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To clarify I own this tv and am not just basing this review on time spent in a store browsing. This tv has been hard to come by and the only place I could find that had it in stock was my local Best Buy with a Magnolia section.

Design: Samsung is noted for their sleek design and this tv is no exception. Samsung says it has a charcoal touch of color but I really didn't notice any color in the bezel. It is black and goes to clear at the outer edge. It sits on a metal stand with a clear neck holding the tv. At the bottom middle of the tv below where it says Samsung is a blue light which can be turned off. I noticed the light flickers ever so slightly when a command is sent from the remote you are using. The tv is VERY slim. Only 1.6" at it's fattest point. This is amazing considering this tv is a fully backlit LED unit with local dimming. Truly amazing and a design that will have your friends jealous.

Picture Quality: This is the best looking LCD tv made today. I have viewed many other LCD tv's including the Sony XBR8 and the Samsung A950 from last year and this one is the best looking I have seen. From a picture quality perspective the XBR8 is closest but not quite up to par with the 8500. Realistically if you had either of these sets in your house they would look spectacular. The blacks on the 8500 are so dark it approaches the level of blacks in the best Plasma tv's. In a dark room I could not tell where the tv screen ended and the bezel began because the screen was so dark. The colors are superb and can be tweaked any number of ways to your liking. I prefer the "Natural" mode for everyday use and the "Movie" mode for watching blu-ray movies. The 240hz refresh is nice but the best thing is that you can independantly control Blue and Judder settings. Cranking up the 240hz tends to produce what some call the "soap opera" effect but this can easily be eliminated by tweaking. There is also a Game mode which I use when gaming on my PS3.

One interesting thing I found out was that the Movie mode using the Warm 2 setting is pretty much spot on from a calibration perspective right out of the box. I say that because I have a Spears & Munsil calibration blu-ray disc and when I ran the tv through the calibration process using Movie mode on Warm 2 I literally only had to tweak one setting by one or two points. I could see many people just flipping back and forth between Natural and Movie modes, depending on what they are watching, and not bothering to calibrate the tv as it looks great pretty much out of the box.

I also wanted to mention that standard def looks good on this tv. It doesn't look nearly as good as HD but it is totally acceptable in my opinion.

Sound: Having such a think profile I expected the sound to be horrible. Surprisingly it was quite acceptable. While I would recommend a surround sound system I never felt like the tv speakers were all that bad. My wife has never mentioned anything and I have never been watching a tv show and thought, "oh the sound stinks". I would say it's about average which is ok to me considering the tiny amount of space Samsung had to work with. While audio-philes may not like the tv speakers/sound I think a lot of people would be totally fine with it.

Viewing Angle: I sit about 9' to 10' away from the screen and have not noticed any real issues with the viewing angle. Of course no LED LCD will have a viewing angle as good as a plasma but unless you are sitting at an extreme angle you probably won't have to worry too much about this. I think this is more of a personal preference...sure the best picture is right in the center of the screen but I don't think sitting to the right or left a few feet makes the picture dramatically different. Maybe a video-phile would notice but my wife doesn't notice and has never said a thing.

Reflection: Be aware that this is NOT a matte screen, it is a reflective screen. If you have windows directly facing the tv then make sure you have curtains or blinds that can block out the light enough not to bother you. I don't think it's anymore reflective than other Samsung tv's but coming from a matte screen prior to this it was a big change for me.

Widgets: The tv comes with internet connectivity for Yahoo Widgets, You Tube, Twitter, USA Today Sports and several others. You can either buy a Samsung USB wireless stick to connect the tv wirelessly to your network or you can plug an ethernet cable directly into the back of your tv. I have an ethernet cable plugged directly into the back of it. First things first, the widgets do not load fast. I'm not sure why but even using a direct internet cable into the tv they still do not load fast. No idea why but they are slooow. Slow enough for me to be annoyed and not use them much. It's odd because when I went to the You Tube widget and looked up a video it played quickly and was smooth. Hopefully Samsung will have a software update to allow the widgets to lo

It is a strange thing if one stops for more than a few minutes to ponder reality, fate, chance, luck and circumstance.

