Samsung TU7000 (UN43TU7000, UN43TU7000, UN55TU7000, UN65TU7000, UN75TU7000)

The Samsung TU7000 is an entry level model for Samsung’s 4K LED TV with the budget-conscious person in mind. The  TU7000 is the successor to the previous years NU6900. 

If you need an owner’s manual for the Samsung TU7000, click here. 

With its competitive pricing, the Samsung TU7000 lacsk some advanced features that you’d see on higher-end models… such as Quantum Dot Panel, some Gaming Features and other things. 

Even though the Samsung TU7000 doesn’t have as many features as some higher-end models, for the competitive price you actually get a great television picture.

The Samsung TU7000 has a good native contrast ratio for great viewing in a dark room. It also has good motion handling and excellent input lag for playing games and watching live sports. The Samsung TU7000 is truly considered an entry level television although there is quite decent performance for most applications.

Just like many other entry level televisions, the TU7000 comes in many screen size variations. There’s a 43 inch (UN43TU7000FXZA), a 50 inch (UN50TU7000FXZA), a 55 inch (UN55TU7000FXZA), a 58 inch (UN58TU7000FXZA), a 65 inch (UN65TU7000FXZA), a 70 inch (UN70TU7000FXZA), and a 75 inch (UN75TU7000FXZA). 

The Samsung TU7000 Key Specs

Samsung TU7000 Technologies and Features

Panel Technology

Just like most models in Samsung’s TV lineup, the Samsung TU7000 uses VA (Vertical Alignment) panel technology. One of the advantages of VA panel technology is that it has an excellent native contrast ratio to deliver a deep black. But the tradeoff is a television with a poor side viewing angle. 

Over the last few years, some manufacturers including Sony and Samsung have developed a special anti-glare optical layer that improves side viewing angle coverage of their VA TV — but currently this feature is just on high-end models like the Samsung Q90T and the Sony X950H. 

To help with this, the Samsung TU7000 features a backlight technology, which is an edge-lit led backlight technology. Unfortunately, there is no local dimming feature to improve performance in a dark room.

Image Processor

The TU7000 is powered by the “Crystal Processor 4K”.  This processor may not be as powerful as the Quantum Processor 4K found on the QLED TV Lineup — but it’s able to process HDR images well. Additionally the image processor is able to up-scale lower resolution content to their native resolution fairly well.

Motion Technology

The Samsung TU7000 only has a native 60 Hz Refresh rate panel. This means it can only support content with a frame rate up to 60 Hz. In other words, you don’t get native 120 fps content.  

To improve performance for handling motion, the TU7000 is powered by “Motion Rate 120 Hz”. Unlike the higher series that support VRR technology, the TU7000 does not support any VRR technology to improve the game experience.

To dim the backlight, the Samsung TU7000 uses a PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) dimming system. Even with this technology, the highest possible dimming frequency is different, which is just 120 HZ for the TU7000. A 120 Hz dimming frequency can make flicker almost imperceptible on the screen of the TU7000. 

To help make motion appearance smoother, particularly when playing 60 fps content, there  is an optional BFI (Black Frame Insertion) Mode. Enabling BFI mode will make the dimming frequency change to 60 Hz. To enable BFI mode, you just need to enable the “LED Clear Motion” feature. 

Keep in mind that enabling BFI mode may help keep motion smoother, but since the backlight flicker is at 60 Hz, this may cause a backlight flicker strobe effect that could bother some people.

Connectivity

For the major connectivity points, the Samsung TU7000 is equipped with 2 HDMI ports. Each HDMI port supports HDMI 2.0 Full bandwidth, CEC, and HDCP 2.2. Additionally one of the HDMI ports (HDMI 2) also will support ARC (Audio Return Channel). Although none of the HDMI ports support HDMI 2.1 or eARC (Enhanced Audio Return Channel). 

