Samsung PN58B850

Display Size & Technology
The PN58B850 is built around a 58-inch Plasma panel, but Samsung claims to have done some serious behind the scenes work to slim down the usual hefty power requirements of large plasmas; they claim that it will suck down 40% less juice than a similar sized model from last year. They've also slimmed down the depth of the panel, so the whole display is thin. In fact, Samsung claims that it is the thinnest 1080p Plasma out there. 

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Format & Resolution
As befits a top of the line model like this, the panel is a full HD one, which means it has 1080 by 1920 pixels and can display every single pixel that a 1080p video signal can throw at it. And, like all HDTVs, it displays the images at a 16:9 aspect ratio. 

Brightness, Blacks & Contrast Ratio
Like all of their just-announced-but-not-yet-released 2009 products, Samsung was somewhat tight-lipped about the technical specifications of the PN58B850; they declined to reveal any details of the black level, brightness or contrast  beyond a few generalisms. It has, for instance, 'the darkest blacks ever seen on a HDTV' and 'extremely high dynamic contrast ratio', but there is no information on what this actually means in terms of numbers. Hopefully Samsung will release more details soon, and we'll know for sure when we get one of the new units in for testing in our lab.

Refresh Rate & Motion
The PN58B850 has the same 600Hz sub-field processing as most modern plasma TVs, but this shouldn't be confused with the refresh rate of LCD HDTVs; plasmas use a different form of processing and screen updating, and the two aren't comparable. In sub-field processing, the plasma display divides the screen up into different areas, and updates them in between frames of video to make motion smoother and to compensate for a problem called dynamic false contouring, where the process of updating the screen creates false areas of color (you can read the patent for the sub-field processing technique here). However it does it, the demos that Samsung were running at the show looked good; we saw smooth motion and no evidence of ghosting, trailing or other issues. We should note, however, that this was a hand-picked pre-production unit designed to highlight the model, so it is perhaps no surprise that it looked good. We'll reserve judgement on this until we get a review unit in.

Viewing Angle
Like all plasma displays, the PN58B850 had an excellent viewing angle; colors remained bright and clear until about 50 to 60 degrees away from straight on, and they were even tolerable at wider angles. Another thing that we noticed was that that the new anti-glare coating on the PN58B850's screen seems to be very effective; what little glare we noticed was very soft and didn't detract from the iamge quality. Samsung calls this new coating Ultra FilterBright Plus. 

Color
Colors on the PN58B850 looked good, with strong, bright colors on the screen and good levels of shadow detail. However, our comemnt about hand-picked pre-produstion units above still counts here. One thing to note is the inclusion of what Samsung calls Wide Color Enhancer Pro, where the processor maps the standard HD and SD video color space onto a wider gamut. Normally a wider color gamut requires content specifically produced for it. Again, we'll have to reserve judgement on whether this is a good or a bad thing until we can do some proper testing.