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By 

G. Mccloskey –

  

The very short review:- this TV does some things very well, somethings ok, and some things poorly. For anyone who wants an unobtrusive TV capable of good HD and SD material, it’s a contender. Anyone who wants to fully use all the features (interactivity, time shifting, etc) should consider if this product is developed enough to meet expectations.

The longer review:
The Good: This is a super slimline TV, much smaller in all dimensions that any 2010 TV and quite a few 2011. I’ve read that the 37″ is typically only a fraction larger than most 32″ out there – so this 32″ is tiny. The styling (either 6510/6530) is very modern, and is a definite eye catcher.
High Def material, with bright scenes and plenty of detail (e.g. BBC wildlife, bluerays) looks very very good, and you can definitely see the difference. You may need to tweak the settings a bit, especially wrt the Motion (hint – set to Clear), but once done, pictures are very high quality. Standard Def material, when it is encoded well (e.g. BBC 2, AAA DVD) is upscaled really nicely, and doesn’t look artificial. The set features advanced colour controls (10point colour space, white point) if you are a real geek/film buff).

The unit comes with a full suite of inputs, current (HDMI 1.4) and legacy, so you won’t be unable to hook up the equipment.

The “smart hub” is a good attempt at bringing the internet and connected world to your TV. Iplayer works well (except for the volume bug see below). Easy to plug in ethernet and configure, or use wireless. I have a network-attached-storage (NAS – a ReadyNAS duo) for photos, music and movies. It found that with no difficulty, and I can stream all three. There are issues with movies though – see below.

3D – well it works, and there are several good movie length features you can download. The downside is that it’s not full-HD 3D – i.e. you lose half the vertical or horizontal resolution. With some material, this won’t matter – but with a modern blue-ray, it’s noticeable. Samsung should be more honest when promoting the 3D or else offer full HD-3D, as they do on other models. It’s also questionable how much of a 3D effect you can get on a screen this size. Nice to have, but not an every day thing.

Sound – for such a slim unit, Samsung have done very well. It’s no cinema experience, and movie buffs will probably want to add their own speakers, but for every day use, it’s very listenable, and doesn’t hurt your ears after a coupe of hours, as some cheaper TVs might. Well done Samsung.

Time-shifting :- I plugged in a spare 2.3″ 100GB hard drive, it formatted it and a few minutes later time shifting was there. Hit the pause button, and off you go. You can also set recordings from the EPG and let it do the work for you. Playback is quick and easy, with the ability to fast forward, pause etc. All good. It would be nice if Samsung added automatic chaptering (so you can skip ads) and a ‘skip 30 seconds’ button. In summary, it’s a basic implementation of a PVR, but anyone who’s used a good Humax or Sony over the last few years will miss some features.

Games display – with an option to turn off (most) processing, and reduce lag, and solid vibrant colours, this is a very good display for xbox or PS3. The lag might be slightly higher for hard core online gamers like, but for mere mortals, it’s very good.

The Bad
Iplayer – there’s a bug with the volume, setting at 1 or 2 is too quite, 3 hurts the ears and 4 blows the doors off. No way to set at a comfortable level.

3D half resolution : as mentioned above, 3D seems to be at half vertical or horizontal resolution – what’s the point of a HD telly, if it shows you a SD picture?

Channel organisation is not easily accessed, and the manual is little help. You need to do it through the smart hub and under the channel app. It should be a lot easier to find or at least be sign-posted, not least because most of the HD channels will be placed in 50+ position, and everyone will want them in positions 1,3,4 etc.

Changing channels is also slow – up to five or six seconds for some of the HD. I don’t understand why.

While there is a wealth of options for changing picture quality, what they actually do is very poorly explained, in the paper guide, the electronic guide and even the 300 page PDF from the web site. It’s a shame, Samsung have gone to the bother of giving you the features, but they’re incomprehensible to most.

The DTV tuner seems a bit less robust that the one from my Sony PVR. My signal quality is average, and the sony never showed the slightest break-up in any channel. The Samsung frequently shows break-up in some channels with low bit rates and the high encoding – e.g. ITV4, More 4 etc.

When you change channel, it shows you the channel number and the name, but no…

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 Comment (1)

As there seems to be no reviews for this TV what so ever on the internet, I may as well be the first.

I was in 2 minds whether to buy this as I have had a Samsunng TV before and wasn’t particularly impressed with it, I was looking at the Sony’s and Panasonic’s… The Sony only got 5/10 in a review for 3d picture quality and the Panasonic was nearly a grand.

In the end I decided to take a punt on the Samsung and I’m so glad I did. They have certainly come along a great deal since I last had one. The normal 2d picture quality is crisp and sharp, the TV has more features you can shake a stick at and the 3d’s pretty superb too.

I’ve only had it setup for around 12 hours and it’s so simple to use. I’ve already connected it up to my network (DHCP or Static) and it’s found everything with no problem. Watched a couple of things on BBC iPlayer and even the quality of that was very good (I wasn’t really expecting it to be). The remote control has the option to light the keys up, I’ve downloaded the Samsung andriod app to use as a remote control through my network (pretty neat) and it plays the 3 side by side 3d films I have on my network media tank (HDX/Popcorn Hour) without a problem… and the 3d looks great, it doesn’t seem to come out of the screen at you though but looks as though you are looking through a window at the picture… I’ve hardly used it yet though so perhaps it will when I watch a film in full. I’ve read in a number of reviews that 3d doesn’t really work on 32inch sets, but as this is the only size that’ll comfortably fit in my room I’m pretty limited… and let me tell you it does work.

The set also has a built in web browser, it’s a bit fiddly to use the remote number pad to type but maybe my andriod app will sort that out… I don’t know yet.

I’m no 3d TV expert but I’m well happy with my purchase and would easily recommend this to anybody.

One thing to be aware of though… don’t do as I did and buy the wrong glasses for the set. I bought the old style infra-red glasses (SSG-2100AB/X) that don’t work with this TV and have had to go out and buy a pair of the Bluetooth ones (SSG-3100GB) 50 quid from comet.

The only slight down side is with the experience of wearing the glasses… they turn themselves on and off when they detect a 3d signal, which is good, but I can notice a flicker with them. Now I have only tried them during daylight hours and my TV is placed next to a window and it’s the window area that flickers a bit… but as I do most of my movie watching (which is primarily what I’ve bought the set for) at night I’m hoping that this won’t be so noticable.

I hope this review helps anybody in 2 minds

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