In addition to HDMI ports, the TU7000 has 1 USB portal although it is not compatible with USB 3.0. In addition to HDMI and the USB port, there is 1 Tuner In (RF In), 1 Digital Audio Out (optical) and 1 Ethernet IN. 

Smart TV Platform

As part of the Samsung smart TV platform, the Samsung TU7000 runs the latest version of Tizen OS (Tizen 2020). Even with this advanced operating system, their smart TV platform lacks some features found on higher end models seen in the QLED TV lineup. 

Furthermore, the smart TV platform of the TU7000 lacks some features and animations found on other Samsung televisions, such as Bixby, Amazon Alexa, Google Home and others. 

Aside from this, the Tizen OS runs smoothly. You get a simple interface that is easy to use. It comes with a good selection of preinstalled apps. Almost all streaming services are provided, such as YouTube, Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc. There is also a Web Browser, Games, Live TV, and other apps. 

There is also an app store called the Samsung Apps store with a  good selection of apps you can download directly to your Samsung television. 

The TU7000 controller doesn’t support voice navigation being only a basic remote.

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Samsung TU7000 Performance

Black Level and Contrast

The native contrast ratio of the TU7000 is around 5000:1, which is excellent. With the contrast ratio, you get a black level deeper than 0.02 nits, which is deep enough to make black look really black in a dark room. 

Unfortunately there’s no local dimming feature to improve performance in a dark room. You’ll see a deep dark when showing a small highlight in a dark room, but you may see a lot of blooming around a small bright object.

SDR Peak Brightness

With real scenes, the TU7000 hits a SDR peak brightness around 225 nits. Since there is no local dimming feature, except with a 2% window, the peak brightness is fairly consistent across different content, being around 290 nits. 

On a 2% window (where 2% of screen is white while the rest is black), the peak brightness is lowered by the frame dimming system to around 150 nits for the TU7000 to help minimize blooming.  The peak brightness is only bright enough to overcome the glare in a dim to moderately lit room — while in a very bright room, the peak brightness is really not bright enough. 

With HDR content, the Samsung TU7000 can get a bit brighter peak brightness than with SDR content. With real content, it can hit around 250 nits. Just like with SDR content, except for a 2% window, the peak brightness is also relatively consistent across different content where it can hit around 170 nits. But even so, on 2% window, its peak brightness is dimmed by its TV’CE dimming to around 150 nits. The Samsung TU7000 can bring out small highlights in HDR so for an entry-level TV it’s not a bad thing.

Color Performance

The Samsung TU7000 does not support a wide color gamut. The color gamut is only wide enough for SDR content mastered in Rec.709 while for HDR content, it can be disappointing. In DCI P3 xy color space, the color gamut coverage of the TU7000 is only around 74%.  

In DCI P3 uv color space, the color gamut coverage of the TU7000 is only around 79%. To show HDR images mastered in DCI P3 like HDR10 or HDR10+ fully like the content creator intended, an HDR TV must be able to cover at least 90% of DCI P3 color space. And the TU7000 displayed color gamut is not wide enough to do that.  

Additionally, the Samsung TU7000 has mediocre color volume. Even though the Samsung TU7000 can produce deep dark shade colors fairly well, the limited color gamut makes it fail to produce a wide range of shades and colors. 

The Samsung TU7000 has a decent color gradient. Banding may still happen in the dark green and gray colors, but in normal content this would be hard to notice. It does have a “Smooth Gradation” feature to help remove banding, but just like other televisions, when you enable this feature it can cause some loss of fine detail in certain scenes.

Side Viewing Angle

Just like most other televisions with a VA panel, the Samsung TU7000 has a poor side viewing angle. For example, when viewed from the side and starting at around 15 degrees off the center and front, the blacks of images displayed on screen will look faded. Additionally, the color of images will lose accuracy starting around 25 degrees. Not only that, starting at around 30 degrees, their brightness level will be decreased. 

This means that when viewed from the side, the picture displayed on screen will not look as good as when viewed from the center and front. Of course, if you often watch TV with a family group who sit together in wide seating, then this Samsung may be not the best choice for you.

