ashley
Member
Tom's Guide ran a head to head on the two cheapest new TVs they had in the lab, Samsung's 2026 entry level U8000H against Amazon's Ember 4-Series, and I like the method here more than the usual budget TV roundup. Three films off 4K Blu-ray in Filmmaker mode, fed through an HDMI splitter so both panels got identical material, Samsung at max brightness and the Amazon at 50 percent because 100 was too bright.
The findings are exactly what I would expect from this tier and are worth repeating anyway. Both sets got the colour wrong, just in opposite directions: the Amazon pushes hard pink, blowing out reds, and the Samsung leans yellow. Neither is accurate, the Samsung is less wrong. Where it separated properly was uniformity, with highlights on the Ember bleeding out across the scene and light spilling into dark areas. On The Batman, which is a brutal test for anything cheap, the Amazon overcompensated for the dark grade while the Samsung simply handled blacks better. Neither has full array local dimming, so both are working with a lit edge and a prayer.
Interesting wrinkle: the reviewer's eye kept getting pulled to the Amazon in night scenes purely because it was brighter, despite the worse colour. That is the entire budget TV market in one sentence, and it is why showroom comparisons pick the wrong set so often.
Prices are the real story. The U8000H starts at 247 dollars for the 43 inch, the Ember 4-Series is 329 for the same size and it is a 2025 model. Cheaper and better is not a hard call.
My honest take: at this money, do not agonise over the panel, put the saved 80 dollars toward literally any external audio. Anyone actually living with a U8000H yet?
The findings are exactly what I would expect from this tier and are worth repeating anyway. Both sets got the colour wrong, just in opposite directions: the Amazon pushes hard pink, blowing out reds, and the Samsung leans yellow. Neither is accurate, the Samsung is less wrong. Where it separated properly was uniformity, with highlights on the Ember bleeding out across the scene and light spilling into dark areas. On The Batman, which is a brutal test for anything cheap, the Amazon overcompensated for the dark grade while the Samsung simply handled blacks better. Neither has full array local dimming, so both are working with a lit edge and a prayer.
Interesting wrinkle: the reviewer's eye kept getting pulled to the Amazon in night scenes purely because it was brighter, despite the worse colour. That is the entire budget TV market in one sentence, and it is why showroom comparisons pick the wrong set so often.
Prices are the real story. The U8000H starts at 247 dollars for the 43 inch, the Ember 4-Series is 329 for the same size and it is a 2025 model. Cheaper and better is not a hard call.
My honest take: at this money, do not agonise over the panel, put the saved 80 dollars toward literally any external audio. Anyone actually living with a U8000H yet?
