Samsung LE40C650 review

Digital-savvy LCD TV with Freeview HD and great pictures

Samsung LE40C650
The quality styling of the LE40C650 belies its budget TV status amongst Samsung's TV lineup

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Samsung le40c650 angle

The LE40C650's haul of four HDMI inputs should be plenty for most users; three are provided on the rear of the TV, with a side-panel containing the fourth. That side-panel also includes two USB 2.0 inputs, a composite video input and ports for stereo analogue audio.

The rear panel is home to a couple of RGB Scarts, a set of component video inputs, a VGA PC input, an RF aerial input and an Ethernet LAN port. Sound is taken care of by analogue stereo audio inputs, a headphone jack and an optical digital audio output.

If you're in a Freeview HD area (find out at www.freeview.co.uk), the LE40C650 can supply the three high definition channels – BBC HD, ITV 1 HD and either 4HD (England) or S4C Cirlan (Wales). If you're not, this set is also equipped with both a standard digital terrestrial tuner and an analogue version. Digital TV comes with an eight-day EPG.

Samsung le40c650 epg

Elsewhere, the LE40C650's main features centre on digital media. Its Media Play software is a joined-up interface that presents options to use digital photo, music and video files from a USB stick/hard drive (or both) or from a PC on the same broadband home network.

The USB option sees the LE40C650 read both DivX and even DivX HD video files from a USB device, though of most interest will be Samsung's beefed-up Internet@TV service.

New for 2010 are 'apps' for Lovefilm and Twitter, though the promised app for the BBC iPlayer is nowhere to be seen – yet. Samsung confirmed to us that it will appear on the home screen very soon.

Jamie Carter

Jamie is a freelance tech, travel and space journalist based in the UK. He’s been writing regularly for Techradar since it was launched in 2008 and also writes regularly for Forbes, The Telegraph, the South China Morning Post, Sky & Telescope and the Sky At Night magazine as well as other Future titles T3, Digital Camera World, All About Space and Space.com. He also edits two of his own websites, TravGear.com and WhenIsTheNextEclipse.com that reflect his obsession with travel gear and solar eclipse travel. He is the author of A Stargazing Program For Beginners (Springer, 2015),