Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I purchased the 75 inch version of the JU7100 through Amazon (through OneCall actually). Interestingly enough my only other online TV purchase was a Panasonic plasma in 2010 and that was also through OneCall! So props to them because I ordered it Sunday and it arrived Thursday. Very impressive! PROS: + Beautiful design. The bezel and depth of the TV is very thin, and the stand is a lot more secure than I thought it would be. + Really deep blacks! I had a Pioneer Elite and a Panasonic plasma years ago and these are the darkest blacks I've seen. Of course it depends on your color settings, but more on that later. + Gorgeous and bright other colors! Blacks get all the attention but all the bright whites and other colors are just as good on this set. + Minimal "soap opera effect" on movies... I haven't researched this effect but I notice it on a lot of LCD/LED displays where the picture just looks fake. Even on a WWII film, for example, there's something off - like it's a YouTube video that is a little choppy (like the framerate is off). I think that's the reason movie buffs loved plasma over LCD all those years... but thankfully, this being my first LED TV, I can say it's very similar to my previous plasmas in that movies look and move how they should. + The smart remote is actually really impressive. I still use my logitech harmony one remote for most things since I have a receiver, but when browsing samsung menus or the smart hub I'll switch the smart remote. It has a Wii like pointer, except it's better than the Wii because you don't need to point to the set. No, you just lightly touch your thumb on it and wherever you're at is where the pointer will be centered. If you need to move, just stop touching the cursor, re-position, then put your thumb back on it and you're back to the center. + This TV scales lower resolution sources very nicely. Obviously you'll want to get 1080p sources and if you do, you'll be rewarded. And if you get 4k sources like Netflix, then it's even better! + I wanted to really use this TV's smart functionality like Netflix, Amazon, and YouTube, and it's really easy to use. With the pointer remote control, it makes browsing things similar to a mouse and I prefer that. You can still browse traditionally with the arrows on your remote but I found sometimes it was faster to just point (like when typing in searches/usernames/passwords) + The One Box has a optical digital out connection so those with AV receivers can easily connect it to. + The back of the TV stand has a nice cable management clip so you can route your wires through there so it's hidden + Power consumption, if you care about that (which you should to save money), is really good. My old plasmas were listed at over $70 a year and this Samsung LED which is larger than my old plasmas is half that price. I don't feel guilty for leaving my TV on if I have to go and do something else for 20 minutes. + (NEW PRO ADDED 7/22/2015) I really love the Samsung Screen Mirroring ability this TV has. I have a Samsung phone, the S5 and you can add the Screen Mirroring link on your shortcuts (like where the Bluetooth icons are) and snycing it is a cinch, it'll find your TV super fast. It'll completely mirror your phone, from the vertical or horizontal way. It plays sound from it very well - I haven't tested it with music compared to something plugged in directly to my receiver, but it sounds good with the sources I'm using such as YouTube, Twitch.tv, etc. The resolution I believe is 1080p, probably not 4k but I don't have a great way of testing it. But the reason you would use this is convenience - you can quickly access a YouTube video to show friends and put it on your big screen without having to navigate the TV menus. Even with Samsung's Smart TV apps, it's still easier to just use your phone in my opinion. I wouldn't use my phone for things like Netflix or Amazon Prime, in that case I'll use the Smart TV apps for it since the resolution and sound you know will be very good... but for quick things, and things like Twitch.tv that don't have Samsung apps, it's really nice to be able to get your phone to show up on your big screen in less than 5 seconds! --- CONS - It's expensive but you get what you pay for. It's a gorgeous TV that I believe will last years and years - basically we'll all be upgrading to 12k monitors before this one ever dies out. - The powercable is a bit short compared to the One Box cable which is like 6 feet long. My setup is on a wide stand and I have a power surge in the middle bottom shelf... the TV's power cable just reached while the One Box cable would have been in another area code (alright, it had 2-3 extra feet for me... but the power cable just had 2-3 inches extra) - With my specific setup, where the AV receiver handles all the sources and just HDMI-passthroughs to the TV set, it's a bit annoying that Samsung asks you to choose a cable provider. Even if you choose none, it'll still show a fake remote control (when you click menu) and have options for stuff like Guide, On-Demand, etc. And when I chose Comcast, in hopes it would at least control my X1 boxset, it didn't. So not sure if I'm doing something wrong but I've just learned to ignore it. Still, I would rather not have any extras that would control my cable because my universal remote controls it just fine. Not a big deal. - The base needs to be installed. It's just 8 screws and 2 parts, very easy, but if you're impatient like me and trying to setup a 75 inch TV by yourself, it's one more scary thing that could go wrong. It'd be nice if the stand was already put on, but again, minor quibble. Get a friend to help! - 4k content is still scarce. It is what it is, you know it by now. Even when you get it, it's not going to be as big of a difference as 480i to 1080p. That's why I got the 75 inch because