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We liked
There's so much to like about the UE48JS8500, from its blistering colours, scorch-your-eyes-out brightness and deep blacks to its scintillating detail and depth. Motion is smooth, while judder is successfully removed from Blu-ray discs.
This 48-incher also happens to have some of the best audio we've heard on the TV this price, as well as some excellent second screening options, and an app-packed smart TV interface.
We disliked
Although the Edge LED system is very well executed, there are a few patches within the panel of uneven brightness, though they're only visible during very dark sequences.
It's also not the easiest TV to set-up, offering only a few basic picture presets, none of which are particularly easy on the eye.
A tweaking session thus ensues, which won't be welcome for many. Its high brightness is something to be wary of, and while contrast is impressive, there's significant black crush.
Other gripes include a lack of processing speed, which hampers the likeability of Smart Hub, and the need for a separate connections box, which will only add to the mess of cables on an AV rack for most users.
Verdict
If you're in the market for a Samsung SUHD, the 48-inch UE48JS8500 – considerably cheaper than the step-up UE48JS9000 and UE65JS9500T models – is worth a long, lingering look.
The UE48JS8500's superb colour, awesome 4K detail and sublime depth make this one special TV, though some black crush takes the edge off. Excellent usability features – from second-screening a TV channel and hosting all UK catch-up TV apps to supporting Netflix/Amazon 4K and playing-back 4K video files – are welcome but slightly under-powered in terms of processing speed, but the UE48JS8500 remains a good value way to sample Samsung's impressive SUHD TVs.
Also consider
Taking on and beating the UE48JS8500's SUHD suite of tech is the LG 55EG960V, a 55-inch TV using OLED technology that Samsung appears to have given up on, for now.
However, OLED TVs are enormously pricey, s instead consider the likes of the Panasonic TX-50CX802, the Japanese brand's best LCD TV to date whose pictures also have plasma-like colour and black levels as well as HDR, Firefox OS-driven smart TV, and even Freeview Play.