I do not believe in "fate", so to speak but, I am really starting to believe that things, no matter how minute or grand, happen for a reason. There are just too many coincidences mixed with opportunities and potential that would not ordinarily be there if the past didn’t play out like it did.

The wheels of progress, change, TRUTH and JUSTICE have been set in motion in the Marshall Islands. I sacrificed myself for the betterment of a “system” that enables pure unadulterated corruption, criminal activity, a black-market, poverty and discrimination! Do you, an American tax payer, realize that you tax dollars are literally being spent on Marshallese traditional leaders who use your money in an unethical manner? Millions upon millions of your, OUR, dollars are wasted on a few fellow human beings who use scare tactics, so called “Birth Rights” and tradition to oppress an entire civilian population!

Marshallese Senator Mike Kabua and the entire Kabua clan have their pudgy, corrupt and evil claws so deep into U.S. Army Kwajalein Atoll (USAKA) and the Kwajalein Police Department (KPD) that I would be willing to bet certain officials within these so called “professional” organizations are being bought. Why else would a Queen who I tried to enforce official laws upon when she were breaking these laws allowed to freely enter and exit USAKA no questions asked without her belongings ever being searched and inspected?

I have available first hand witness testimony that countless Marshallese citizens have been forced to vote election after election for the same Kabua family or face expulsion form their homes and native islands - not to mention being jailed and or beaten by the Kabua owned Marshallese Police agencies! I have personally been witness to this so called, Senator Mike Kabua, being allowed to freely break USAKA policy, procedure and law by the leadership of the Kwajalein Police Department!

Last year I tried to stop Mr. Kabua from going through an USAKA controlled gate with over one thousand dollars in goods purchased from a Kwajalein Range Services owned store on base. USAKA law states that even these so called “leaders” are only allowed to bring through 200 dollars worth of USAKA retail goods off of USAKA in a certain time frame. But, like time and time again, when I fought back and tried to enforce these laws, policies and regulations, I was overridden by the leadership within the ranks of the Kwajalein Police Department. I was forced to, or face disciplinary action, to open the gate and let this Mike Kabua character through with about a thousand U.S. dollars of American Retail Goods through the gate! He in turn used these very goods to sponsor an election rally on the island of Enniburr, known as Santo by many Marshallese. Mr. Senator Mike Kabua (among other Marshallese “leaders”) is literally using USAKA and KPD official resources in an official Marshallese Government election year after year. USAKA and KPD are the enablers of corrupt and criminal Marshallese Government elections that are not fair and legally conducted. If this is not known as a “Conflict of Interest”, I don’t know what is!

At the same time though, KPD police officers are expected to take away candy from a child, milk, eggs and bread from poor parents, write them a ticket and possibly initiate a black-marketing case against them. I find it IRONIC that Marshallese Senator Mike Kabua supports USAKA laws, policies and regulations when it is enforced against his own people who are forced to buy from stores he owns at prices much higher than can be found and bought by Mr. Kabua himself on USAKA - yet he chooses a path down the road of unethical practices by abusing his people’s trust and dignity by relying on corrupt KPD and USAKA leadership to purchase goods at a much lower price than are in the very stores he controls that his people are forced to buy from and who are criminal prosecuted if they buy from USAKA and try to get the goods home.

One night I was on Ebeye on the eve of the latest Marshallese elections. I was with some Marshallese friends and I asked them who they voted for. Every single person there told me that they voted for Senator Mike Kabua because if they didn’t, they would face imprisonment by the Ebeye Chief of Police, Mr. John Kabua, a direct family member of Senator Mike Kabua. They went on to tell me that after they were released from jail they would be forced off of the Kabua’s “land”. This expulsion would mean they loose their job provided by USAKA. If they loose their job they do not have money to provide for their families. These poor Marshallese citizens are literally caught between a rock and hard place.

Part two will come tomorrow. In this second part I will explain why 99.9 percent of all Marshallese citizens have no hope of change and see it as futile to