Samsung LE40A6 review

Performance
It would be great if we could start off saying something nice about the TV's Freeview performance. Sadly, the best we can do is to call it adequate. Even for a TV this size, we felt that the picture could have been sharper. Fiddling around with the menu settings didn't really improve the situation either. Sure, the picture isn't horrible by any stretch of the imagination, but we can envision a set with better Freeview detail: there were times when the picture felt washed out.

The good news is the Samsung managed to perform brilliantly with HD material. The 1080p screen proved it can produce some amazing quality pictures, filled to the brim with the details missing from Freeview. The black levels were superb, and the backlight was restrained too, so we never felt we were looking at a light grey when we should have been looking into a rich black.

We tested this television with some scenes from Spider-Man on Blu-ray. Just before our hero is bitten by an vicious arachnid, we noticed that the grass was a vivid green and Kirsten Dunst looked lovely, her red hair impressing our keen reviewing eye -- for the colour, rather than because of our red hair obsession.

As you can imagine, gaming with a PS3 on this TV was fantastic too. Games were sharp, had minimal motion blur and had more colour than Rolf Harris' paint box. We whiled away far too much time playing Burnout Paradise -- the screen immersed us in the action and we couldn't pry ourselves away.

Sound quality on the Sammy was also excellent. Although our usual mumblings about low frequency bass levels are still relevant, the TV has plenty of power, and dialogue is nice and clear. You could certainly watch a Marlon Brando film on this TV without missing half the words and having to switch subtitles on.

We can't leave without a word about the 100Hz motion reduction mode. If you must use this, then you will need to set it as low as possible. On the high setting, we noticed lots of picture distortion in addition to the distinctly unnatural video look this mode gives to movies.

Conclusion
If HD is your bag, this TV is very possibly a good choice for you. Besides providing excellent picture and sound quality, this Pied Piper of a TV will hopefully lead manufacturers away from black shiny plastic designs.

It's a good buy, but its menu systems need an update to bring it in line with current LGs. If you're looking for an alternative, we'd have to suggest the Panasonic Viera TH-42PX80B, which, despite only being a 720p TV, manages to produce a truly stunning picture on all kinds of material.

Edited by Jason Jenkins
Additional editing by Shannon Doubleday