There's a lot to be said for going all out and buying a 4K TV this year. Movies are finally available in 4K Blu-ray, there’s now a choice of Blu-ray players – including the Xbox One S – and 4K streaming is growing all the time. However, as much as I love Samsung's flagship KS9000 TV, not everyone has a spare £2,000 lying around. Luckily, you can still get one of the best 4K HDR experiences available today by opting for Samsung's entry-level SUHD TV for 2016, the Samsung KS7000.
Not to be confused with its curved sibling, the KS7500, prices for the KS7000 starts at a much more palatable £1,099 for the 49in version, which is the model I have on test here. That's £500 less than the 49in KS9000 – a significant saving. It's also available in 55in, 60in, and 65in sizes (the UE55KS7000, UE60KS7000 AND UE65KS7000), and image quality should be similar across the range.
Design
Design-wise, the KS7000 is different from the rest of Samsung's SUHD range. Instead of opting for the floating stand design of its pricier stablemates, the KS7000 has two sets of feet that slot in at either end of the TV. You'll need a table or TV stand at least as wide as the TV itself to accommodate it, however. The KS7000 can be wall-mounted too.
Generally, I'm not a fan of foot-stand designs since they often don’t look as elegant as traditional central stands. However, Samsung's take on it here is the best I've seen, as they slot into place, no screwdriver required. This makes setting up the KS7000 far easier than the KS9000.
Picture quality
The KS7000's bezels are also super-slim, allowing its 10-bit Quantum Dot panel to take centre stage. This is Samsung's own kind of LCD technology, and the results are impressive. Straight out of the box, our colorimeter showed it was displaying an impressive 98.9% of the sRGB colour gamut in Standard mode; it covered a full 100% when set to Movie. The black level was fantastic as well, hitting an ultra-low 0.05cd/m2 in Movie mode.
I'd expect no less from a TV that qualifies for the Ultra HD Alliance's UHD Premium badge, which guarantees you're getting the best 4K HDR experience currently available. To meet these requirements, a TV must have a 10-bit panel that displays at least 95% of the DCI-P3 colour gamut (a much wider colour space than standard sRGB), have HDR support, a peak brightness of 1,000cd/m2, and a black level that doesn't exceed 0.05cd/m2.
I wasn't able to measure a peak brightness that high using my X-Rite i1 Display Pro colorimeter, but it still recorded a mighty impressive 850cd/m2 using an HDR test disc and a white pattern that occupied 10% of the screen. That should offer plenty of brightness for most types of content, and our 4K Blu-ray discs certainly didn't look any worse for it.
The Lego Movie still had plenty of punch, for example, with highlights looking eye-searingly bright across the board. Likewise, the flaming debris and flashes of lightning in the penultimate fight scene of Batman vs Superman looked stunning, with clipping kept to a minimum. Colours displayed plenty of depth and contrast levels were excellent.
Much like Samsung's curved TVs, image quality does deteriorate slightly as you move away from the centre of the screen, but it’s nowhere near as pronounced as its curved sibling. This makes the KS7000 a better fit for large and small rooms alike, as you should be able to see the screen fairly clearly no matter how many people you have crowded around it.
The Samsung KS7000 is in its element when it's displaying native 4K HDR content, but its SUHD Remastering Engine also does a brilliant job of upscaling regular Blu-rays and HD TV channels. Our Star Trek Blu-ray, for instance, still looked wonderfully sharp and crisp, and was packed with plenty of detail – everything from wisps of messy hair to individual tufts of grass – so you shouldn't have to play around with the noise-reduction settings too much to achieve the best picture.
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Gamers will get good use out of the KS7000 as well. Switch to the TV’s dedicated Game mode and our Leo Bodnar lag tester shows that you’ll get a decent response time of just 22ms. That's 0.5ms slower than the KS9000 – but you'd be hard-pushed to notice, even in the twitchiest of first-person shooters. It's certainly better than the 121ms response time I measured in Movie mode (again slower than the KS9000's equivalent), but it's worth noting that only Movie mode offers the full two-point and ten-point white balance settings, so you won't necessarily be able to get such an accurate picture with Game mode enabled.
