Samsung LN40B630 40-Inch 1080p 120 Hz LCD HDTV with Red Touch of Color Buy used from: $599.99
Samsung's Fabulous B630 Non-glare LCD HDTV
Being the first to review the 2009 Samsung LN40B630 on Amazon was purely an accident in that I actually bought the new Sony KDL-40V5100 on April 2nd. At that time, the Samsung B650 had just come out, but its high gloss panel would not have performed well in my brightly lit room. My high definition projection TV had kicked the bucket after 8-years, but I rarely enjoyed watching HD because the daylight glare would wash out the picture. The Sony's non-glare screen performed well except when the picture would black out during dark movie scenes. I discovered that many of the V5100 series have had this glitch and Sony had no fix for it at that time. To Best Buy's credit, they cheerfully exchanged the Sony under their 30-day return policy and delivered the Samsung B630 model which has a non-glare screen and is similar to the popular B650.
My expectations of the new Samsung were that it would perform much like the Sony. I could not have been more wrong. The B630 was like viewing another huge leap in a television experience, while the Sony seemed to be of past technology. The depth and breadth of Samsung's visual color tones are astounding and mesmerizing. A perfect example of that came from viewing scenes of the Caribbean Sea. The Sony could not match the Samsung's Wide Color Enhancer 3 processor with its three dimensional qualities and vibrant tones of turquoise, sea green, cobalt blue, coral pink and white sand clearly seen under the sea. It literally was like being there.
The Samsung's dynamic contrast of 80,000-1 was visibly superior to the Sony's 50,000-1 and convinced me that Samsung's contrast rating was more than a marketing numbers game. The viewing angle of the Sony was horrific when moving away from center by seeing flesh tones morph into green. Samsung's viewing angle was far better by maintaining the proper color tones, but it did lose contrast and brightness. Of course, a slight turn of its swivel base helped to alleviate Samsung's viewing angle issue.
The downside to Samsung's advanced technology was that every movie appeared as video and lost its magical cinema quality. Sony was superior in dealing with this issue. To address that problem, the backlight and contrast settings have to be toned down to soften the picture and to preserve a film's attributes. Most importantly, an adjustment to the 120 Hz Motion Plus feature must be done in order to keep movies from appearing surreal. While some recommend turning the 120 Hz off, I found video blurring far too annoying and placed the Auto Motion Plus to a custom setting of 6 for blur and judder reduction. That seemed like a good compromise without losing much of the film's realistic movement. Experiment with every adjustment to find your best settings and calibration instructions are easily found on [...]. It all came together beautifully for me and hopefully this information can be helpful to you.
One bad design feature was the power and channel functions on the TV itself. You cannot see where they are unless you have light shining directly on them. As long as you use only the remote control, it may be a non-issue. By-the-way, in case you were wondering how effective the non-glare screen was on the Samsung B630; it was perfect. I experienced crystal clear high definition TV -- Day or Night.
Product Details
* Amazon Sales Rank: #13 in Television
* Color: Toc Red
* Brand: Samsung
* Model: LN40B630
* Dimensions: 25.60" h x 39.20" w x 3.10" l, 32.00 pounds
* Display size: 40
Features
* 40-inch LCD HDTV with full HD 1080p resolution for the sharpest picture possible and red Touch of Color design
* Auto Motion Plus 120Hz for amazingly fluid motion, 80,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio, 4ms response time, Wide Color Enhancer 3 for more vivid colors
* InfoLink RSS feeds of news, weather and sports via Ethernet; ; side-mounted USB port for displaying JPEG/MPEG files and listening to MP3 audio
* Inputs: 4 HDMI-CEC, 2 component, 2 composite, 1 PC, 2 USB, 1 Ethernet, 1 optical digital audio output
* Includes removable stand; measures 39.2 x 27.8 x 10.3 inches with stand
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