Samsung UN55B7100 55" 120Hz LED HDTV Review

Picture Quality: Blu Ray & HD

All subjective testing was done with the settings mentioned on the last page in addition to a Sony Playstation 3 being used as the primary Blu Ray player. In this example, the screen captures you see are from Batman: The Dark Knight, hockey broadcasts and Transformers.

Please remember that no digital camera (Digital SLR or otherwise) is capable of accurately reproducing an image from a HDTV as the human eye would see it. As such, the pictures below are for illustration purposes only.


I had some seriously high expectations for this TV and once it was calibrated, it rewarded me with simply stunning picture quality. Color reproduction seemed for the most part to be spot on but I couldn’t confirm this due to a lack of professional measuring equipment. While it isn’t in the same price range, the overall saturation and overall “feel” of the UN55B7100’s picture outstrips that of the last set we reviewed: the Samsung LN55AB650. Considering I basically did cartwheels over the B650’s picture quality, my comments here are very high praise indeed for the B7100.


One of the best aspects of this TV is the near lack of motion blur and judder it exhibits when calibrated properly. The operative word here is “calibrated” since in its stock form, the B7100’s performance in high speed scenes is a bit of a train wreck. However, with Auto Motion Plus’ ability to customize individual settings really goes a long way in overcoming the limitations of today’s TVs.


Honestly, at first I was not too impressed with the overall black level performance this TV exhibited. The blacks looked to be absolutely perfect but after seeing the UN55B7100 next to the LN55AB650, the LED’s blacks were still deep but tended to shift slightly towards the bluish end of the spectrum. It isn’t noticeable when viewed alone but the difference is striking apparent when direct comparisons are made.

Another small issue I encountered was the fact that without extensive tweaking, contrast on this particular HDTV is extremely poor. I like deep blacks as much as the next guy but when a scene becomes an inky mess or overly bright I would start having doubts about my purchase. This TV actually displays both characteristics since the edge-lit panel uniformly adjusts its light output depending on the scene instead of being a bit choosey like the local-dimming LED LCDs. There was however a way around this: increase the Gamma setting to +2 which is something I haven’t needed to do on any other product. This actually acts as a double-edged sword since increasing the gamma will can also wash out brighter scenes as well. Basically, you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t.


While there may be some minor issues with the overall high-definition picture quality of the B7100, I have yet to find an LCD that didn’t come up a bit short in some areas. I would have to say that when it comes to HD content, this set is one of the better ones I have had the pleasure of watching especially considering the fact that I really had to strain to find anything to really critique about its performance. That pretty much wraps up HD movie performance, so let’s get on to gaming.