Samsung LE26C450 26-inch Widescreen HD Ready 50Hz LCD TV with Freeview

The picture on this TV is excellent BUT it is essential to 'tweak' the settings to achieve an optimal presentation (suited to your own taste of course) after the likely initial shock of the picture being awful with the default settings; already being the owner of an 18-month old 37" Samsung LCD TV I knew how important this was. I adjusted the settings by playing a Blu-ray of 'No Country for Old Men' as the opening sequences have a good combination of beautifully bright, sharp and full of contrast shots. The sound is less impressive but still perfectly acceptable and MUCH better than I was expecting due to small power output/size of the unit. The only noticeable aspect is that the maximum volume achievable is not very high; it is not a great issue as for normal TV viewing it is fine and a surround-sound hi-fi is used for DVDs/Blu-ray...

This 720p 26" (it will of course accept all HD signals up to 1080p and 1080/24p) was bought to 'replace' a 24" 1080p LCD TV made by another manufacturer which I bought as it was cheap; I thought a relatively small screen would not produce much difference between makes - how wrong I was. Luckily I was able to return that other TV after a trial as no amount of adjustment produced an acceptable picture; crucially the backlight intensity couldn't be altered (unlike as with the Samsung), which I think has a MAJOR effect on picture quality. The picture had good contrast/brightness but it never achieved the level of sharpness expected for a Blu-ray presentation; it always appeared slightly blurred and 'mushy' in comparison to my 37" Samsung and I was left to wonder if it was the TV itself or the limitations of the smaller screen size. I now know the answer, as the picture resolution of this 26" Samsung is far superior to that other TV (for only about £50 more, BUT it is a 26" versus the 24" so the cost difference is even less significant) and it is difficult to find differences to my 37". When I read enthusiastic user reviews of that other TV it makes me think if they know what they are missing out on and how things could be even better....

There are a vast range of aspects available for adjustment, but not all are that necessary to change in my opinion. Below are the settings I changed and the values I made them, you can see that some are wildly different from the default setting which proves my point about 'tweaking'. It is pertinent to observe that as no two LCD panels are the same, and their performance changes with use (as they demonstrate the affects of 'burn'in'), there is even more reason why the settings will differ for everyone and probably need further adjustment over time :

Backlight-1
Contrast-70
Brightness-70
Sharpness-90
Colour-30

The 'Gamma' setting also produced significant differences, but it seems to be more dependent on what kind of source picture is being viewed when the above settings are, for me, 'universal'. If you get this TV obviously you can 'tweak' as you wish, but I couldn't see any noticeable difference from any of the other 10 or so settings available for adjustment ! There is also a Graphic Equalizer which can have some effect on sound presentation.

The range of connections is excellent and actually improves on my 37" Samsung. They are :

Rear

2 x HDMI
Component In
SCART
PC-In VGA
PC Audio-In (Slaved to HDMI-1)
Audio Optical-Out (which has a menu adjustment available for 'time delay' to deal with any synchronisation issues)
Headphone
Co-Ax Aerial

Side :

HDMI
USB (more on this later)
A/V In
CI Slot

The HDMI connection also accepts a playback signal from a PC equipped with a Blu-ray player. This is something I believe is referred to as 'HDCP' and is not a given even with the latest TVs. I connected my PC via a DVI cable and a DVI-HDMI converter and it worked fine, showing the Blu-ray picture with great clarity. Sound was present via just the DVI/HDMI connection, leaving me confused why there is a separate PC-audio input slaved to the HDMI socket !

There are front/bottom touch-sensitive controls for on/off, channel, volume, menu and source, BUT like my 37" I find them virtually impossible to use in any practical way as the legends are difficult to read against the black surface in anything other than a brightly lit room meaning you are (or at least I was !) forever selecting the wrong function....