Winner: Draw

Motion Handling

The pixel response time is not excellent, but it’s very good.  With around an 18 millisecond pixel response time, it’s low enough to make fast-paced content appear clearly on screen. There may be a faint trail following a fast moving object and it can be more noticeable than on most TVs, but this should not be noticeable in normal content. 

As discussed above, there’s an optional BFI (Black Frame Insertion) mode that can further improve motion appearance, especially when playing 60 fps content like live sports and video games. Enabling this feature causes a backlight flicker change to 60 Hz, and this flicker could bother some people, particularly those sensitive to strobe effects. 

When playing 24p movies, the performance of the Samsung TU7000 is frankly… poor. It’s not able to remove the judder from any source, even when the source is native 24p movies like Blu-Ray or DVD movies.

Input Lag

In PC and Game mode, the Samsung TU7000 has a nice low input lag. With 60 fps content, regardless of the resolution, whether 1080p, 1440p, 4K, 4K with HDR, 4K @ 4:4:4 chrome,  the input lag is around 10 ms. Of course this is low enough to make it very responsive when used to play any game, even for fast paced games that require quick reflexes. As mentioned above, the TU7000 has a 60 HX refresh rate panel, and doesn’t support 120 fps games. 

The HDMI port supports ALLM (Auto Low Latency Mode) and can change automatically to Game mode when you play a game with a compatible console. Unlike the QLED TV lineup, the TU7000 doesn’t support VRR technology.

Winner: Draw

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Conclusion

For Watching Movies

The TU7000 is a mediocre television for watching movies in a dark room. The TU7000 does have an excellent contrast ratio to produce a deep dark with excellent black uniformity. The combination of deep dark and excellent black uniformity actually makes dark scenes look great onscreen, even when viewed in a dark room.  

However there is no local dimming feature to further improve performance in a dark room, particularly to minimize blooming. 

The performance in handling 24p judder is also very disappointing, even when the source is native 24p movies. 

For Watching Sports

When used for watching sports, performance is decent. There’s good pixel response time and the 60 Hz BFI mode makes fast motion images look clearly and smoothly on screen, which is good enough for watching fast sports like Formula1 and Moto GP. 

The SDR peak brightness is not very bright and reflection handling is also only decent. This makes the Samsung TU7000 only suitable when used in a dim-to-moderately lit room.  

The biggest issue would be the poor side viewing angle and of course this makes the TU7000 unsuitable for watching a big game with a group of family or friends. 

Overall performance when used for watching sports is mediocre, but considering the price range, it can still be a good value. 

Video Games

The Samsung TU7000 is a good television for playing video games. There’s good motion handling and a 60 HZ BFI mode that can help to make fast games look smooth and clear on screen. 

There’s also outstanding input lag in Game Mode, allowing you to play games responsively without lag, even for fast paced games. 

The support of ALLM (Auto Low Latency Mode) also means you don’t need to manually change to game mode because the television can automatically change to game mode once the signal from a game console is detected. 

Unfortunately, there’s no support for any VRR technology such as what’s found on the high level model of Samsung’s QLED TV which can improve the game performance. 

HDR Performance

If you get the TU7000 for an HDR Experience, you’ll likely be disappointed. There’s good native contrast ratio and excellent black uniformity, making shadow details of images shown fairly well on the screen. But as we’ve mentioned, there’s no local dimming that can further improve the dark scene appearance. 

Also there’s no support for wide color gamut, so some colors of an HDR image may not be reproduced accurately. 

Additionally, the HDR peak brightness is not bright enough to bring out highlights in HDR. As a result, HDR images displayed on the screen don’t look much different compared to SDR content.  

Summary

The Smart platform of the TU7000 is not upgradable which means that even though you can buy the smart controller separately, it can’t be used on the TU7000. 

You can see our head-to-head comparison of the Samsung TU7000 and Samsung TU8000 here.

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