Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

*Disclaimer - I purchased this at my local Best Buy store, but wanted to copy my review over to Amazon for you guys* I went to the new Sony XBR55X850D TV from a Samsung UN55H7150 TV, which I LOVED. Really wanted in on the 4K/HDR hype, what with the PS4k/4.5/Neo coming out later this year (supposedly). So, I decided to upgrade my 2014 1080p Samsung H7150, which I absolutely loved and had ZERO problems with. I left a review here on the Sony TV, which I was really dissatisfied with due to the terrible Gaming mode and jittery backgrounds/cursor and other odd effects (even on non-Gaming mode). I spent almost 3 days calibrating and changing the settings on the Sony TV, mixing different options for the motion controls, while trying to keep input lag as low as possible without having to resort to the awful Gaming mode. After this and having called Sony Support 3 times, which I was told there's no other settings that would help, I gave up. Let's just say I hated that TV so bad that I drove 1 hour and 15 min (one-way) to the next state to exchange it for this Samsung TV (the UN55KS8500 curved model). Best. Decision. Ever. I had done a lot of online research prior to buying the Sony TV and then this new Samsung, when I took the Sony back. Long story short, this Samsung model (the KS8000 and KS8500) are considered the #1 TV's in their price and size categories. So, what makes this TV so great? Quite a few things, really. While I've owned Samsung TV's (even my computer monitor that I type this on is a Samsung) exclusively in the past, I'm open-minded and not biased (hence why I was willing to give the Sony a try...). Setup - out of the box, getting it on the stands, the simplified remote - all wonderful and really high quality. Although I'm not too terribly a fan of the "feet" style stands. I much preferred the stand on my old H7150 Samsung and especially the Sony TV, above. But, it does it's job and has a minimal footprint. Additionally, the stands do not require to be screwed into the TV, just pushed and "clicked" in. Also very easy to remove. The ONLY thing I noticed physically about the TV that had me worried is the input panel on the back, which the One Connect box and Ethernet cable plug into - it's a little loose and wiggly. However, we think this is on purpose, as to accommodate thicker cables, if needed. Once I got my Ethernet cable (Amazon Cat6) plugged in, it was snug and had zero wiggle. If this really is the case, GREAT thinking, Samsung!! Now, for the picture. And Gaming mode! Out of the box, the picture was super bright and colorful. I knew right off that I would need to scale it back some on the backlight/brightness levels. Got the PS4 plugged in (via the One Connect hub box). No signal. We couldn't figure it out. However, after about 5-10 min of plugging and unplugging, it finally worked - didn't figure out what the problem was, but it hasn't done it any more. Probably just initialization woes. I tested the Standard video mode with Dark Souls III. Ugh, the input lag! It's greater than 100ms and VERY noticeable! But that's what Gaming mode is for, right? Switched over. Input lag went down to about 20ms. PERFECT. Also, the picture quality difference was hardly noticeable! Spent a few hours calibrating the picture, reducing sharpness and other settings. Now, the picture (color-wise) is equal to or better than the Sony I had and that I exchanged for this one. Some games exhibit a little background jitter, but it's NOWHERE near as bad as the Sony TV. You get adjusted to it shortly. I chalk it up to the nature of 4K/upscaling/new tech. Here in a few years, It'll probably be non-existent. I feel that Samsung has one of the better Gaming modes available on TV's currently. Highly recommended for all uses - Gaming/Movies/Television/Netflix, etc. Also, I would like to add that the feature difference between this 2016 8000 series and the higher 9000 series is not worth the price difference. Get the 8000/8500 series and don't look back! My settings in Game mode are as follows: Backlight - 10 Brightness - 40 Contrast - 100 (default) I may try bumping this down to 95 or 90 and see if it's drastic or not. Sharpness - 10 (the default setting resulted in really bad "texture flickering" in games...setting to 0-10 effectively resolves this issue) Color - 50 (default) Tint (G/R) - Middle (default) HDMI Black Level - Normal (Make sure you change the PS4/Xbox One to FULL RGB settings, or you will get a washed out picture or crushed blacks) Dynamic Contrast - Medium (default) ....High looks great for gaming as well Color Tone - Standard (default) All other settings not mentioned are set at their defaults. :-) Please also note that the pics taken are on game-mode and are pre-calibration.