Samsung LE52F96

Hello, I'm standing next to one of the biggest and most innovative televisions we've seen in a long time. Say hello to the Samsung LE52F96, a 52-inch LCD TV which boasts an LED backlight, a new innovation in the world of TVs. So, what does an LED backlight mean to your day? Well, crucially replacing the traditional tube backlight with an array of LEDs means that when an area of the screen is supposed to be black, the backlight in that region can be turned off. In the past, there was no way to do this, and that led to poor black reproduction. So, I hear you ask, does it work? I'm pleased to say that, yes, it does indeed. We noticed that the picture quality of this TV was excellent on high definition material. That's not to say it's perfect, but in terms of contrast it certainly is an improvement over what we've seen before. The only slight quirk of the LED backlight is that when the screen is totally black, and you bring up a menu, you can clearly see the light bleeding round the edges, this is particularly noticeable if you look at the TV from the sides. This won't be a problem for most viewing though, and we're sure things like this will be improved as time goes on. The LE52F96 has every connection you're likely to need. There are three HDMI sockets, two of which are at the back and one on the left hand side. There are also scart, composite, s-video, component and VGA inputs scattered about. The remote control is the usual Samsung affair, we aren't that keen on it and we find it pretty slow to respond to our finger mashing. The good news is our favourite standby button in the world is present and correct, here with it's accompanying blue LED. I'm Ian Morris, and this is the impressive Samsung LE52F96.