No no, no harshness at all. I appreciate it.
In fact, where did you read that it was 70ms input lag? I looked all over and couldn't find that metric. That was a good bit of news.
Hdtvtest states 69 ms of lag and
trustedreviews states 66 ms.
I'm not that upset about the size - for my space, 55 is about as big as I want to go - but I don't really want to kill my gaming. The GroupOn is for another 14 days, so I just "cancelled" my order so I had more time to think about it. So thanks for that.
55" is not the issue, it's having 4K at that size... Imagine you had 4K on a cell phone... It's kinda like that. It's like paying for yogurt with more bacteria.
4K is diminishing gains,
read this. Even dudes whose job is reviewing these have trouble telling them apart complete with 4K content going on.
Anyway, there's math for everything and lets just say 4K on 55" is stupid, even on 65" it's silly, 84" starts to make more sense, and 4K projectors make a lot more sense. And then there's ideal sitting distance.
Curved displays are also stupid under 84" might I add.
You're not at fault anyone could fall for that but fact is that, a 55" 4K TV is very hard to justify right now, advantages are non-existing, 4K implementation is incomplete and so we're left with quite a few disadvantages (like lag).
On top of it all purists hate the fact they added so much processing on top. The thing is 3840x2160, scaling could be nearest neighbor and fast as hell, 1920x2=3840, 1080x2=2160, and even 720p who is a bitch to scale in a 50% extra pixels ratio to 1080p here is 1280x3=3840 and 720x3=2160 (720p perfect scaling ability is theoretically one of 2160p best advantages).... But they managed to cripple it and/or not be able to show a checkerboard pattern properly even be it on 720p and 1080p, and in this case non-defeatable sharpening.
That'll drive me mad, just like dynamic modes being used out of dynamic mode, cheats and stuff I didn't ask for that I get no choice of turning off.
Evolution will go on, and judging for the massive drop in quality seen in 2014 2K panels, it'll be like when the 32" class ceased having good panels a few years back (I imagine next in line are the 42 inchers, 55" is the new 42", as 42" were the new 32"), they're taking their best panels and improvements somewhere else. It's a pity that due to 4K plasma dismissal came 1/2 years earlier and that means top range effectively dropped quality this year despite efforts being made to advance LCD again (last year it was pretty much only Sony attempting it).
Still it has a roof.
is there a better alternative in terms of gaming?
A few, like
Sony KDL-55W800B
I'm willing to spend up to that price, which was around $1850, I might as well maximize what I primarily want to use it for. I figured I'd want it for 7-8 years, that's why I was leaning more toward 4K just so I had that down that line. But I'm relatively open, as long as it's big improvements over my current one - which is a 7-8 year old 1080p Samsung.
Oh, you will.
LCD evolved a lot in the last 7-8 years, no way that TV can compare with any modern VA-panel for instance, color reproduction improved too.
The Evo kits for the 1st and higher end 2nd gen sets use the One Connect box.
The current replacement for 1st gen models adds HDMI 2.0(lite), HDCP 2.2, HEVC and apps like Netflix 4K. Future versions should be capable of providing full HDMI capabilities. It's pricey at $400 but it could be worth it every few years if Samsung keeps supporting it.
What about input lag? Has it ever changed with evo kits?
Do you know if they dropped the forced sharpening setting via update or further evo kit?
I've been too lazy to research and you seem to be in the know.
But yeah, too expensive, and doesn't really change my mind.
Top range Sony TV's and Panasonic AX800 use panels who are advances over last years LCD's, it's a pity they don't have cheaper 2K variants IMO, but it's clearly as intended. These Samsungs though... are nothing more than a 2K panel now with 4K, it's not even the scenario of "I had to go for this to get a quality panel" even if it's not bad.
Evo kits are a great idea, it's just the pricing that's nuts.
