Samsung LED 3D TV

Finally, after months of research and analysis on the options available in the market, I bought the TV which I thought best suited my needs. The Samsung UA40D6000SR LED 3D SMART TV. I had clarified the difference between true LED and and LED LCD TV in my previous post, and as per that clarification, this one is a LED LCD TV. So goodbye rear projection and welcome to the SMART “idiot box”.

(Relative sizes in pictures can be misleading. This TV is QUITE HUGE)

Before I go ahead with the brief description of the features, let me tell you how to not get robbed while buying this kind of TV. If you are a good bargainer, you will get a great deal. The price of this model on various online sites was about 71,000 rs. It was sold at the shop for the same price. But going to and fro between few shops, I got the idea about how much the sellers are ready to bargain. The place from where I bought this TV sold it to me for 65,000, without a haggle. I felt being robbed even then. The MRP of this 40″ model is 83,000 rs. These guys earn a lot on a single piece so don’t be afraid to quote a lower price during the bargain. Also get some free goodies thrown in.

Now for a brief review:

Picture Quality:

Very good!! I ran few HD movies through USB hard drives and had no problems at all. There is no visual delay or sense of multiple/distorted images or tail in high speed motion videos. The colour reproduction is very good and all the basic elements of the colour can be adjusted manually to our liking. I am yet to get a DTH connection with HD transmission since the channels which I favor are not available. So the TV had to handle the normal poor quality transmission from my current DTH provider. The picture quality is good enough if viewed from suitable distance. The only things that bothers me are few faint white cloudy spots in some parts of screen when the picture is perfectly black. The reproduction of black colour(especially the black top and bottom bars in the movies) is more towards a blue side. I have logged a service call on their website and I got a call within 2 hours stating that they will check on site to rectify the issue.I guess India gets the lower quality of screens out of those being manufactured so may be this one is better than the one I will get if I go for replacement. Luck!!
But I would like to say that there is not difference is sharpness of the picture all along the screen be it the center of the edges. Brightness of the screen is excellent.

Sound:

I will never come around  to love the sound of  todays LCD/LED TVs. Be it Samsung or LG. They manage to continuously dish out televisions with 10w speakers, which do no do justice to the size and quality of transmission. Also, no manual equalizer is a shame. They have given 4-5 preset sound settings, but these are not for audiophiles. And when I say that, I am not over-expecting. I leave the topic here.

USB playback:

The feature where I would say hats off to Samsung. I have tried it on Sony Bravia, Panasonic, LG and Samsung. Out of the movies on my 500GB HDD, Samsung recognized almost 80% of the movies. LG gives preference to AVI format and I hope they do something about it. I wouldn’t speak about Sony and Panasonic. Secondly, I detected my 500GB HDD without any problems.

Allshare:

Welcome to the connected world. I just don’t need to connect the HDD to my TV anymore. That’s actually to cumbersome since I will have to disconnect it from my laptop every time I want to watch the movies from my HDD on the TV. So now there’s Allshare, an application developed by Samsung in compliance with the DLNA standards. In a nutshell, DLNA is a standard developed to help all the media devices to communicate between themselves and share the media available with them on user demand. Setting up DLNA is quite easy if you have a home network. I physically connected the TV to the router and my laptop is connected to the router for 24 hours a day. All I did was download allshare application from Samsung website and installed it. Then, I shared all the media on my to portable HDDs and my laptop through allshare application, and voila, the entire media collection is visible on my TV when I select allshare application or select my computer from the source list on the TV(Source list is a list of all the inputs connected to the TV, be it the DTH set top box, the DVD player, the HDD, or my laptop through network). To be able to run the media on network, ensure that all the devices are wired, since wireless connectivity drops from time to time.

I even connect my DLNA enabled mobile to this network and was successful in running the HD videos on it, seamlessly.

Anynet+:

As per Samsung, all the devices connected through HDMI can be controlled using this feature. I do not have any HDMI device so couldn’t check it, but this does help in reducing the number of remotes.

Samsung Apps:

Similar to Samsung apps on the wave series phones from Samsung, this feature gives you access to various application available on the net and which can be installed on the TV. I downloaded AP news, Google Maps, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube etc. For now, the applications are few, but things could change soon.

Smart Hub:

The menu in which your TV shows it’s true colors. Smart hub gives you access to lots of applications which can make your day to day life very convenient. It is a one stop menu to access all your media types(audio, video, or still images) at one place. It gives access to various social networking applications like facebook, twitter, Google talk, you tube etc. Latest news are at your disposal through AP news ticker and TIME news application. The news ticker can be run as a widget on the screen when watching video or TV and can be enlarged on right side(just like windows sidebar) to access the detailed news. Logging on to facebook gives you all the necessary basic functionality of accessing the feed and the media from your facebook account. The controls are user friendly. But I could do with a better text input option, which is from the remote at present. Smart Hub keeps you connected on the social front. The Search all function on the top enables us to search through all the resources on the TV. Your video gives you list of videos available for viewing as per your preferences. Managing the number of apps is easy since they can be grouped together into folders in Samsung Hub. Samsung also has a choice of few 3D videos available on Explore 3D, and you can preview the 3D technology using the videos. I neither have a fast internet connection, nor the expensive active 3D goggles, so I do not write much. Social TV gives you live feed from all the social network sites while you are watching the TV.

Remote Control:

Well laid out and easy to befriend. But using the remote control for typing messages in facebook or twitter is a challenge. I personally like the Samsung remote control application in my Wave mobile. I just have to start the application and it connects to the router using Wifi, detects the TV and hands over the control to me. This application has the option to call up a QWERTY keyboard on the mobile screen. I just loved it.

Connectivity:

The connectivity options are all available on the rear of the TV, placed such that all the connecters go flat against the back and not protrude out. We have HDMI, USB, D-SUB, RF, and AV component and composite connectivity. There is a LAN port to connect to the network and a 3.5 mm port to connect audio devices. Think over your connectivity options before fitting the TV on wall, else its bit tricky. I am quite satisfied with the number of connections available.

Installation:
It took me and my brother about 10 minutes to get the TV running out of the package. The installation manual is a single page leaflet, without much alphabets on it. But the pictures are quite self explanatory and it’s a fool job then on.

Manual:

Gone are the days of the paper manuals. The TV manual is installed on the TV and can be called up at the press of a button on the remote. It is very well laid out and has very good pictorial representations in it.

Few other Pictures:

     

I was dissatisfied with:

• Samsung’s ploy to not include a web browser in this TV just to build the gap between this model and a higher model. But it’s never late. A web browser can be introduced later through Samsung apps.
• Cloudy spots in non pictorial area(black bars on top and bottom). Though they do not affect the quality of video displayed, people who notice them, do not fail to notice them again.
• Keeping a very high MRP on a product which is sold for very cheap in the market. This gives room for sellers to cheat buyers, as explained earlier.

Apart from this, I am happy with what I have bought. Do ask questions if you need any clarifications.