Samsung LE40R51B review

Other more standard features of the TV include Picture in Picture, SRS TruSurround XT and picture/sound presets. There's Dynamic, Movie and Natural for video, plus Movie, Music and Speech modes for audio. If you like to tinker around with the standard settings (which we found useful on the video side, and you may wish to invest in a calibration DVD), then you can engage Standard mode and then play around with every setting to fit. We did notice one mis-firing pixel, which was blue-coloured on our test model, but it wasn't intrusive and is actually quite minimal for a set of this size.

One point to make is that many users of this television series have complained about visual tearing when using high-definition video. The problem has been alleviated via a firmware upgrade, so if you notice it you should get in touch with Samsung for the required cable, or even have a word with your dealer before you buy. The only time it raised its head is when we used a Dell XPS computer plugged into the VGA socket. At a 60Hz refresh rate, there was some 'tearing', which was especially noticeable with high-definition Windows Media Video. We had to use nVidia's toolset to force a higher refresh rate, but the television didn't like this and text became illegible. Video still looked fantastically detailed, though, especially WMV and Apple's new selection of HD movie trailers.

Performance
We can see Samsung's LE range and Toshiba's WL56 range of LCDs really kick-starting the mainstream takeup of LCD technology, as both ranges bring strong picture performance to a budget price. Sure, go up close to the screen when it's playing a DVD or Freeview and you'll see noise around people and contrasting colours, but when you're at the optimal viewing distance, Samsung's DNIe processing does a brilliant job of masking it. Contrast levels are deep, making the picture look almost three-dimensional, and the colour reproduction is faultless, even down to usually tricky skin tones.

High definition is where it's at on the Samsung, though. We tested HD video from a computer at 720p and Sony's HDR-HC1 camcorder at 1080i (which the Samsung scaled down). Images were so detailed that it was almost unnatural, and you could go right up to the screen without seeing any pixellation. It was a luxurious experience that impressed onlookers, and even though there was some smearing from Sony's camcorder, the overall impression was that the panel could cope with its relatively huge size without problems.

The 20W speakers are also very good. The HDMI input supports digital audio, so both video and audio signals can be sent in the highest quality possible to the display. What impresses the most is how low these speakers go -- but please invest in a home cinema setup if you have any sort of respect for this LCD giant.

Edited by Nick Hide