Samsung LE46M87 review

1080p is here to stay -- for people who want to own the best possible equipment, it offers them the opportunity to enjoy some of the finest-quality images ever seen in the home.

Samsung's M87 range of 1080p televisions offers top-of-the range features and high-quality picture processing. The range is also well styled and will appeal to people who don't just want a television, but a centrepiece for their lounge.

Design
The styling of the M87 range of Samsung televisions is excellent. The screens are finished in a piano black and have funky, rounded edges, which really set them apart from other TVs on the market. The shiny bezel, however, does attract every sort of mark and fingerprint you can imagine.

The screen is also covered with a reflective plastic cover. While this helps the picture quality in a dark room by increasing black levels, in a lit room the reflections from lights make the picture hard to see.

The speakers are invisible from the front; instead, sound is fired downwards from underneath the television.

The same remote as every other Samsung TV, with the same slow response and strange styling

The remote control is long and thin -- it's not the best-designed piece of equipment we've ever used, but it looks okay. There is a backlight, which can illuminate certain key buttons -- handy if you're sitting in the dark.

The set features three HDMI inputs -- two at the back and one at the side. The side panel also features composite video in and an S-Video socket for hooking up camcorders and games consoles.

The LE46 has component video in, VGA in, two Scart sockets and both optical and digital audio outputs. You'll also find a pair of audio inputs, one mini-jack style connector for hooking up a PC and a two pairs of RCA connectors for adding sound to component and HDMI -- if you have an HDMI source that doesn't include audio.

The rear panel offers the two HDMI sockets and component in -- there's also an optical audio out to boost the television's weedy internal speakers

Annoyingly, it's not possible to select the RCA audio in when you're using VGA, so if you choose to connect your Xbox 360 this way, you'll need a connection converter to make this work.

Features
The great things about this screen are its superb connectivity and 'Full HD' 1080p. The TV also features a wealth of configuration options, which is fantastic if you want to customise the picture for your personal taste. The Movie mode, which we'll discuss in more detail later, means that you can the reduce film grain found on many movies and create a much smoother-looking image.

The other good news is that 1080p is supported via VGA too, which will appeal to people looking to get the most out of their Xbox 360s. It's a nice feature that's rarely found on 1080p televisions.

The Samsung also promises to cut down on input confusion by only offering you a choice of the inputs that have a source plugged in and turned on, so unless you have a DVD player hooked up to the HDMI input and powered up, you won't be able to select that input from the menu. Although in practice this should make things slightly easier, it actually confused us -- we initially thought the TV might have a fault.