Samsung LN40C530

by null

Samsung

MSRP: $749.99

Typical Price: $993.93

Overview

CNET Editors' Rating: 0.0 / 5

Design, Features & Performance (out of 10)

Review

Basic Specs

User Reviews

Average User Rating: 0.0 / 5

User Rating Breakdown

5 Star: 4

4 Star: 0

3 Star: 1

2 Star: 0

1 Star: 0

An Excellent TV for an Excellent Price!

Rating: 5 / 5

on April 10, 2011

19 out of 21 users found this review helpful

Pros: + Excellent picture with extremely rich colors
+ Viewing angles seem pretty good
+ TV already is very bright
+ Audio is pretty good for built-in speakers
+ Having a very high contrast ratio helps a great deal of bit with color reproduction as well

Cons: - No built-in upscaler
- No S-Video input
- I feel menu system has always been a little clunky

Summary: Visually, this TV is excellent. The colors are vibrant and on-target (no purple cast like I've seen on some lower-end LCD TVs) and there's no ghosting. Like with any high-resolution TV without an expensive upscaler built in, regular definition sources (e.g. older DVD players and game consoles) look a little blocky. You can fix this with a fancy upscaling circuit like you find in the more expensive A/V receivers, but otherwise it's something you'll find on every TV.

The audio is pretty good for built-in speakers. It certainly has more bass than our old tube TV did; built-in amplifier technology on the TVs has advanced considerably over the past 5 years or so. The volume control seems a little odd, though, in that when it's quiet you have to nearly double the numeric volume before it's noticeably louder. I wonder if it might be using a linear scale instead of a logarithmic one (decibels, for example, are logarithmic). Still, decent built-in speakers; if you want really nice sound, you'll want an external receiver (which is probably true of any built-in TV speakers anywhere). It has optical and analog audio out if you want to plug it into a cheaper stereo instead of finding a more expensive receiver unit and speakers, which is nice (the analog is in the form of a stereo miniplug (headphone jack), which you can either plug in directly or get an RCA jack Y-adaptor for most stereos).

One of the HDMI jacks has a stereo miniplug linked to it for audio input so you can plug your DVI-capable computer in and pass the audio in through the analog jack (since many computers have DVI, which is easily and cheaply adapted to HDMI but does not carry audio content). This is a nice feature if you have a media PC or plug your laptop in for photo shows, etc.

One thing I wasn't such a fan of was the menu system. Samsung has always made nice TVs, but I feel their menu system has always been a little clunky (my old roommate had an older model and it was almost the same). This machine is at least pretty responsive when you push the buttons, unlike older ones which were a little sluggish, but the menu system goes far too deep and doesn't seem particularly well organized. I still can't figure out how to turn off the dynamic contrast scaling; the menu says it's off, but black screens full of white text (like the credits after The Office) cause the contrast to adjust up and down, making the text a different brightness on each subsequent screen depending on how much white text there is. Minor quibble, and it probably does improve the picture on the show itself, but still.

And, like most LCD TVs these days, it takes about 5 seconds to turn on or off, which is puzzling for people when they hit the power button and nothing happens instantaneously. This isn't unique to this TV or even Samsung TVs, of course, but if it's a surprise to you, don't panic.

My chief complaint about the menu system is that you can really only select from a handful of preset names for each of the sources; items like "TV", "Game", "DVD", "DVR" and a few other assorted oddities. I have a PS2, an XBox and a Wii; I guess I name them all "Game" and hope I can remember which input goes with which? I also have the new AppleTV (which is wonderful), but the closest category that fits it (to my mind) was "IPTV". This is somewhat superficial and not at all a dealbreaker, but it does occasionally confuse the less technical members of my household. Given that it would have been trivial for their software engineers to add an option for specifying a custom name, it's a little disappointing. I think I actually remember being able to do that on my old roommate's older Samsung TV, but maybe I'm misremembering.

Last complaint: No S-Video input. I'm probably part of a sub-1% group that finds this annoying, but I have several older game consoles which provide S-Video out and not component out, and their composite looks terrible (specifically the Super Nintendo). I suppose I'll just have to wait until I get a real receiver, most of which do have S-Video inputs (and better upscaling). I think I was just more surprised than anything else, since this is the first TV I've seen that doesn't have any S-Video inputs.

All in all, I am 100% happy with this TV, and I can't say I've ever seen a modern-day HDTV with a reasonable menu system. Make sure you measure your space before you pick the size, though! I did, and 40" is the perfect size for us; my wife thought it sounded way too big, and we almost went with the 36" (which would have looked oddly small in the space it's in). Eyeballing it is a good way to wind up with a TV that's too big (won't fit or overwhelms people at the viewing distance) or too small.

And, of course, if you're looking for bells and whistles like 120 Hz (I don't really watch anything that takes advantage of it, so it seemed like a waste of money to me), you'll need to pick a higher-end model.

*** P.S. If you will buy this TV I suggest you have compare price before you decide at: www.amazon.com/gp/*************?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%****%2Foffer-listing%2FB0036WT3NO%3Fie%3DUTF8%26ref_%3Ddp_olp_new_map%26condition%3Dnew&tag=***************&********=ur2&camp=1789&creative=390957

Updated on Nov 11, 2011

Edit Link

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Great tv for bedrooms

Rating: 4.5 / 5

on July 14, 2010

2 out of 3 users found this review helpful

Pros: Picture quality is awesome, like the interface, anynet is a good feature, very easy to setup

Cons: The only audio outs are, a 3.5 mm(headphone jack) and a digital optical which i dont know about others but i have never used or met someone who used it, and there is no RCA audio out which is really a pain if u dont have a audio to 3.5mm converter.

Summary: Great tv if you either have a new sound system, surround sound or you want to just use the built in speakers.

Absolutely amazing TV; excellent for the price

Rating: 4.5 / 5

on November 21, 2010

0 out of 0 users found this review helpful

Pros: The best picture/colors I've ever seen

Cons: None so far

Summary:

enjoying the TV so far

Rating: 4.5 / 5

on July 5, 2010

0 out of 1 users found this review helpful

Pros: nice picture...sound takes a little getting use to, but overall very happy with purchase for my bedroom

Cons: none yet, hopefully never

Summary: Have no real complaints to date...good tv for the price! sure there are better, but lots more $$$$

Specs lacking

Rating: 3 / 5

on January 31, 2011

0 out of 2 users found this review helpful

Pros: Audio is carried on HDMI, too.

Cons: Not enough specs listed

Summary: Under "Power" it should tell how many watts it draws while on, and how many watts it draws when off (i.e. in its "instant on" 'standby' state).

Also, cnet reviews should always tell if a set does picture in picture or not.

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