse, as shadow details are raised a bit.

Unfortunately, this TV simply can't clean up low-quality content from streaming services. Macro blocking and pixelization artifacts are largely unchanged, but at least there's no loss of fine details.

This TV has decent upscaling, but the image looks a bit soft and small text can be hard to make out.

The Samsung U8000F has good gradient handling. There's some noticeable banding in dark shades of gray and green, but it's not too bad.

The Samsung U8000F has very low input lag, which helps deliver a more responsive gaming experience. Unlike most TVs, the input lag is relatively low even outside of the dedicated Game Mode, so if you want to enable a few of the extra processing modes, you can do so without significantly increasing the latency.

Unfortunately, this TV doesn't support refresh rates above 60Hz with any resolution. Chroma 4:4:4 signals are displayed properly, which helps with clear text from a desktop PC.

This TV supports all three types of VRR, but it's not very effective. Due to its low maximum refresh rate, the refresh rate range isn't wide enough to work with Low Framerate Compensation (LFC), so you'll see tearing if your framerate drops below 48Hz. 

Unfortunately, this TV has a slow response time at the maximum refresh rate of 60Hz. It's especially bad in transitions from a very bright to very dark shade or vice-versa. Motion is blurry and it's hard to make out fine details.

This TV doesn't support a 120Hz refresh rate.

Unfortunately, this TV has a slow 60Hz response time. This is especially bad during transitions from a very bright to very dark shade or vice versa. Motion is blurry, and it's hard to make out fine details.

This TV is a 60Hz TV, so it only supports 4k @ 60Hz on the P55. It has Auto Low Latency Mode (ALLM), so it'll automatically switch to Game Mode when it detects a game being played, which gives you the lowest possible input lag for games.

This TV only supports 4k @ 60Hz Xbox Series consoles. It has Auto Low Latency Mode (ALLM), so it'll automatically switch to Game Mode when it detects a game being played, which gives you the lowest possible input lag for games. It doesn't support Dolby Vision.

Unfortunately, there's noticeable stutter on this TV, especially in slow-panning shots.

Unfortunately, the motion interpolation feature on this TV is completely ineffective at reducing stutter. It interpolates the first frame correctly but then immediately introduces judder instead, creating a very inconsistent frame time.

Judder is automatically removed from external sources that send a true 24p or 25p signal like a Blu-ray player, or the native apps. Unfortunately, it can't remove any judder from 60Hz sources like most cable TV boxes and older streaming devices that lack a Match Frame Rate feature.

This TV is completely free from micro-judder with all 24p and 25p content, so motion in complex scenes is mostly smooth.

The Samsung U8000F has a very slow cinematic response time. While this helps to reduce stutter in low framerate content like movies, it introduces noticeable motion blur in fast content like sports.

This TV uses pulse-width modulation (PWM) to dim its backlight, which introduces flicker that can bother people who are sensitive to it. The amount of flicker varies depending on what picture mode it's set to and what settings you're using.

• Movie: 120Hz below a Brightness setting of '20'
• Filmmaker: always flickers at 120Hz
• Dynamic: 120Hz below a Brightness setting of '20'
• Standard: 120Hz below a Brightness setting of '20'
• PC Mode: 120Hz below a Brightness setting of '20'
• Game Mode: 120Hz below a Brightness setting of '20'

This TV supports backlight strobing, more commonly known as black frame insertion (BFI). The feature is designed to improve the appearance of motion by strobing its backlight and reducing the amount of persistence blur. The BFI feature flickers at 60Hz, and there's noticeable image duplication present.

The direct reflection handling on this TV is sub-par. Direct, mirror-like reflections are barely reduced in intensity, leading to an unpleasant viewing experience when you have bright lights or windows shining directly on the screen.

There's barely any noticeable increase in black levels when watching this TV in a bright room.

The total amount of reflected light is good overall. Bright lights are reflected back almost perfectly, but they're not spread out, and there are no noticeable diffraction artifacts.

The perceived color saturation in a bright room is mediocre. While ambient light has little impact on perceived color volume, it's low to begin with.

The Samsung U8000F has a mediocre viewing angle. The image degrades noticeably as you move off-center, as colors shift towards yellow due to the rapid shift in blue.

Unfortunately, the Samsung U8000F has mediocre gray uniformity. There are distracting dark bands on the sides of the screen, and the center is very patchy. It's slightly better in near-blacks, but the same issues are still noticeable.

This TV uses a BGR subpixel layout. It doesn't affect picture quality but can cause issues with text clarity in some applications when using it as a PC monitor. The SPD shows that it doesn't use quantum dot technology or a KSF phosphor, which explains the limited color volume.

This TV also has one of the most unusual panels we've ever seen. Each row of pixels is slightly shorter than expected for a 16:9 aspect ratio. When we place a 16:9 alignment grid over the pixels, it shows that it doesn't have the correct spacing. This difference is minor enough that it's not noticeable in real content, but it could be an issue for PC users.

This TV has a very limited selection of ports. All three HDMI ports are limited to HDMI 2.0 bandwidth, and along with the Samsung Q7F 2025, it's one of the only mainstream TVs released in 2025 that lacks an optical audio port.

This TV supports most Dolby Digital audio formats. Oddly, unlike other 2025 Samsung models, Dolby Digital Plus 7.1 passthrough works properly. Unfortunately, it doesn't support DTS formats, which is disappointing, as many Blu-rays use DTS for their lossless audio tracks.

Like all Samsung TVs, the Samsung U8000F doesn't support Dolby Vision, but it does support the similar HDR10+.

This TV looks okay, but it definitely has a less-premium design than higher-end Samsung models. The bezels are fairly thin, but there's a noticeable dead space between the sides of the screen and the first pixels.

The two feet are made of plastic and are set at the ends of the TV, with no alternative mounting position.

The footprint of the 70-inch stand is 44.0" x 10.2" x 2.9".

The inputs are housed in a central electronics box. Two of the inputs face straight out the back of the TV, so if you're planning on wall-mounting it you'll need a 90° adapter for the HDMI cables. Unfortunately, there's nothing to help with cable management.

This TV has mediocre build quality. The back of the TV is made of a cheap-feeling plastic, and it feels loose in the back. There are no significant issues with it except for the panel's odd aspect ratio.

The Samsung U8000F Series comes with the 2025 version of Samsung's proprietary Tizen OS but has a reduced feature set compared to more expensive models, so you don't get features like TV to Mobile or Ambient Mode+. The interface is a bit slow at times, but it's still easy to find content to watch. 

Like most TVs, there are ads on the home screen. You can't disable them completely, although you can turn off targeted ads.

• Remote control
• Power cable
• User guides

This TV has a mediocre frequency response. It can't get very loud, but the sound profile is well-balanced at moderate listening levels and dialogue is easy to understand.