Samsung UE40D6530 40-inch Widescreen Full HD 1080p 3D 400Hz LED SMART Internet TV with Freeview HD - Silver

For the price this TV excels in most areas. I'll try to summarize the best and the worst aspects (or flaws) of each major part of the TV. It's a long review so I can give as much info (or opinion) as possible.

Design
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The TV has a narrow black bezel edging around the screen's perimeter with a glass like edging to the bezel itself, a silver stand/base with a clear glass support stem and a very discrete Samsung logo on the bottom bezel edge. I would say the TV is stylish but classy at the same time. This TV is also incredibly thin, you'll be amazed. No complaints on the design.

Picture Quality
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The picture clarity in HD is quite frankly incredible - on both the built in HD Freeview tuner (which works well) and from an external source such as Sky HD. My Samsung replaces a 3 year old Toshiba 1080p and I can tell you the improvement in HD picture quality (compared against my old Tosh) is very noticeable. The pictures almost jump out of the screen and have incredible detail. The blacks are much blacker, and not washed out grey like my old Toshiba, but I would say that sometimes dark scenes, in movies for example, can be a little too dark and lack detail which I cannot seem to improve. Not a major complaint more of a minor quibble. Standard definition picture quality is adequate, nothing to write home about, but it's certainly good enough. I guess going from such incredible HD images to SD images is always going to be a disappointment.

The motion plus feature of the TV is incredible. This feature basically smooths the appearance of the video and makes the detail in moving images clearer and more detailed. Both my wife and I were amazed how everything looks more 'real'. I've got to say Motion Plus takes some getting used to because it really does change the appearance of movies so that they seem different. Takes away from the character of movies perhaps - but probably more a case of motion plus takes some getting used to. Motion Plus can be disabled if preferred.

Other minor complaints about the picture quality. There seems to be minor back light leakage around the edge of the screen and very slight white clouding. It's only noticeable when the screen is completely dark, otherwise for any lighter images you don't see this back light leakage at all.

3D
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What can I say. 3D works, and for me I have no complaints. It's good to be aware of a minor issue though. The active shutter 3D glasses (not included) can create a strobing effect when watching 3D TV in a bright room - whether that light source is from your house lighting or from sunlight from a window. My TV is next to the window so trying to watch 3D TV in the bright early evening sun had to be abandoned. The strobing effect was too much. Once the sun's glare died down, later in the evening, then it wasn't so much of a problem.

Sound
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The sound is OK. It's not bad, it's not the greatest. The bass is a bit thin. My Toshiba probably sounded better but I expect because the Samsung is so thin, and with the speakers behind the TV screen, then this probably affects the sound quality. There are sound modes to choose from: Movie, Music, Clear Voice, Amplify but none of them truly excel. In standard sound mode though there is the ability to change the base, treble etc but these adjustments appear as frequencies in an on-screen equalizer so it's a case of adjust to taste if you don't want to adopt one of the aforementioned default sound modes. There is also SRS surround sound.

Smart TV (including Samsung Apps and Web Browser)
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This is where the TV starts not to impress so much. Smart TV (or the Smart Hub) is basically a user interface from where you can access all of the internet enabled services of your TV alongside the more typical TV features such as the TV guide, favourite channels etc all in the one place. A nice interface in itself but some of the features are a bit 'hit or miss'. The Samsung Apps such as BBC iPlayer, Lovefilm, Facebook, Youtube, BBC News all work great. However that's it really - there's little else you'd want to make use of, so the good worthwhile apps are very thin on the ground. Hopefully more apps will be added in the future - it'd be nice to have ITV Player and 4OD but it's a case of wait and see. There are a couple of movie streaming services in addition to Lovefilm, as well as Skype and Twitter but I haven't used this apps so won't comment on these.

The Web Browser is awful. I mean really awful. I've got a 10Mbps connection but it's quite clear to see the web browser struggles - in that it's slow to draw graphical images, especially web-pages with graphical backgrounds. Not only that but text entry is via the use of an on-screen mobile phone type keypad - so basically you have 3-4 alphabetic characters per on-screen keypad button. It's slow and attempting to select the third or fourth character of a keypad on-screen button is a bit of a hit and miss process, and can be sometimes frustrating. Not only that but the on-screen 'mouse like pointer' is difficult to navigate around the screen and the alternative to highlight hyperlinks with a super-thin blue box, which is difficult to see and slow to control, isn't much better. I'd say the web browser isn't fit for purpose on the whole. Some tips however. Make google your home page and when typing in URLs (web addresses) use google to do the textual auto-completion - you'll get my meaning when you try this. Do not use the web browser's direct URL entry - it will frustrate you. And then bookmark all of your favourite websites and hope you never need to use the on-screen key pad text entry again. The web browser would get 1 out of 5 stars in my opinion.

By the way the inbuilt Wi-fi works really well.

Gaming
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I'm not talking Samsung app games but games consoles (PS3, 360) that you might want to connect to this TV. This TV has a game mode because all of those extra video processing features such as Motion Plus etc add what is termed 'input lag'. Input lag is the time it takes for the video signal to travel from the HDMI port through the TV's innards to the TV screen itself. The longer this delay the more of a problem it is to gamers. Game mode turns off the video processing features of the TV (motion plus etc) to reduce this lag/delay. Now with game mode disabled there is terrible input lag on this TV. Console games are essentially near to unplayable. With game mode enabled the input lag is dramatically reduced and games play normally again. However, the measured input lag of this TV has been reported to be somewhere around 50-70ms in gaming mode which some say is still too high for avid gamers - gamers that might be sensitive to these delays. For me personally at first I thought I could sense the input lag in game mode, but it really doesn't seem to have affected my performance in BFBC2, Black Ops, Killzone 3 and Halo Reach multiplayer. If there is any input lag in game mode in my opinion it's not really noticeable and if it is noticeable it's minuscule. Of course in game mode disabling the various video processing features of the TV does affect picture quality (which even the manual mentions) but for me there isn't a particularly big impact.

