Samsung UN55C8000

Audio & Video Ports

The Samsung UN55C8000 that was on the CES show floor was not a final production model, and the ports were not finalized. Despite Samsung's reluctance, we did manage to snap some shots of the rear. Even though the ports aren't final, we'd be surprised if the model shipped with a totally different design. The ports (some of them dummy ports) are arranged in a backwards L-shape and are either side-facing or down-facing. This way, cords that you plug in don't jut out at a 90-degree angle, which would create problems for wall-mounted screens.

The ports weren't finalized in this mock-up, and we saw some ports that weren't recognizeable. We're guessing the dummy ports were why Samsung didn't want us photographing the back of the set. Perhaps they thought we'd run around the convention center screaming about strange—dare we say alien!?—ports on Samsung's 2010 models, like the geekiest, most inane conspiracy theorists possible. And we are, so read the following as loudly as you can: we saw 4 HDMI, 2 USB, and a shared component/composite AV set of jacks on the back of the mock-up UN55C8000. There were other, mysterious ports of an indeterminate (alien) origin. There. The secret is out now. Expect more details soon, unless Samsung gets to us first.
 

It's not final, but the ports on the show floor model were in an L-shape, tightly hugging the frame.

Here's another view of the not-yet-finalized ports.

Media & Other Connectivity

The content that Samsung showed at the press conference was played off of a USB port, and previous high-end Samsungs have all supported photo, music, and video clip playback support. 

Samsung is making a big push for streaming internet features on their 2010 TVs. Expanding on last year's internet@TV set of features, they plan to launch an App Store that will have cross-device applications that interact with Samsung TVs, Blu-Ray players, and cell phones. While the list of content providers has expanded significantly since last year, we can only hope that the overall user experience is better than 2009's. Our review cited an absolutely terrible interface for internet@TV (read more at the Samsung UN46B8500 review). The crawling speed and pitiable collection of content providers were enough to write off the whole series of 2009 TVs, at least in terms of streaming content.

Placement

The placement of the ports on the Samsung UN55C8000 is fairly awkward. The HDMI ports and USB that run along the side are easy enough, but the ports along the bottom are hard to discern and hard to see and reach. Because it's so thin, there are no ports on the side of the TV.

Audio

We couldn't listen to the TV, so we have no information about the Samsung UN55C8000's audio performance.