Samsung UE55ES8000 warning!
Hi there!
Just a quick heads up to all owners of Samsung's new 8000 sereis of TVs.
Here in Europe there has just been a major softare update for this series identified as 1010.3.
Unfortunately it introduces a few new unwanted features such as random power cycling where the TV suddenly switches off & on again for no reason, remote control lockup where all commands are ignored causing you to power cycle the set (presuming it doesn't beat you to it!!) and general sluggishness when using the menus particularly the SmartHub area 
.
In saying that I wouldn't change the model for anything - the picture when calibrated is the best I've ever seen.
To be fair, Samsung support here in Norway have been first class, they have a WebChat function where you can interact with a level one technician in real time who actually asked permission to phone me to find out more about the problem.
The set passed the diagnostic run (hold down the "return" key on the remote for 15 secs and follow the instructions) but is still misbehaving.
A quick scan of the various Samsung user forums out there confirms that 1010.3 is indeed causing problems and the general advice seems to be to avoid it like a tax bill (hi Jimmy!) until it gets fixed.
I'd hate anyone to fall into the update trap and brick their TV just before the Olympics begin, hence this post.
Samsung are sending a guy to look at my set tomorrow so I'll keep you posted.
Audio/video engineer based in Norway 
Hey there!
As with most electronic devices these days, there maybe several versions during production run variation.
My set is specifically the UE55ES8005 model.
A quick search will reveal many people experiencing problems after the 1010.3 update.
I reiterate that this is a first class set but has some teething problems and it's probably best to avoid the 1010.3 update until the bugs are ironed out so I'm guessing it will be 1010.4
Just trying to save some people the pain that many are going through right now! 
Audio/video engineer based in Norway
You are lucky with the customer support their. Having just moved to Germany it has sofar taken 3 weeks to try and get them to collect my faulty product. Which I guess will get the same problems when it updates when I get it back. That is if it has been collected from work yet? I suppose I should call them again tomorrow and hope there is someone working who as some English.
Just got off the phone with Samsung Support and they appear to have located the slowdown problem and fixed it.
The way to speed things up is as follows:
First make sure the hardware is performing OK by holding down the RETURN button on the remote for 5 seconds then follow the on screen instructions.
The whole test takes no longer than 30 seconds.
Unless there is an error report, then after the reboot, proceed to phase 2.
Select : MENU-SUPPORT-SELF DIAGNOSIS-RESET.
This will reset the SmartHub portal and force an SH update, this procedure can take several minutes but you will be notified onscreen when it's complete.
Again follow the instructions.
Now I don't know if this operation somehow defrags the memory or something similar, but I can tell you that my set now loads SmartHub in a blink of an eye, it's that fast.
Now to load the home page using the web browser takes less than 1 second.
So if you're suffering from slow speed with menus, surfing, SmartHub, etc, now you know what to do.
I hope this info is of help to some of you, the great thing about this "soft" reset is that you will retain all yout tuning and calibration settings, something that a "hard" reset (or factory reset) would destroy.
Audio/video engineer based in Norway
Samsung have now released firmware 1012 which seems to have swatted all the reported bugs.
Voice recognition also improved 
Audio/video engineer based in Norway
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Odd I have this tv and this update and not experienced any of the problems you have.