It's hard to see what new facilities could be added to a TV. Lately, refresh rates have already multiplied – to 100 and 200Hz; light-emitting diodes have started to take over backlighting duties; and Freesat tuners have been integrated. However, you can always rely on Samsung to come up with something new. The company's LE40B650.

It's the UK's first LAN-equipped, wireless-ready TV to offer web 'widgets' as an additional calling-card – but is this a killer app, or just a gormless gimmick?

The LE40B650 is a glossy, glass-fronted set with a rotating clear pedestal and 'invisible' speakers. It's branded 'True HD', which just means it's got a 1920 x 1080 pixel resolution, and features Samsung's proprietary Ultra Clear panel.

Power, Channel, Volume and Source controls are almost invisible touch-panels on the bezel. Side inputs include twin USBs and an HDMI; while on the back are three more HDMIs, PC D-Sub, component video input, two Scarts, and analogue/optical in/outs. Finally, there's the all-important LAN socket to connect the TV to your home network, either directly to the internet or to a PC.

The TV's onscreen menus are clear, unfussy, and react quickly. The first page is Picture, for which there are four basic modes. Other parameters are as expected; backlight level, contrast, brightness, sharpness, colour level, tint, and Advanced Settings.

The latter includes black tone; dynamic contrast; gamma level; colourspace; white balance (with a full range of R/G/B offset and gain adjustments); flesh tone, and edge enhancement. There's also a Picture Options menu with a range of colour tone presets, screen size settings, DNR options and 100Hz Motion levels for blur and judder reduction. I can't think of any important picture features that are absent, so this is an ideal set for enthusiastic tweakers.

The Setup menu offers options such as Game Mode, Picture-In- Picture, Energy Saving and the like. This is also where you configure your TV to work with your network, entering the TCP/IP parameters such as IP address, subnet mask, gateway and DNS server. In the input menu, sources can be assigned and named.

The final menu is Application, which is where the Samsung starts to get clever.

On the menu

The Media Play menu gives you access to music, picture and video files stored on external USB devices such as memory sticks or portable hard drives. Options include a DivX video-on-demand activation routine; using external media as a screen saver; and the Anynet option, for HDMI-CEC communication with compatible equipment.

Next up is Samsung's Content Library. This consists of built-in media such as pictures, games, recipes, fitness advice, children's stories and so on. You can delete unwanted material and add to it via USB.

The most impressive function of this set, though, is its internet use. It's clearly intended for people who want to access some of the more useful bits of the web without coping with Windows and wading through thousands of pop-ups.

Having made a connection, the LE40B650 presents you with a selection of widgets in a dock at the bottom of the screen. When you select a widget it opens up on the left of the screen, on top of the main picture, which you can resize to fit the remaining space.

At present, the widgets include Yahoo Finance, Yahoo News, and Yahoo Weather and some more fun things such as Flickr, the online image gallery, and YouTube.