The only thing I wasn't so keen on was Samsung's Auto Motion Plus feature, which inserts extra artificial frames to help make playback look smoother. The Auto setting did a reasonable job in most instances, but I still noticed the odd glitch, particularly on smaller moving objects. Large swathes of highly detailed clothes also tended to blur together a little, so I'd recommend turning it off.
Buy the Samsung UE49KS7000 now from Currys
Connections and speakers
The KS7000 comes with a great range of ports, and much like Samsung's other 2016 SUHD TVs, most of these are confined to a dedicated OneConnect box that attaches to the TV via a proprietary cable. This makes the TV easier to wall-mount, as you theoretically need only one cable coming out of the back. It also means you can use shorter HDMI cables for the other sources you're plugging in.
In total, there are four HDMI 2.0 ports with HDCP 2.2 support (one with ARC), an optical S/PDIF output, three USB ports, an Ethernet port, plus antenna and satellite connections. There's also an RS-232 ExLink port for service engineers to install any emergency updates.
The KS7000's pair of 40W speakers is better than I'd expected. Dialogue was clear, including Batman's gravelly tones in Batman vs Superman, while sound effects were accompanied by a decent amount of bass. They won't make the room shake, but they'll serve you well enough for most types of content.
Remotes and Smart Hub
The KS7000 comes with two remotes: one standard and one so-called “smart remote” that supports voice commands. The latter wasn’t particularly impressive: TV repeatedly failed to act on what I'd said, despite recognising every word on-screen perfectly.
The smart remote's buttons provided a decent amount of tactile feedback, but the lack of motion control is a real omission in my eyes, since it makes it no easier to use than the standard remote. As a result, I'd leave the smart remote to one side, and use the standard remote instead.
Whichever remote you settle on, though, you'll definitely want to check out Samsung's Smart Hub, since it has one of the best lineups of apps and catch-up services available today. Press the Home button on the remote and you're presented with a list of sources and your most recently used apps along the bottom of the screen, making it easy to dive into different services no matter what you're watching.
Along with Netflix and Amazon Instant Video (both of which also let you stream 4K content), you'll find BBC iPlayer, ITV Hub, All 4 and Demand 5, plus a wide selection of other services such as Plex, PlayStation Now, YouTube, GameFly, Deezer and TuneIn Radio. The only noticeable omission is Now TV, but when dedicated Now TV boxes are currently available for as little as £15, you don't need to spend a lot if you want to add that.
Verdict
Small niggles aside, the Samsung KS7000 is an excellent TV. Picture quality is great straight out of the box, and it has plenty of controls to help you fine-tune it if you have a colorimeter handy. It's easy to set up, too, and its ten-year warranty against screen burn means Samsung will repair or exchange any panel at no extra cost if you happen to experience any burn-in effects during the first ten years of use. That’s unlikely to happen, but at least it's there for peace of mind.
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If your budget can't stretch to the KS9000, and you still want a great SUHD TV with all the 4K bells and HDR whistles, the KS7000 is a fantastic alternative, costing around £500 less across all equivalent screen sizes. What's more, buy the KS7000 through Currys and it will knock £170 off the cost of Samsung's 4K UBD-K8500 Blu-ray player if you buy it at the same time, making it more or less half price – a great bargain if you've yet to make the jump to a proper 4K player.
Buy the Samsung UE49KS7000 now from Currys
| HARDWARE | |
|---|---|
| Screen size | 49in |
| Native resolution | 3,840 x 2,160 |
| Aspect ratio | 16:9 |
| 3D | None |
| Contrast ratio | Not stated |
| Brightness | Not stated |
| Speakers | 40W |
| Video inputs | 4x HDMI 2.0 |
| Audio inputs | None |
| Audio outputs | Optical S/PDIF |
| Tuner | Freeview HD, Freesat HD |
| Streaming TV services | BBC iPlayer, ITV Hub, All 4, Demand 5, Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, YouTube |
| Media Streaming | DLNA |
| Dimensions | 1445 x 908 x 295mm |