Samsung PN51F8500 Review: A 51-Inch Plasma HDTV With SmartHub

Results: Color Gamut and Performance

Color gamut is measured using a saturation sweep that samples the six main colors (red, green, blue, cyan, magenta, and yellow) at five saturation levels (20, 40, 60, 80, and 100%), providing a realistic view of color accuracy.

We begin by showing you the Standard mode.

Since this is a pre-calibration result, there is room for improvement. The blue grayscale means that cyan, magenta, and red exhibit significant hue errors. Adjusting the color temp preset and/or the RGB controls helps there. Of equal concern are the saturation errors below 100 percent. You can see especially in the blue and red primaries that 20, 40, 60, and 80 percent fall well below their targets. The luminance chart shows that color brightness has been increased to compensate.

These are the results gathered from Movie mode prior to calibration. We already established that the white point is nearly perfect without adjustment. The hue errors from Standard mode are now corrected, and the saturation levels get closer to their targets. Overall color errors are only visible for red and blue.

Since we only changed the Blue Gain control during the grayscale calibration, we had to address the F8500’s CMS to see if we could make any other improvements. As it turned out, all we had to do was change the Color Space option from Auto to Custom. No other changes were necessary.

Blue and red still show a little under-saturation, but they are much better than before. The slightly-elevated luminance helps compensate. at least all of the errors fall below three, which takes the F8500’s color from good to excellent.

An average error of 1.37 Delta E puts the F8500 among our top group of displays, including monitors and HDTVs. The fact that this is achieved with only a few minor adjustments speaks highly of Samsung’s engineering and build quality.