Samsung TVs

Tunney

Tunney

Tunney

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Joined
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Does anyone else feel that Samsung have lost their way? They used to produce reasonably priced TV of decent quality. Now they seem to be hell-bent on adding pointless gimmicks to everything.

Back story:

In 2012, I bought a 40" Samsung LCD TV. It's a fantastic set that ticks all of the boxes: good image quality, thin, aesthetically pleasing, good quality and logically laid-out remote, smart TV capabilities with all of the UK catch-up services (iPlayer, ITV Player, 4oD, 5 Demand). The smart TV UI wasn't the best and WiFi performance was occasionally flakey but generally the TV worked great.

When it was time to buy a new TV for another room, we decided to go with another Samsung. Unfortunately, the 2014 40" is terrible. My main gripe is that they've attempted to reinvent the remote control. The TV came with two remotes. One is so cheap and nasty that wouldn't look out of place next to a £20 Chinese DVD player. The other is a Wii-mote style device that lacks a number pad. The fancy remote is unreliable (you have to get close for the on-screen pointer to appear) and forces you to use an on-screen keypad to enter channel numbers. It's an utter mess.

And somehow Samsung have screwed up their smart TV software even worse than it was before. WiFi performance is so flakey that it's unusable. Even over ethernet, 4oD looks blocky and horrible. Almost everything else about the TV is worse than the 2012 model.

I sometimes wonder if Samsung does any usability testing.

/rant over :p
 
Sammy used to be a joke then became big (CRT days) but yes many of them today still have bad caps.

There is better TV's.
 
Samsung are trying to maintain their position as volume leader amongst the A-tier brands (Sony, Pana etc).

10-12 years ago they put a fox in the hen house and caused all sorts of commotion trying to out-do the Japanese at their own game. Offering bigger screens, more features, lower prices etc they managed to wrestle in to the top spot, but it nearly crippled the TV division financially to the point that the head of the company's tech division said if they didn't return to profit within 18 months that he'd pull the plug. In the meantime there have been other casualties in the TV industry - Fujitsu (father of Plasma), Pioneer (out and out the premium consumer brand plasmas), Philips (sold off their TV arm to a 3rd party manufacturer), JVC (now making budget sets only), Hitachi (now more of a badge engineered product), as well as Toshiba, Sharp, Thomson and and and ... all brands that are a shadow of their former selves. Even Sony, a once premiere brand responsible for some outstanding R&D and some great TVs as a result is now mostly a marketing company.

Samsung's chickens have come home to roost. A big class action law suit in the States over bad caps hurt the brand both financially and in reputation. The incessant drive for new models, bigger screens and more toys is still the companies main objective. They've partly sussed and partly manufactured a situation where consumers replace TVs far earlier now than ever before. So quality and reliability no-longer really matter. So, your observations are correct and this is the reason why.
 
Panasonic I am sad to say have released units in 2014 which are Vestel and that is the final nail in the coffin for me when a brand as big as Panasonic have done this. Same with Toshiba, Sharp, Hitachi (Sold exclusively by Argos under Vestel), JVC etc

I think only Sony (Who's boards are made by Foxconn NOT Sony and their PSU's are made by Darfon) LG and Samsung have not strayed the way of the others by opting to have Vestel manufacture their cheaper sets.

Believe me, if you think electrolytic caps bubbling is bad after a number of years, you should see the problems Vestel have had over the years. And plenty more to come I should add, as it's getting worse.
 
Yep. Got two Samsung and both are useless.
Up stairs is newer. The blacks are good. But dark seems basically show nothing to the point its unmatchable. Playing with balances/settings does not improve it at all. Gave up in the smart functionality. WiFi kept forgetting the password. Even on cable the actual o's is rubbish.

Downstairs is much older, blacks are light grey and ghosting is horrific.

Don't really want to upgrade till oled is cheaper and more mainstream and also till I move house, see what size I can get away with then.
 
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I've yet to see a Samsung I liked, it seems everyone has washed out colours with inferior blacks.

I really dislike Samsung TVs, even the top end ones I've never seen and thought 'Wow'
 
I'm no TV expert but have had numerous experiences with them without any problems. Also monitor is Samsung but will probably upgrade it sometime in future
 
I have a 40" Samsung TV bought back in 2010 which I'm still using. It's fairly decent.

My absolute biggest gripe though? It won't pass through the sound to an external speaker when using and HDMI mode.

Not sure if this is just a Samsung thing but it winds me up. The TV can output sound to an external speaker for any other source, so why is HDMI excluded? Makes using multiply HDMI devices with external speakers and a pain in the backside.
 
By the sounds of it… Most of you are complaining about the £200 - £500 sets, right? Since I see a lot of 4x" mentioned.
 
They are not a Tier one TV company for quality but do sell the most with is what Joe Public wants.

I would not buy a Sammy again never mind the £1500-2000 models.

I have never owned a £500 TV TBH, all are well over £1000's even back in the CRT days and the thing is that Mitsubishi CRT is still running as good as new.
 
I was all set to get a Samsung h6500, but I fancied a change so went for a Sony w905.

Cant say I have ever been disappointed with the Samsung tv I currently own, apart from the fiddling around getting motion settings to how I want.
 
I've had a UE48H6400 for a few weeks and it's awesome. The funky smart remote thing is actually really good for flicking through the menus etc while the other remove is the same as all other Samsung remotes of the past ~5 years, not exactly pretty but very nice to use. The wifi and smart features work well and I've not had issues with it at all, though I don't really use it much as I have a HTPC. The picture is fantastic with great colours and fantastic black levels, some of the best I've seen on an LCD/LED. To top it all off 3D works great and the glasses are cheap. Don't really get what the problem is? If fact the only down side is the shiny stand, but that's not exactly a deal breaker!

Also got a cheapo 32" Samsung 2013 4 series, forget the exact model, in my bedroom and that's good enough for what it is too. Picture is nice and crisp with decent enough black levels.

What model is your new 40"? Maybe you're just expecting too much from a cheap TV?
 
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dbmzk1 said:
What model is your new 40"? Maybe you're just expecting too much from a cheap TV?
Click to expand...

I'm talking about the 40" model of yours - the UE40H6400. The 2012 model I refer to is the UE40ES6800.

The UE40ES6800 is a better TV in every respect apart from picture quality and even then it's hardly noticeable.

EDIT: remembered another thing that annoys me about the UE40H6400 - a lot of the inputs are on the back of the TV. Only HDMI 1 + 2 are flat on the side. Makes a lot of the inputs hard to use if you wall-mount the TV since they poke directly out of the back.
 
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Tunney said:
EDIT: remembered another thing that annoys me about the UE40H6400 - a lot of the inputs are on the back of the TV. Only HDMI 1 + 2 are flat on the side. Makes a lot of the inputs hard to use if you wall-mount the TV since they poke directly out of the back.
Click to expand...

There is such a thing as right angled HDMI leads and adaptors for this very reason.....
 
V F said:
By the sounds of it… Most of you are complaining about the £200 - £500 sets, right? Since I see a lot of 4x" mentioned.
Click to expand...

The one I use frequently, was above £2k. It's rubbish, but hey you can turn it off by talking to it. Well, when I say talk I mean repeatidly shout "TV OFF".

Has all sorts of great 'features' that were used once.
 
Begbie said:
The one I use frequently, was above £2k. It's rubbish, but hey you can turn it off by talking to it. Well, when I say talk I mean repeatidly shout "TV OFF".

Has all sorts of great 'features' that were used once.
Click to expand...

Would that be the UE ES 8000 or something like that by any chance?
 
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