Samsung LE-40F86BD, sweet rock 'n' roll

Sunday, December 16. 2007

Samsung LE-40F86BD, sweet rock 'n' roll

Being someone who enjoys good quality and performance, I've been holding off on getting a "flat-screen" TV. Until now that is. Getting a new flat-screen isn't without its due share of problems. LCD or Plasma? A zillion reviews to read, 6-8 manufacturers to choose from, and many many different needs that should be satisfied.

The equipment that I hook up to the TV is a Shuttle PC, a DVD-player, and a DVB-T box. I also had a feeling Santa Claus would be bringing us a Nintendo Wii, so I had to take that into account when looking at the specs.

After having gone through a number of "disqualification rounds", there were two brands left; Samsung and Sony, with Pioneer being the last brand to be edged out before the final round. Picking a clear winner between Samsung and Sony was hard but pleasant. Regardless of my final choice, I knew the outcome would be good since both Samsung and Sony delivers some serious TV equipment.

It came down to personal preference pretty much. Samsung makes very good LCD computer monitors, and have been for many many years. Sony on the other hand have been a brand of choice in the television business for a long time. And their CRT Trinitron series equipment delivers some serious imaging quality.

So my choice fell on Samsung.

After having looked at some Samsung alternatives, the final choice wasn't all that hard (except for the impact it had on my wallet).

The LE-40F86BD LCD-TV features some pretty impressive specs; including full HD, 100Hz, 25000:1 dynamic contrast, 3 HDMI (1.3) connectors, 8 ms response time, Picture-in-Picture (PIP), component input, PC VGA connector (and PC audio input), and a slot for a CI-card for the built-in DVB-T decoder. The display also features "Game Mode" which gives nice and crisp images/motion for PC Gaming and other Video Gaming (XBOX, PS2/PS3, Wii, etc).

I cannot think of a single thing that I don't like about this TV. The only downside that I can come up with is that it becomes very obvious that the current "older" DVD picture quality leaves quite a bit more to wish for. And sine most "soft movie rips" (where movies are converted from DVD media to .AVI or .MPEG files and played from a PC or similar device) are made for lower screen resolutions than 1920x1080 (full HD), it gets a little messy when you play such media files from the Shuttle PC standing under my TV :-)

One thing the plasma display monitor fans have had on LCD display monitor owners is the level of "blackness", or lack thereof, possible with LCD displays. This is no longer a problem, at least not with the Samsung LE-40F86BD.

It is expensive. It delivers. It delivers sweet rock 'n' roll, but the visual kind; LCD-style.