Other notable features are :

A VERY capable media player facility for files accessed by USB (absent on my 37")
An informative and flexible EPG which allows programme scheduling
An on/off timer which can include USB as a source
An individual channel 'lock' facility with PIN access

Pros/Cons are :

The wide-range of picture size modes and adjustments remain. I have not seen many TVs which allow you to select a picture mode then be able to adjust the size as well as move the image.
The unit is remarkably lightweight.
It's made in Europe !
Firmware updates can be made via TV signal or downloaded then installed via USB
Unfortunately, the stand is fixed so you cannot readily swivel the screen
Those aforementioned pretty-much unusable front/bottom touch-sensitive controls...
For most the headphone connection being at the rear would be a con, but for me it is actually preferable as it is used as the permanent audio output to a small sound system; this reveals a limitation since it is the only way to get a sound output to a basic sound system as there are no phono audio output sockets (although there is the optical output for those with an amp that accepts it of course). This limitation is compounded as using the headphone socket mutes the TV speakers; I would prefer it if (like some TVs allow) the TV speakers were always active, there was a separate volume control for the headphone output and you could therefore control the audio for both the TV and your audio system from the TV....

So, as with any purchase you need to check as much as you can beforehand that all your requirements are met. I downloaded the User Guide for this 26" TV and confirmed it offered all the capabilities (and more) I liked and was used to from my 37" Samsung. I am not brand-loyal and am sure other makes offer similar quality, but this manufacturer makes TVs which clearly have a good picture and offer the functions (some slightly unusual) I like.

The current sale price of £250-odd (make sure you check the Amazon 'New/Used' prices as the Amazon price is often shunted from being the headline price by more expensive sellers !) makes it a very worthwhile purchase; it doesn't have things like a built-in DVD or a USB record facility (which the 'rejected' 24" TV I tried first had), but I am not in need of those features and think picture quality is most important.

O.K. I bought this TV at the weekend and was pleasantly surprised at the USB capability. It plays almost everything I throw at it from a 320gb USB Hard Drive I plugged in.

Picture is great most of the time. However, I have noticed motion blurring when there is fast and not so fast motion on the screen. When I watched True Blood on Friday motion blurring was occurring when a person moved their head. Now is there a setting I can adjust to circumvent this? Funny thing is that I have watched a lot of football in HD on the set and there is no motion blur for that so it seems that the processing can handle fast moving balls but not motion on peoples faces.

Also, the aspect ratio for freeview TV. There does not seem to be a setting to keep the original aspect ratio of the braodcast signal. I like to keep the original aspect of the broadcast media but there does not seem to be a setting to achieve this unless I am missing something.

I'll continue to tinker with the set to see if I can get around these issues. It took me about a week to get my main set functioning as I needed it as there were far too many settings on that one too.

Apart from the two issues detailed here I am happy with the set.

Edit on 08/03/11. Further amendments have improved the situation and I think I know what is happening now. I have changed my Virgin Media box to output at 720p instead of 1080i and that has improved the motion blurring somewhat.

I have noticed that any viewing angle aprt from dead on lessens the picture quality. Colours wash out at an angle.

Went to an electrical store near work and had a look at this TV in the shop. The TV in the shop was motion blurring as well. Also, the next model up the LC32450 was blurring too. I suppose I have been spolit by my main TV which is a 200mhz Toshiba which has no motion blurring whatsoever. I'll continue to play.

P.S. Discovered the PIP capability and that is ace.

Edit on 10/03/11. Copied some High Definition movies to a NTFS disk and plugged that in. Surprise, surprise the picture quality is almost perfect. No motion blur at all. So the set is capable of producing near perfect pictures. Just need to figure it amongst the myriad of settings that are available. Whatever it is set to by default for USB playback are the best settings there are.

I'll still continue to play...

Edit on 27/04/11 So I have this TV for a few weeks now and it does get better ewith age. Maybe it needs to be run in a bit. Blurring is less now (or maybe I'm just getting used to it) and the PQ from all sources is getting better.

So let it warm up a bit and you'll get great results...

I've a small living room and wanted to replace my 21" tv. I did an awful lot of research before deciding on the Samsung. The 26 inch is the perfect size for my lounge and the picture and sound quality is fantastic. Set up is very easy including connecting to my bt vision box with an hdmi cable. I really like it's simple, pleasing design as it manages to blend with my decor rather than dominate it.

I have no hesitation in recommending this telly.