Next-Gen Tech Talk: Samsung’s BD+ K850 Ultra Review

Samsung UBD-K8500 Review

Ollie Mattison

Mar 27, 2024• Proven solutions

UBD-K8500 is a perfect launch from Samsung with 4K Ultra HD type Blu-Ray ability. This device is capable enough to serve users with wide compatibility of disc formats that is why it is often compared with Panasonic DMP-UB900 player. 4K blu-ray ability is something that almost every user demands these days for their home theatre as it delivers deepest colour information with great contrast details. There are so many things to discuss about Samsung UBD-K8500 and once you go through the article below then you will be able to make better decision about your purchase.

Pros:

• It offers stunning 4K HDR image quality.
• You will be able to find 4K Amazon and Netflix onboard.
• UBD-K8500 consists of two HDMI type outputs with great AV receiver compatibility.
• This device is well known for its speedy loading abilities.
• Content appears with stunning sharp details.
• It is one of the most affordable UHD type Blu-Ray player in market.

Cons:

• Users find its remote annoying.
• It does not have any display.
• Picture and Sound both demand more refinement.
• Build quality is lower and it is little noisy.

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Features and Specs

If we move towards UBD-K8500 features, then there are so many things to talk about as like its extended support to 4K Ultra HD Blu-Ray, 10 bit video, increased resolution, wider colour gamuts, HVEC decoding and high dynamic range. This player is capable enough to optimize the Ultra HD content to native abilities of display and the HDR will also be automatically down converted if your TV is not able to support high end resolution. Here is one thing to note that UBD-K8500 will not provide services to Dolby Vision but it extends quality support to CDs, Blu Ray having 3D and 2D content as well as to DVDs. It can also upscale the lower resolution type videos and further UBD-K8500 is equipped with twin HDMI outputs along with DLNA support, built in Wi-Fi and 2.1 channel audio decoding abilities for DTS-HD Master and Dolby TrueHD audio.

You will be glad to know that UBD-K8500 offers support to Samsung’s Anynet as well as to Multiroom link mechanism. There are so many smart features that can be directly accessed from home page. For assisting users with better and interactive interface, it is broken down into 3 useful areas. The first one is its disc playback abilities that are loaded into player, second one works for multimedia content that can be connected via USB drive as well as from home network directly. It can handle almost all popular file formats like MPO, BMP, PNG, JPEG, ALAC, AIFF, MP3, OGG, FLAc, WAV, WMA, WMV, MKV, AVCHD, DivX HD, DivX and MPEG2/4. The third section is dedicated to apps such as YouTube, Amazon and Netflix etc and users can easily collect Ultra HD 4K content with stunning colour blending. The bottom portion of interface needs with customization options like settings menu, screen mirroring etc.

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Design

An attractive curved casing with eye-catching black body is the first look of UBD-K8500. The top portion of this player is designed with a metal sheet that provide a nice texture but rest of the body is coated with simple black plastic material , it may appear tacky to most of users.

Although, Panasonic DMP-UB900 is also designed with black plastic coating but it possesses an eye catching mirrored finish. Further, you will not be able to find any display on this device and it indicates everything via LEDs. As there is no screen to let your know about loading speed and other activities so you can simply keep on waiting with frustration. Backside of UBD-K8500 consists of few essential plugs like twin HDMI sockets, digital optical output, Ethernet and power.

Remote control of this Samsung player is compact and easy to handle with direction keys and a central select button.

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Connections and Control

Samsung UBD-K8500 is designed with sleek appearance having slight curve on rear as well as front portion. The black brushed metal finish make its design pretty good whereas body is actually designed with metal so you may find it highly durable. This player offers reasonably silent operation but you may find that disc tray little noisy and you can clearly feel its motion while moving in and out. A fan is available at rear portion of player that also makes audible noise. The overall weight of UBD-K8500 is 1.9 Kg with total dimension of 406x45x230mm.

The front side of player consists of an angled lip whereas the right portion possesses a touch sensitive type power, play/pause, stop and eject button. The LED indicators will help to indicate the power On function. It doesn’t consist of a display screen on front side but it is not a drawback rather it helps users to enjoy better view in darker rooms. In case if you need any information about current playback then you simply need to press the info button available on remote control; as soon as you press, all details will be displayed on screen. The middle section of device contains a USB port and on left side you will avail a disc tray.

Performance

The most important feature of UBD-K8500 is its picture quality for 4K Blu-ray player. If we talk about the fine details then its colour information is stunning enough while native 4K disc edge offers fast Amazon and Netflix connectivity. The 4K HDR ability re-writes the AV setup options so one cannot use traditional test patterns for its image balancing while viewing HDR content. The best trick is to navigate as per player modes as it consists of a coupled HDR input mode that ensures perfect integrity of HDR signal.

There are numbers of picture modes within tools menu as like User, Movie, Standard and Dynamic. Most of the users may think about Movie mode as their first preference for quality results but the tests show that lots of important audio information is lost during this mode. In case of standard settings, you will be able to avail better subtitle detailing however, contrast and brightness options are equally good in Movie mode. In simple words, selection of right mode highly depends upon user needs and options to make compromises.

Now, here is one important thing to note that if you try to watch standard blu-ray content with same HDMI input and same content settings then image will naturally get degraded. This happens due to unwanted scaling of image. The best way to get your desired output level is to make adjustments for user settings of this player. It will help you to develop better results for 1080p Blu-ray content but note that switching between viewing modes like this will become complicated if you are not able to remember right disc formats.

Verdict

In simple words, Samsung UBD-K8500 is one of the best devices for your Ultra HD TV needs. It possesses a comprehensive set of all good features with an easy to operate package. You may find its fan and disc tray little noisy but the simple to use interface and stunning remote control abilities again create remarkable results. If you spend money on this product, you will definitely avail satisfactory results.

Ollie Mattison

Ollie Mattison is a writer and a lover of all things video.

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