Summary
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This TV is not perfect but it excels in some important areas such as high-definition picture quality, design (style) and the Samsung Apps (of the few available). And for everything else: gaming, web-browser, 3D etc there are some compromises to take into consideration - but by no means is there anything particularly bad in this TV - well, except for that web browser. I hope you found my review useful, if a little long.

This is my first HD TV, replacing a 1999, 28 inch widescreen CRT. It took me almost a year of research to decide on the TV that I wanted to buy. First there was a choice between LED and Plazma. Finally I went for LED as they seems to consume less power, but more importantly they are far better for daylight programmes, such as sports. LED TVs also have caught up with Plazmas, in displaying dark pictures.

So I started looking for a nice LED TV and finally decided on Samsung U55D6530. The reason for my choice were; I wanted a smart TV with access to online contents. I also wanted a 3D TV. Although I wasn't quite sure which frequency to go for (100HZ, 200Hz or 400Hz), I finally decided on 400Hz. Fast moving pictures such as football matches looks much better on higher frequency TV. Just a quick note if you are confused with 400Hz. The normal television telecast is only 50Hz, then how can a TV operate on 400Hz. Because of the slowness of the old CRT TVs, the TV stations used to broadcast interlaced signals where each frame were divided into old and even line frames i.e. 100 of half frames per seconds = 50 Hz. Modern TVs can support Progressive frames, which are created by inserting the missing old or even lines in interlaced frames through estimation. Hence a 50 Hz Interlaced signal are converted into a 100Hz progressive signal. Latest LED TVs such as Samsung U55D6530, can take this further, by inserting more frames in between the two transmitted frames, through estimation routines. This is how you can get 200Hz LED or 400Hz LED.

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The Verdict
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When the TV first arrived, it looked quite big compared to the 28 inch CRT we had. But we all got used to it within a day or two. So, anyone who is not sure of which TV size to go for, my advice is to go for the biggest possible that you can afford. At the beginning, the TV did not look very clear. But then a friend of mine told me that LED TV will look better within a week as the LED TV's pixel takes some time to fully glow. Believe me the viewing experience improved every day for almost the entire week.

We tried the HD channels, and they were awesome on the tele - Almost unbelievable. I watched some cricket matches on SKY Sport HD and clarity was breathtaking. I had previously watched cricket matches in many other HD teles, but this TV is far much clearer than any other TVs I have ever seen.

I also tried the normal channels and they look so much better. I also bought a Samsung 3D blue ray player with this TV. We watched the MegaMind 3D movie and the 3D experience was amazing. I must say that if you want to watch more of 3D contents, then buy as big as you can, as the TV looks smaller on 3D broadcast. You can switch a 3D movie to 2D, if you don't have enough glasses or whatever.

The TV is smart TV with built in WIFI. Within minutes, I was able to hooked the TV to my wireless router. Once connected to the internet, the TV automatically downloaded the latest firmware and upgrade itself. I tried YouTube, Skype and LoveFilm. The Skype experience was very nice, but as there was no microphone or camera, we could only watch the pictures with no sound and on the other side my son could not see or hear anything. I believe, you can buy a Camera+Microphone for Samsung TV. Not all camera will work. Only the once that do not need any additional driver will work, i.e. the ones approved by Samsung. These Camera+Microphone are quite expensive; around 100 bucks. There is also a keyboard/remote that can be bought for around 30 bucks. That helps using the web browser, YouTube etc. There are many apps that you can download, but I havn't tried it as yet.

The TV supports USB drive. Once I connected my USB drive with lots of movies in various format to the TV, I was able to play all of them. I tried DVDRip in MPEG4/MKV, Blue-ray Rip in MKV and all of them played without any issue. You can use the TV remote to browse the files and folders on your hard drive. The TV remote can also be used to pause, fast forward, rewind, time search, stop etc. The TV is an DNLA device. i.e. as soon as you start a Windows 7 laptop/pc with windows home group setup on the same wireless network, you will see your laptop on your TV as a source. Once you select your laptop, you can stream videos, music, photos etc. from your laptop to your TV.

Plenty of ports: 4 HMDI, 2 USB, 1 VGA, 1 EXT (to connect SCART devices) and many others.

Any Cons: Simply None.

This is my first review on the Amazon and this TV is so good that I have no choice but to share my experience with all of you. I have been a proud owner of this TV for about a month and I have been absolute fallen in love with this big beast. You can't go wrong with it. Last night, we watched some blue-rays movies and my son said "If I get one penny for each of the pixel on the screen that I am seeing, I will be a millionaire".

Great TV.
Amazing colour and depth of field, it actualy looks like 3D without things jumping out the screen at you.
The picture clarity is fantastic.
Standard TV is also good but HD is great. 3D is a novel and works, but you are limited to the DVD's available.
I spent months reviewing TV's and visting shops, and I am realy critical when it comes to picture quality.
The Samsung range were always up there AT THE TOP. Looked at Pan and Sony but nothing was quite as good.
I liked the screen glass going right to the edge with only a very small black edge.
This 37inch was actually smaller than my Sony 32inch LCD.
I therefore persuaded my wife to go up to the 40inch of this model and sent back the 37inch.
This would have got 5 stars if the sound had been better. Actaully on my 40inch it does sound better