Samsung LE40B550A5 40 inch Widescreen Full HD 1080p Crystal LCD TV with Freeview

The number of LCD, plasma and now LED televisions available now is mind-boggling for anyone looking for a new television. In fact, if, like me, you had specific requirements (40", 1080P, at least 4 HDMI + component) it can take a while to narrow the field down. Luckily, I found the Samsung LE40B550 and I have to say I'm delighted with it.

First, connectivity. Not all televisions are made equal in this area. The LE40B550 has a wealth of inputs - 4 HDMI (1 side mounted) + component + 2 SCART + VGA (D-SUB) + AV ports (composite + L/R audio). Not only that, but one HDMI port and the D-SUB port also have a 3.5mm audio input, for use with a computer. Finally, there's an optical out, for transferring sound from your equipment on to an amplifier / receiver and a USB port for playing photos and music. This really is a well connected set and if you think 4 HDMI ports is too many, think again ... dvd player, 360, HD camcorder, PS3, blu-ray player, media PC, popcorn hour, freesat PVR ... all of these are HDMI equipped.

Second, image and sound quality. Again, the Samsung delivers in spades. The freeview picture is incredibly clean and detailed looking (much more so than I had expected) and when you plug in an HD source, it certainly impresses with excellent levels of detail and rich vibrant colours. As with most television sets, some of the more aggressive picture processing options (edge enhancement, noise reduction, sharpness etc) need to be toned down or disabled, particularly on standard definition sources (the bits you might plug into the SCART socket). I plugged my media pc in to watch BBC iPlayer and at 720P resolution, full screen, I was impressed with the results (so thumbs up BBC and samsung) - so the television also seems to do an excellent job of up-scaling sources from 720P to 1080P, which is an important factor if your games console, camcorder or other source is set to that resolution. Sound output is excellent from the discreetly hidden downward firing speakers - speech is handled well and it sounds neither boomy nor tinny.

Third, quality of build and design. Everything seems well thought out. Even the big box it comes in has a bit of magic up its sleeve. Pop out the little black plastic tabs and lift the top off to reveal the TV. Fitting the stand was easy - it's a manageable one man job. Put the stand onto a stable flat surface and lower the TV onto it. It's safe enough for you to add the 4 securing screws without worrying it's going to drop on the floor! When installed it's a nice, straightforward looking TV. All in all, it's a good looking set, which seems to be well finished, with no rough edges or anything that makes you think "if only they'd ..."

One final thing. If (when) you buy this set, I'm sure you will want to disable the start-up / shut-down "melody". You can do this by disabling it under "general settings"!

I bought this tv to replace my old 32" Samsung, with the intention of using it mainly for gaming with the 360/PS3 and watching Blu Ray. I'm happy to say that this tv delivers in both areas. One of my main concerns when choosing an HD LCD TV was input lag. I personally have not found any noticeable lag when playing games on this tv, and the clarity & quality of the picture is amazing - much improved over the 4 year old Samsung I previously had. SD TV picture looks about as good as SD TV is ever going to look on an LCD, so no complaints there.

The menus & settings are easy to navigate and the connectivity on the back of the tv is pretty decent with 4 HDMI sockets. Sound wise I don't think the built in speakers are too bad, certainly an improvement over my old tv, but obviously you're going to need an additional sound set up for the best results.

Overall I'm really happy with the tv, especially considering the price!

Samsung LE40B550A5 40 inch Widescreen Full HD 1080p Crystal LCD TV with Freeview

Without doubt one of the best bargain TV's out there at the moment (Jan 2010).

This set is rightly winning plaudits from many reviewers for its fantastic features from very high performance panel (the same one used on series 6 Samsung displays) with excellent dark blacks, few if any of LCD's traditional weaknesses and all of its strengths remain with this model. It has much of the specificatioon of much more expensive models (such as the series 6 LE40B650) at a truly bargain price.

Read the reviews on HDTVTest or AV forums if you want the glorious detail of just how good this TV is technically and how great it is that Samsung treat us all to a full range of adjustment of just about every setting for each and every input up to and including full colour calibration to very close to industry reference standards.

My example is now on my wall taking Starndard Def (SD) & High Def (HD 720p and 1080i/p) from a Humax Freesat+ HD TV box and a Samsung top end BluRay player (The HDMI-CEC Anynet integration of the BluRay player so I can drive it all with the one remote is almost good enough to make me want to rush out and buy a Samsung Surroung Amp as well!)
This set may not benefit from Samsungs latest 1 billion dollar upscaling chippery having the older DNIE system, but SD signals are still upscaled brilliantly and the final version on DNIE clearly benefited from the research Samsung put in to developing its sucessor. I replaced a previous 720P Samsung 40 inch set (LE40R74BDX) with early DNIE with this TV andn the improved upscaling performance makes the improvement from 720p to 1080 apparent on Freesat SD signals and even on Freeview (built in) SD signals which can be very compressed and short of resolution to start with.

Get on to the HD BluRay 1080 signal however for a visual feast.
I particularly enjoy this sets perfect performance with the bluray player set to 1080p 24 frames per second (fps which matches the frame rate of film in a cinema) which definately gives you a more filmic experience. Couple this with truly impressive black performance, contrast and colour gamut and you are in for a very big treat. Black performance a la plasma without the dimming trickery used on LED edge lit models or the overpriced local dimming models and the compromises that can result. The Latest Potter movie in all is dark splendor was beutifully and faultlessly rendered by this TV.

And did I mention the price!

Finally if you want smaller and even cheaper I can also recommend the LE32B450 4 series which I bought from Amazon at the same time (£309 if you can believe that). Its only 720P not 1080 but this is less noticeable anyway at the samller screen size and I would have to agree with a review I read that this set shows that you dont have to spend much at all to get a very impressive picture these days. I also highly recomend it.

If you are dithering about buying one, dont. It may not be as thin as an LED edge lit LCD (but I dont look at the side of my TV) and may not have the stumling Internet integration of the 6 series (LE40B650) or its 100Hz but it is awsome performance for the money (£534 at Jan 2010). You will not regret buying this set. I know I dont.

Ian.