240 IS GO! Samsung lights up the sides and slides into 240 Hz with the svelte UN46B8000.

This thing is gorgeous, and I haven’t even turned it on yet. Über-thin—I think it’s two dimensional.

Amazingly, the attractiveness of this set is only one of its claims to fame.

Get Ready

The UN46B8000 uses LED side lighting, which means that the LEDs that create the light you see are on the sides of the TV and aim inwards. They shoot across a dimpled plastic surface that directs the light towards your eyeballs. Most laptops work on the same principle. While you concede a tiny bit in the width of the display (hardly noticeable), you gain a lot more in an almost total lack of depth. OLED, eat your heart out. (It is not, however, an "LED TV")

Unlike other LED “backlit” displays, side lighting doesn’t let you have local dimming. You can dim the entire backlight, much like you could on older LCDs. On the flip side, you get much lower power consumption, as there are far fewer LEDs to light.

Though not Samsung’s first 240 Hz display, the UN46B8000 does represent, to me at least, a big step forward in flat-panel design. The 8000 combines stunning thin looks, lower power consumption and the latest, increased refresh technology that is sure to represent what we’ll see in many TVs in the coming years. So, sure it's a sign of things to come, but how does it do now?

Launch

For as long as I can remember, Samsung TVs have made a little chime when you turn them on. It always sounded cheap, belying the quality of the display. This finally has changed. The five-note chime now has a decent timbre and sounds quite elegant, matching the look and feel of the set.

The same thoughtfulness extends to the remote, which I will go on record as saying is the best remote to come with any consumer electronics product I can remember. For one thing, it’s RF (radio frequency), so you don’t have to aim it at the TV. You don’t even have to be in the same room. Its design complements the TV, and not only does it have a backlight, but a built-in light sensor that automatically turns on the backlight when you need it. If that weren’t enough, the 8000 comes with a second remote, a tiny egg that only does volume, channel and power. You know, for kids (and by "kids" I mean "adults").

Like other Samsung TVs, the 8000 auto-senses when there is a device plugged into the TV, so the input menu gives you these first, making switching between sources easier. Once you see this in action, it makes you to wonder why every TV doesn’t have this feature.
    
Setup menus are typical Samsung, as in there are a lot of them, and they’re thorough and easy to navigate. There are plenty of options for the tweaky to tweak (read: me). If you press the Info button on the remote, it tells you the input and resolution of the incoming source and a little power meter that tells you how efficient the TV is with your current settings. Brilliant. I love the little things.

The Burn

Feel free to dial back the backlight. At full bore, the 8000 puts out a toasty 90 foot-lamberts. At a backlight setting of 0, it’s a perfectly watchable 18 ft-L. Regardless of backlight setting, the contrast ratio was very punchy—among the best I’ve seen in a non-local dimming LCD. Black level, at the lowest backlight setting, was an excellent 0.002; though, if you wait a moment, it goes completely dark as the LEDs shut off. This makes the full-on/full-off contrast ratio measurement rather meaningless, as the 0 ft-L the TV is capable of putting out is never really achieved with actual video material.

Part of the issue is the Dynamic Contrast feature, which monitors the incoming video signal and decreases the backlight to match. When there’s a dark image on screen, the backlight drops, making the scene seem darker. I’m not a huge fan of this technology, but it helps a little. Occasionally you can see it working and pulsing; while it seems like you can turn it off in the menu, it's always working a little bit. At its "off" setting, it's not intrusive.

Color accuracy, as is typical with Samsung LCDs, was very good. Each color was a touch oversaturated, but not enough that most people would notice.

The real do-dad worth spending some time playing with is the Auto Motion Plus 240Hz. This is where you can adjust the amount of motion interpolation being done by the set to get the 24 or 60 frames-per-second video to display on this 240 Hz TV. This can range from Off, which has the TV repeat frames (including a 10:10 pulldown with 24p sources), to Smooth, which creates frames very different from those in the source.

There’s also a clever Custom option that lets you dial in the amount of Blur Reduction (always a good thing), though the additional nine steps didn't seem to do much more than step one and the amount of Judder Reduction (personally not a fan, your mileage may vary).

I left the AMP240Hz in the Off setting, though there should be enough settings for you to find a compromise you like between motion blur and overly smooth motion interpolation. If you like the added smoothness of significant motion interpolation, the AMP240Hz set to Smooth is exactly as the name implies.    

I will say, regardless of the setting, I had a difficult time noticing any motion blur. Hallelujah. The level of detail was excellent with both DVD and HD sources, and it is capable of reproducing a 1-pixel on/1-pixel off pattern in the Screen Fit mode with both HDMI and component.
    
On the processing side, the UN46B8000 picks up the 3:2 sequence with 480i and 1080i sources with both HDMI and component. It also does an excellent job minimizing jagged edges on diagonal lines with DVD material, and pulling a lot of detail from SD sources. All in all, it does an excellent job on the processing side of things.

One fault I had with the 8000 was poor uniformity. With a fully, or even partially black image, the screen appears blotchy, with small areas that are lighter than the rest of the screen. This is especially noticeable with fully black screens like credits, but it’s also noticeable in dark movies like Batman Begins. Not a deal breaker, though I can imagine some picky customers noticing this and thinking there is something wrong with their TV. Off-axis also isn’t great, but it’s better than some LCDs I’ve reviewed. Still, those sitting off to the side in your room will get a somewhat washed-out image compared to the lucky ones in the middle.

5, 4, 3, 2, 1…

The UN46B8000's stunning good looks are matched by a user experience significantly better than any competitor, with excellent performance and the promise of lower power consumption. Its few faults are more than outweighed by its adjustability and all the little things that show that serious thought went into designing every aspect of this TV.

And, like I said, it sure is purdy.

PRICE: $2,999
CONTACT: 800.726.7864, Samsung.com