Samsung UE40B7000 review

HD pictures have real impact on this screen, particularly Blu-ray movies. The deep blacks and crisp edges the UE40B7000 provides help to deliver a picture that looks almost three-dimensional, with judder-free motion and eye-popping colour reproduction.

Standard-def content is decent too, and you get a couple of essential noise reduction modes to play with if you want to improve particularly dodgy source material (anyone out there still watching VHS tapes?).

BREAK OUT: HD sources are particularly strong on the Samsung screen

HD gaming also works slickly, with the LED backlighting holding up well even with the fastest-moving titles. By comparison, the LED-lit Philips 42PFL9803H often smeared colours working with the likes of Gears of War 2 and PES 2009, but here both games remain stable and clean.

Users have the option of selecting a pre-configured Game Mode, which cuts out the dynamic contrast and makes a few other changes, but it's not a must – you can get just as good results by doing some of your own tweaking.

Connectivity is reasonably impressive, with four HDMI inputs, supplemented by PC, component and Scart. The latter two, however, both require adapters (which are supplied in the box), as the TV is simply too thin to accommodate the usual connectors on its backplate.

There's also an optical digital audio output, plus a Common Interface card slot, a couple of USB 2.0 ports and an Ethernet socket for networking. A port for a wireless LAN adapter is also fitted, but the adapter itself will cost extra.

The screen's multimedia features are not to be sniffed at. Thus far, most digital media-compatible TVs I've seen have been fairly disappointing, but the DLNA compatibility here ensures that it works smoothly with a variety of file types.

I played an AVI movie directly from a USB storage key with no glitches and great picture quality – the only problem was that scanning forward and back was very slow. Likewise, JPEG photos looked sharp and MP3 music played without any grumbles. You can also stream content from any DLNA-equipped PC or Mac on your home network.

PLUG IT IN: Somehow, Samsung have fit a veritable bevy of connections into the UE40B7000

The networking function allows the TV to connect to the 'net via a router, and while there's no browser, you can access self-updating widgets from Yahoo! And users of the Flickr photo sharing website can enter their login details and stream their pictures and slideshows direct to the UE40B7000.

Entering passwords is a slow, sluggish and frustrating process here, but once it's done the whole thing works quite well. It's a nice bonus feature.

The aforementioned optical audio output should come in handy, because, to put it frankly, this TV's built-in speakers are next to useless. I wasn't expecting audiophile performance from such a thin cabinet, but the speakers are tinny and, when anything bassy comes on, prone to horribly distracting distortion. I wouldn't recommend the speakers for anything other than a news broadcast, basically.

Disappointing audio aside, Samsung has managed to whip up a fantastic television here. It's brilliantly thin and stylish, but still succeeds in delivering a high level of picture performance and some very useful digital media and web features. And all at a price that makes rival sets like the Sony KDL-40ZX1 and Philips 42PFL9803H look rather expensive in comparison.

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