Samsung’s latest smart TV series

WHAT is quantum dot technology and how has it allowed Samsung to create such amazing display in its latest TV series?

Samsung Series 9 KS9500 TV is well worth considering if you’re looking to upgrade your TV game.

REVIEW

THE TV I have at home is really nothing special. It cost $200 a few years back and was so budget the guy at JB-HiFi was unprepared to bargain very much.

So when Samsung asked if I wanted to hangout in a (fairly spiffy) hotel room for a night and play with one of their latest ultra high definition smart TVs, I politely obliged. It would be a rather new dalliance for me.

I’ve never been a big TV geek but after using Samsung’s KS9500 I think it’s going to be a little difficult going back to my little, old, regular definition idiot box.

The 65 inch KS9500 model that sat in front of me that night was aesthetically quite impressive. The incredibly thin and curved design looks fantastic and represents the second best TV the company has brought out in 2016 behind the KS9800.

Unlike its 2015 predecessor, the KS9500 is edge-lit rather than a backlit to enable it to achieve that svelte profile which can actually affect viewing in low light environments when the lighting along the bottom edge of the screen becomes apparent.

But despite its skinniness, the TV still has four HDMI ports, thee USB ports and an Ethernet port for all your various needs.

The KS9500 series boasts Ultra HD resolution and is capable of producing 96 per cent of the colours in the DCI-P3 colour space making it a great TV to experience top-tier 4K content available both now and in the future, including Ultra HD Blu-ray discs.

Much of the hype around this TV has been based around Samsung’s use of new technology to further advance picture quality.

The picture display did look truly amazing, and apparently that has a lot to do with this thing called quantum dot technology.

Not knowing what that really meant and assuming it was marketing jargon and general self-serving obfuscation on the part of PR gurus, I called someone smart to explain it to me and apparently there’s some very impressive science behind the design of the KS9800.

“This is genuine, real quantum physics being used to create a broad spectrum of colours,” said professor David Reilly.

He specialises in quantum science, nanoscale condensed matter systems and cryogenic electronics and hardware at the University of Sydney — so he clearly knows what he’s talking about.

“What this tech gives you is a much more vibrant pallete of colours, and not just the range of colour but the purity of colour as well,” he said.

As he explained it, at the back of the TV are a bunch of tiny crystallites (“billionths of a metre” in size) that exhibit the phenomenon of fluorescence which take in surrounding light energy.

“So what’s happening with the quantum dots is they’re fluorescing, they’re taking light from a regular LED and then they’re generating light but the thing that’s very interesting is the light they’re emitting, the colour of the light is determined by the size of the quantum dot,” he said.

By controlling the size of these tiny crystals, engineers are able to produce a very precise colour and a massive spectrum of intensely vibrant colours.

At any rate, the picture looked fantastic and with the curved (so called 360) design, I found myself fighting the urge to sit right in front of the TV to give myself a home IMAX effect.

Samsung’s Series 9 KS9500 65-inch SUHD TV.

Buying a TV was once a fairly straight forward process but these days there’s a multitude of acronyms and features you need to get your head around ­including screen type, 4K Ultra High Definition, HDR (high dynamic range), screen ­refresh rates, internet connectivity and whether you want a curved screen.

TVs are becoming smarter, bigger, sharper and, let’s face it, more complicated. So it was pleasure to use the simple and easy user menu and interface of Samsung’s KS9500 smart TV.

Similar to TVs the company has produced in the past, the home button on the remote brings up a bar that runs along the bottom of the screen where users can find all the things they need such as apps like Netflix, video games, YouTube and web browsing.

The flush buttons on the remote aren’t any fun to press but it’s super easy to scroll around and navigate the TV’s interface. Along with the sleek minimalist remote, the TV also comes with a more traditional remote alternative that has numbered buttons on it.

With the 55 inch TV retailing at about $3000 and the 65 inch version at about $4,500 it’s certainly an investment in your home entertainment experience, but if that’s your thing, it could certainly be a worthwhile one.