55" KS9000 Curved SUHD - keep or upgrade

[Bald-Eagle22]

Guys , we have as our main TV a 55 KS9000 curved TV in our living room , about three years old now and a great tv .

We are looking at a larger bedroom tv and could possibly move the Sammy to the bedroom .

My question is how much better are 55 inch sets than three years now ? Don’t want to go any bigger in the living room but if an OLED screen or something else is far superior it might be an option to change the living room set into the bedroom .
Ta

 

[lucid]

... how much better are 55 inch sets than three years now ?

That depends a lot on the relative qualities of the TV you own now compared to any newer set.

Today's 55" TVs range in price from under £400 to over £2,500. If you have the disposable income, then there's tech available such as OLED which would be a significant step up from your edge-lit LED. Dropping a level, there are LED TVs where the lighting source is behind the panel rather than around the edges, and that lighting is split in to a grid where individual cells can be adjusted in brightness. The helps black levels and thus improves contrast as well as producing fewer uneven patches where the light spread is inconsistent. (Have a read up on FALD - Full Area Local Dimming)

There are some other tech' improvements too such as Dolby Video support (the highest level of HDR), eARC which is an improved version of HDMI ARC that adds support for DTS and HD audio formats.800 At the same time though, cheaper 55" TVs are now available but they make some significant compromises compared to your KS9000. The most noticeable for you would be screen brightness. Your KS9000 is said to be able to hit 1000 nits of brightness for HDR content. There are quite a few TVs up to and around the £800-£900 price mark that struggle to do 30% of that at max. That's bad coming from a set as potentially bright as yours. Potentially, everything on the new TV could look dull.

Subject to when you bought, the KS9000 could have been anything from £2000 to £900. If you're looking at say £1500 fo the new TV then I'd shortlist an LG C9 OLED. Where your budget is closer to £1200 then you'll be more in to LED TV territory. The Sony XG9505 is worth a look but you have to be aware that the panel it uses doesn't offer the same wide viewing angles as the KS9000. That means those sitting off-centre will see weaker colours.

 

[aoaaron]

OLED TV will destroy your KS9000 in PQ. Its avalilable as the budget B9 or the C9. It has superior PQ, gsync, lower input lag etc.

I'd say from an LCD perspective, TVs have significantly moved forward for your price range because you can now get a FALD from Samsung at 55''/65''. These new FALD sets have better contrast than your edge lit TV, better PQ and better viewing angles with new wide angled filters.

So whether you want to make the move to OLED for the infinite contrast ratio and pixel level precision of HDR and blacks, or stick with LED/LCD for the ease of use (no burn in issues) and higher peak brightness is really your call; but both offer significant upgrades.

My personal view is if the majority of your viewing is with the lights on, a lot of what makes an OLED amazing (the ridiculous contrast) can be lost with casual viewing, in which case pocketting the difference and getting a more durable LCD/LED might not the smarter shout; especially with the new wide angled viewing filters on LCDs.

If you are someone who watches the majority of their content in a dark room with the lights off, an OLED is in a class of its own with no real competition.


Regardles of which route you go, both will be excellent TVs and significant upgrades. You've also very sensibly timed your upgrade well as within 1 to 2 months, the new TV sets will come out so significant price drops will occur.

 

[Grim5]

^^ As per above, I would say Upgrade. The KS series is very outdated now. It features 3 edge lit dimming zones. Even mid range TV's now absolutely demolish the best KS model and next to OLED the KS tv's look very very cheap. I upgraded from my beloved KS8000 to a LG C9 and I was astounded, I never knew just how bad the KS was until I saw them side by side.

 

[SimonR]

I have not seen an OLED under £1500 that I would swap my KS7000 or KS9000 for. The overall gains maybe noticeable side by side, but for SD - > HD scaling and for general movie watching upto 4K the KS series is still one of Samsung's best panels ever. Dont rely on the specs rely on your eyes.

 

[Grim5]

Well I've had them side by side in my lounge - the KS8000 cannot compete in anything. Movies? the OLED has much better color contrast. Games? OLED has much better color contrast and HDR implementation. Sports? The OLED has much much much better motion handling, moving objects like balls on the KS8000 is a blurry mess even in Sport mode.

To the KS8000's benefit, it actually looks better in games than the best Samsung sells today - only because their FALD dimming algorithm is terrible and makes games look worse in game mode than their older TV's. Technically speaking the best Samsung TV for gaming today is the Q9F - everything Samsung has released since has hurt the picture quality

As for SD to HD upscaling, I wouldn't know sorry I stopped watching SD content several years ago and I don't watch free to air TV. Though I have tried 1440p to 4k upscaling and that works very impressively on my C9

 

[aoaaron]

I have not seen an OLED under £1500 that I would swap my KS7000 or KS9000 for. The overall gains maybe noticeable side by side, but for SD - > HD scaling and for general movie watching upto 4K the KS series is still one of Samsung's best panels ever. Dont rely on the specs rely on your eyes.

Its not specs.

OLEDs destroy the KSxxx series.

You dont need a side by side comparison to see it.

 

[hornetstinger]

Good quality SD to 4k looks good on my 65" c9 but that's from dvd. I tried some old xvid/divx and they look bad.

Depends on compression ratio if it's blocky as then it looks bad. But put on a good dvd Superbit and not it's very good

 

[aoaaron]

yeah i mean I just struggle to see how someone can not find the clear difference inquality from an OLED to an edge lit LCD.

My FALD (panny 902B) is obviously inferior to the LG OLED, forget some edge lit lcd.

 

[XeNoNF50]

OLED or FALD TVs you can't go wrong tbh. Totally up to you which way you go as they both have pros and cons.

Both way better than edge lit though.

 

[SimonR]

Its not specs.

OLEDs destroy the KSxxx series.

You dont need a side by side comparison to see it.

You are funny - Destroy, it’s not a game of Fortnight.

 

[aoaaron]

It might as well be with how badly edge lits look compared to OLEDs or good FALDs

You are funny - Destroy, it’s not a game of Fortnight.