that is a larger screen than what I was coming from and so that in itself is an upgrade. Still, 4k content like Breaking Bad and Daredevil are cool and do look better. - Don't bother with the sound on this TV. I tried it for poops and giggles and it made me hate life... until I switched back to my Marantz/DefTechST set up then all was okay with the world. Really though, you obviously care about picture quality if you want a set like this, so care about audio as well because there's a plethora of great options out there. Rule of thumb, spend as much money on your audio setup as you did on your TV. If you want full immersion, sound is where it's at. I would rather watch a big CRT TV with amazing booming sound setup than a 4k TV with laptop speakers. So get the best of both worlds. - There's a known issue with some of the apps not working well for random reasons. I encountered this early on when I was playing Netflix and then I was done and turned off my TV (instead of closing down the app and then shutting down the TV). Upon return, I couldn't open up Netflix, it refused to load. I found the solution is pretty simple - just turn off the "fast boot TV" setting (sorry I forget exact words for it). That will force the apps to restart and honestly it doesn't take that much longer to load so it's a good solution and I don't mind the 5+ seconds for the TV to show a picture. My receiver takes longer to get sound out of it, so it's all timed fine with the fast boot off. INTERNET EXPERIENCE OUT THE BOX Now what everyone wants to know, do the apps work and does the Internet work out the box? - I turned on the TV and setup the Wifi. It detected it and connected to it just fine. - I tried viewing Netflix, it connected to it and I selected Breaking Bad. It would buffer then just quit on me returning back to the Samsung Smat Hub. I repeated this multiple times with different videos and the same thing happened. - I tried YouTube and it worked, I played glorious 4k content. - I tried updating the firmware via Wifi and it showed that I had the old version and there was a newer one, but I believe it stopped me from updating saying something like This Operation Isn't Available. - I went to the support page (http://www.samsung.com/us/support/owners/product/UN75JU7100FXZA) and there was a notice ALERT: Update TV Software for your NEW 2015 TV LEARN MORE. I clicked it, downloaded the file and unzipped it to the USB. - I plugged the USB into the TV, waited a few minutes, then tried to update firmware. It didn't give me an option to choose USB so I powered down because I had to leave the house for a few hours. - Upon returning, my TV was updated automatically! I don't believe it was the USB being in there. It was because the Wifi was downloading the 1.4gb update file as the TV was off. Sneaky bastard. But hey, it updated by itself and Netflix now plays 4k videos (you'll need to upgrade your standard Netflix account to get "Ultra HD" streaming... it's the $11.99 option that allows for 4 simultaneous streamers). - I tried watching some tennis and noticed on a clay court, when the ball passed the net, the TV really struggled. With the RTINGS color settings (mentioned later) it looked like crap. Like the ball had exploded the net every time it passed it. With the AVS Forum color settings (mentioned later) I found it less noticeable and definitely watchable. The thing I took away from this is that it's still an LED and under certain circumstances it won't be as smooth as a plasma that I've grown accustom to. I am sure stuff like basketball, hockey, etc look gorgeous... it's just certain busy patterns like a tennis net would really test this TV. COLOR SETTINGS - I looked online for color settings and found RTINGS.com had one listed (http://www.rtings.com/reviews/tv/lcd-led/samsung/ju7100/settings) I tried it out and in my opinion, it looks like muddy crap. All the gorgeous contrast this TV has is washed out. And remember that LCD/LED affect I mentioned where things look fake, well these color settings reminded me of that which I hate. - Instead I turned to a user's opinion on AVSForum for his settings. From the User Neekos, who he says just eye balled it and didn't use professional equipment, he used: Picture- Standard Backlight-11 Contrast-60 Brightness 42 Sharpness-50 Color -55 Tint- Default Advanced Dynamic contrast- Medium Black Tone- Darker All others default Picture Options Color Tone- Standard Digital Clean View- low MPEG- Medium Film Mode- Auto 1 Auto Motion Plus Clear Smart LED- Standard I tried it and I really liked the color. Use your room lighting and personal preference to adjust the settings accordingly. For example, Backlight 11 might be okay in a bright sunny room, but if it's night and your lights are dim like mine, that is way too bright. I turned Backlight down to 6 and still find it's too bright on certain scenes so I may turn it lower. Also the sharpness depends on what you're watching... movies I don't mind it being 50 but stuff like ESPN where there's lots of text everywhere then 50 is too sharp and I prefer 30. Now with contrast it can at be times blindly bright so I've lowered it to 50. Also I felt with some shows that it was just too blue tinted so I just changed the Gr > Rd setting so it's 45 Gr - 55 Rd. Just a small change and I don't notice it being too blue anymore. So my personal changes (as explained in the above paragraph) Backlight - 5 (if night) to 11 (if daytime and bright) Sharpness - 30 to 40 Contrast - 50 Color Space - Color 1 (I think this is the name for it, I'll double check later) So while we wait for some professionals to calibrate the monitor, I would say play with what YOU like. The supposed pro ratings a RTINGS was a washed out prank in my opinion. I didn't buy an expensive monitor to view everything in light washed out pastels... I want the whites bright and the blacks dark as hell itself! :)