By J. Young
Update 05-09-2014: Well, I just wanted to provide an update since it has been well over a year now. This TV still functions flawlessly and the PQ is as good as ever. Not one hardware issue. A couple of the firmware updates over this past year really made it that much better.
Update 04-24-2013: I was finally brave enough to use my Xbox and PS3. Out of the 2, I think the PS3 looked better, but that is subjective. Both looked good and I did not notice any lag. I did COD BO2 on the Xbox and Oblivion on the PS3. I play my Xbox exclusively on a 24 monitor, so of course it should look better on the F8500. The potential for burn-in though still has me concerned. I most likely will never game much or at all on it.
So to all of the crusaders out there, this is a great TV. Is it the best? I cannot answer that since I only own this one. At a minimum, it is definitely pretty good.
Update 04-15-2013: I would really like to know how they reduce reflection on the screen like they do. I was sitting in the LR with the TV off. If was in the middle of the day and I had the bay window curtains and blinds wide open. I could see reflections in the TV, but they looked really soft. Blurry like. The images further away were even less visible. I mention this because I did watch a full BR with the same lighting conditions. While I did, I barely saw any reflections in the glass and for what I could see, I really had to stare at it to see.
With many hours now, the light pops still happen at cell brightness 16 and 17. I was obviously hoping that would go away. I have settled using a cell brightness of 14 for now, so not a huge deal. I like a cell brightness of 20, but during night viewing, that almost blinds me. No firmware updates available since the one I did when I received the 8500.
Watching the Masters this weekend was a delight. The 8500 handled it well and everything looks beautiful. Hopefully that means football will look good on it when the season comes. Next weekend, I am going to get more brave and try a hour or two of Black Ops 2 via the XBox.
Update 04-01-2013: Well, it is still beautiful. If you got the money and you want to try Plasma, this one is definitely on the short list. I have watched various content in every possible lighting scenario so far and everything is clear and as bright as I would hope it to be. Even content most would consider poor or from a poor source still looks better than on any other TV I have ever owned.
I am not fond of needing to worry about IR and burn-in, but for the beautiful PQ, I will learn to live with needing to do that. The smart apps do give issues now and then. I still think it is an update needed. In the long run, I doubt I use the smart apps since just about everything else I own has the same apps already.
We watched a few movies now in 3D. I am not a huge fan of 3D, but I can say that the movies i did watch on this TV were really good. I mean really good. Avatar was gorgeous.
The price to pay for really good PQ as this TV provides is that it changes what you see. Many times for the better, but sometimes not such as some movies you can so easily now see what is fake and what is real.
The only strange thing the TV is doing to me is every time I turn it on and select the source, in a couple of minutes, the screen goes completely black and then comes back. Sometimes it will display the info screen as if I just changed the input, which I did not. Hopefully just a firmware issue. It only does it once after turning it on and never again until the next time.
Original:
My first plasma. In the past, every time I would see a plasma TV in the store, I was never impressed. Hard to see in most cases and almost always more money.
As I was looking for a new TV this year, I saw that the new plasma TVs were just getting released. I admit that the marketing made me look twice, especially when it mentioned much better brightness. While waiting for any to come into stock, I started reading about as much as I could on plasma TVs in general and for this exact model. I liked it enough to give it a try. At least Amazon has a decent return policy in case this was a horrible decision.
The TV itself looks very nice. I rent, so I cannot mount on the wall. The stand is nice and different then others. I do not really care though. As long as it makes the TV stable.
The picture is beautiful via DirecTV hookups. Most channels and even older content look pretty good. Viewing a BRD is even better. The black levels are out of this world. Hardly any, if any, artifacts or distortions of any kind in the picture. The TV does get rather bright and you can see the picture just fine in daylight. I have it in a room with a bay window and so far, I can see okay.
There is a slight buzz that you can hear when you get close or with some content when further away. I have to mute the sound though to hear it. From what I read, this is common with plasma TVs with some much louder than others. With nothing that I can compare with, this noise has not been noticed by me until I purposefully listened for it.
There is also some flickering with certain cell brightness settings for me, namely value 16 and 17. Any other setting so far is fine. Not enough to dock anything yet, but I am keeping an eye on this.
The remote is different with few physical buttons, but I find it not too hard getting used to sliding the thumb around to move the cursor. Definitely slows you down though. The Smart Apps on the TV are like most competitor apps. Nothing too special, but not bad. I did play the Amazon app last night and it does not work properly. Anything I stream with it causes the video to blink on and off (completely black for a second then back on). It only does this in this app, so surely just an app issue.
I have a lot of things to try yet and many adjustments to make to perfect the picture, but so far I am excited and loving the PQ. Much better than anything I have ever owned yet. I never thought I would own a plasma, but I do believe this one may be it for me.
