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Sound quality
The audio quality on Samsung's previous generations of 'ultra-slim' TVs has been a bit of an industry joke, sounding every bit as thin and 'hardly there' as the TV's bodies.
Thankfully, the UE40D7000 delivers a solid step in the right audio direction, somehow managing to produce a passably satisfying combination of volume, dynamic range and mid-range clarity from its practically non-existent bodywork.
More bass would have been the icing on the cake, but the fact that there's any sense of bass at all is quite impressive given the lack of physical room for any normal speaker 'boxes'.
Value
It's impossible to pretend that £1250 isn't a lot to ask for a 40-inch TV these days. But the UE40D7000 works very hard to justify its cost. Its design is genuinely innovative, for a start, and the extent of its multimedia functionality is prodigious. Its online Smart TV service is particularly impressive.
It's also got little 'value-added' bits and bobs like built-in Wi-Fi, separate Freeview and Freesat HD tuners, and recording onto USB HDDs via any of a trio of USB ports.
Best of all, though, it delivers Samsung's most uncompromising 2D picture quality yet, setting a new bar for the edge LED world.
The appearance of crosstalk over some 3D scenes does slightly dent the UE40D7000's value credentials, perhaps, but even if you only end up using its 3D talents occasionally it's still got enough going on to justify its cost - especially if you're a dedicated follower of technology fashion.
Ease of use
Considering how many features it's got onboard, the UE40D7000 is surprisingly easy to use. The main reason for this is its inspired 'Smart Hub' interface, which manages to provide a one-stop leaping off point to a huge amount of sources and Smart TV services and apps without looking cluttered or confusing.
The apps store is very easy on the eye too, and the Smart TV and Smart Hub options load quickly and react swiftly to your selections.
It's also helpful that Samsung has kept its calibration menus completely separate to its 'Smart Hub' menus. This is a much more sensible approach than that employed by LG with its otherwise similar Smart Hub system, which requires you to have go into the Hub source menu before you can access the calibration menus.
The UE40D7000's remote control is generally sensible too, with a comfortable feel and a good button layout that puts most of the set's key buttons in suitably prominent places. Samsung has also given a pleasing amount of key features dedicated buttons on the remote, including its 3D tools.
You can get an optional touch-screen remote for the TV that's a big help when it comes to inputting text into the Web browser - though before you rush out and buy one, it can be a little fiddly for other aspects of the TV's operation.
The UE40D7000's onscreen menus are perfect. There's an unnecessary and confusing division of some of the subtler picture features into two separate 'advanced'-style submenus, and bizarrely the set's important Game preset is tucked away in an obscure System submenu rather than being placed with the other picture presets.
These relatively small aberrations aren't likely to provide any many major headaches to the average TV user, though.