Update 05-09-2014: Well, I just wanted to provide an update since it has been well over a year now. This TV still functions flawlessly and the PQ is as good as ever. Not one hardware issue. A couple of the firmware updates over this past year really made it that much better.
Update 04-24-2013: I was finally brave enough to use my Xbox and PS3. Out of the 2, I think the PS3 looked better, but that is subjective. Both looked good and I did not notice any lag. I did COD BO2 on the Xbox and Oblivion on the PS3. I play my Xbox exclusively on a 24 monitor, so of course it should look better on the F8500. The potential for burn-in though still has me concerned. I most likely will never game much or at all on it.
So to all of the crusaders out there, this is a great TV. Is it the best? I cannot answer that since I only own this one. At a minimum, it is definitely pretty good.
Update 04-15-2013: I would really like to know how they reduce reflection on the screen like they do. I was sitting in the LR with the TV off. If was in the middle of the day and I had the bay window curtains and blinds wide open. I could see reflections in the TV, but they looked really soft. Blurry like. The images further away were even less visible. I mention this because I did watch a full BR with the same lighting conditions. While I did, I barely saw any reflections in the glass and for what I could see, I really had to stare at it to see.
With many hours now, the light pops still happen at cell brightness 16 and 17. I was obviously hoping that would go away. I have settled using a cell brightness of 14 for now, so not a huge deal. I like a cell brightness of 20, but during night viewing, that almost blinds me. No firmware updates available since the one I did when I received the 8500.
Watching the Masters this weekend was a delight. The 8500 handled it well and everything looks beautiful. Hopefully that means football will look good on it when the season comes. Next weekend, I am going to get more brave and try a hour or two of Black Ops 2 via the XBox.
Update 04-01-2013: Well, it is still beautiful. If you got the money and you want to try Plasma, this one is definitely on the short list. I have watched various content in every possible lighting scenario so far and everything is clear and as bright as I would hope it to be. Even content most would consider poor or from a poor source still looks better than on any other TV I have ever owned.
I am not fond of needing to worry about IR and burn-in, but for the beautiful PQ, I will learn to live with needing to do that. The smart apps do give issues now and then. I still think it is an update needed. In the long run, I doubt I use the smart apps since just about everything else I own has the same apps already.
We watched a few movies now in 3D. I am not a huge fan of 3D, but I can say that the movies i did watch on this TV were really good. I mean really good. Avatar was gorgeous.
The price to pay for really good PQ as this TV provides is that it changes what you see. Many times for the better, but sometimes not such as some movies you can so easily now see what is fake and what is real.
The only strange thing the TV is doing to me is every time I turn it on and select the source, in a couple of minutes, the screen goes completely black and then comes back. Sometimes it will display the info screen as if I just changed the input, which I did not. Hopefully just a firmware issue. It only does it once after turning it on and never again until the next time.
Original:
My first plasma. In the past, every time I would see a plasma TV in the store, I was never impressed. Hard to see in most cases and almost always more money.
As I was looking for a new TV this year, I saw that the new plasma TVs were just getting released. I admit that the marketing made me look twice, especially when it mentioned much better brightness. While waiting for any to come into stock, I started reading about as much as I could on plasma TVs in general and for this exact model. I liked it enough to give it a try. At least Amazon has a decent return policy in case this was a horrible decision.
The TV itself looks very nice. I rent, so I cannot mount on the wall. The stand is nice and different then others. I do not really care though. As long as it makes the TV stable.
The picture is beautiful via DirecTV hookups. Most channels and even older content look pretty good. Viewing a BRD is even better. The black levels are out of this world. Hardly any, if any, artifacts or distortions of any kind in the picture. The TV does get rather bright and you can see the picture just fine in daylight. I have it in a room with a bay window and so far, I can see okay.
There is a slight buzz that you can hear when you get close or with some content when further away. I have to mute the sound though to hear it. From what I read, this is common with plasma TVs with some much louder than others. With nothing that I can compare with, this noise has not been noticed by me until I purposefully listened for it.
There is also some flickering with certain cell brightness settings for me, namely value 16 and 17. Any other setting so far is fine. Not enough to dock anything yet, but I am keeping an eye on this.
The remote is different with few physical buttons, but I find it not too hard getting used to sliding the thumb around to move the cursor. Definitely slows you down though. The Smart Apps on the TV are like most competitor apps. Nothing too special, but not bad. I did play the Amazon app last night and it does not work properly. Anything I stream with it causes the video to blink on and off (completely black for a second then back on). It only does this in this app, so surely just an app issue.
I have a lot of things to try yet and many adjustments to make to perfect the picture, but so far I am excited and loving the PQ. Much better than anything I have ever owned yet. I never thought I would own a plasma, but I do believe this one may be it for me.
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