Samsung UN40B6000 40-Inch 1080p 120 Hz LED HDTV Reviews

Review by Gregory L. Dauria for Samsung UN40B6000 40-Inch 1080p 120 Hz LED HDTV
Rating:
I originally ordered the Samsung LN40B650 and was fairly certain that I had made a good choice. I don’t know why but I starting second guessing my decision, which led me to review the Samsung LED LCD televisions. While the reviews were not extremely glowing, the Samsung UN40B6000 looked like it could better the picture of the CCFL LN40B650 and I canceled the order for CCFL and went with the 6000 series LED television. One of the “cons” of the edge-placed LED televisions is a noted lack of screen uniformity but that is for larger screen sizes and I thought the 40 inch screen would not be as prone to that problem.

Some thoughts and observations:

1. The clear screen is very good – I have 3 windows, and a bright ceiling light; there are no reflection problems. In some of my earlier posted Amazon photos, a window reflection was evident on the screen, but not really noticeable in real-life viewing. I found, however, if I looked for the reflection, I could see it. I reshot the photos in lower light to better illustrate the performance of the UN40b6000. The first photo shows how good the screen image is when viewed directly on; this quality remains solid to 15 – 20 degrees of center. The image does lighten but I disagree that it rapidly deteriorates to poor quality even up to a viewing angle of 45 degrees; it’s still a good image.

2. Out of the box the picture is good, but after using the settings recommended by CNET, with some slight personal adjustments, the picture for many Blu Ray pictures are as good as I’ve seen.

3. Despite the stated mega contrast ratio of 3,000,000:1, the gamma setting needed to be adjusted to at least +2 or +3 (highest) values to keep dark scenes properly contrasted. One interesting fact regarding the off-center viewing is that contrast for dark lit scenes actually improves.

4. The sound is NOT bad; the two UN40B6000 rear/downward firing speakers in custom mode produces respectable sound for a television set. Now, if you want theater-quality surround sound, then this TV is going to fall far short of such expectation, but what set would not? My suggestion is to go into sound mode; select custom, select graphic equalizer (set 100HZ to max; 300HZ to 3/4 range); set SRS Trusurround HD to “On” and give a listen. If you’re still not happy, buy a sound bar.

5. The backlit remote is nice for nighttime viewing and is fairly user friendly.

6. The Samsung Blu Ray and UN40B6000 automatically recognize one another which may play a role in the exceptional picture that is produced.

The bottom line is that UN40B6000 produces a very good to excellent picture, and the sound is decent for a television set – is it worth the couple of hundred dollars more than its CCFL counterpart? I cannot say with certainty, but my hunch is that it is. However, where its performance may exceed say the LN40B650 is most likely limited to direct viewing +/- 20 degrees off center. After that the CCFL set may hold an advantage.

Update 9/25: I have read the reviews regarding limited viewing angles, but I have not noticed the dramatic degradation that has been observed by others. For comparison, I have placed 3 images under typical dark viewing conditions (note all camera settings are in static manual mode, no photo editing performed). The series of photos uploaded on Amazon do not come close to the actual picture on the screen in terms of quality, but they do demonstrate relative difference in picture color and contrast as the viewing angle is moved from center – please note photo placement captions. Overall, I am VERY happy with the UN40B6000 performance and have every intention of keeping it. The picture is outstanding when viewed directly, and may diminish with increased viewing angle, but it’s more of an excellent to good, than a good to terrible. My wife keeps complaining that the picture is too good – that it’s like watching a movie being made instead of viewing a movie – it does not make sense to me either.

UPDATE 1/22/10: In the comment section I was asked the set’s height with stand. When I performed the required action by using a metal measuring tape positioned on the right side of the TV, the set went into store demo mode that displayed features of the TV – I needed Samsung technical support to get me out of the stored program. On the plus side – at 23:00, Friday night, I had a technician within minutes. Samsung did not understand why it happened but it did, and they directed me out of the program. FYI, I measured over the front buttons on the right side of the TV and I now believe the metal tape simultaneously contacted two buttons which initiated the store demo program – do not take a measurement in that fashion! If for some reason the store display comes on, from menu, go to “plug and play” and advance to section that has choices “store demo” or “home use” select “home use” to exit the program.

Review by James F. Stoicheff for Samsung UN40B6000 40-Inch 1080p 120 Hz LED HDTV
Rating:
We bought this TV because it had the best picture, period. The rest is, as they say, gravy. That said, there’s a lot of gravy.

Pros:

Fantastic picture

A lot of HDMI inputs (4)

Easy to set up

Attractive and lightweight design

Cable HD looks great

There’s some control of the Panasonic receiver/DVD player through the TV

Photos on USB thumb drive look gorgeous

Cons:

The Ethernet connection is nice, but it should do more: I want access to my Ethernet HP Media Vault, and the Internet offering (USA Today news stories, weather, and stocks) is meager

One of the PIP options must be to the RF coaxial input

The cons are minor, especially since I wouldn’t have cared or noticed if the features weren’t included at all.

Review by Winter for Samsung UN40B6000 40-Inch 1080p 120 Hz LED HDTV
Rating:
We just upgraded from a 10yr old huge tube tv to this. Granted that anything would be awsome in comparison, the picture is fabulous, its very light, thin, and energy efficient. It is weird not having any buttons on the tv itself, but I can kind of see why. Since it is so thin, the wire placement in the back is a bit strange, or different I should say from the monster tube tv we had. We had to get a HMDI cable to go with it to connect our DVD player, but other then that, no other item was needed. If you are going to mount it on the wall, you will need to purchase that separately. Luckily the DVD player we had was new enough to be an upconvert to Hi-def.

The picture looks like you are standing next to the film crew as they are filming the show. It’s very strange. Even Kungfu Panda looked more 3 dimensional if that is possible.

Review by Rod for Samsung UN40B6000 40-Inch 1080p 120 Hz LED HDTV
Rating:
*UPDATED*

Well I purchased this two weeks ago from Best Buy and I have enjoyed it since then. I have now a better understanding to write a better review.

I like it’s ultra slim design and its light weight. I didn’t needed more help than little help from my wife to carry the whole package to the second floor. I did it alone to carry off of my minivan and I’m not a wrestler. I did assembled the stand in a few minutes very easily.

This is my first HDTV. I have been following HDTV technology for years but was until now that I was able to purchase it. I have watched a lot of TV’s since 5 years ago in every store display with every combination of inputs and I think I can notice when a movie is Blue Ray connected through HDMI or composite video to when a TV set is connected trough other Video inputs and video sources (DVD).

I have my set connected to a Samsung BDP3600 Blue Ray, however I have not purchased any Blue Ray movie yet so I tested with a couple of DVDs and the image is excellent. I can’t tell if is the TV or the BDP3600, but I see it like a Blue Ray movie. I can’t wait to play a blue ray movie on my set. DVD’s look gorgeous. *UPDATE: Computer Animated DVD’s look gorgeous. I tried Harry Potter DVD and it is not the same video quality as Shrek II. Blue Ray movies seems very nice as expected, darker scenes seems grainy, I believe that is the ISO sensitivity of the film not an issue of the Blue Ray. If that is true new movies are going to be shotted with HDTV or higher area film, if I’m not wrong, most movies are 35mm film.

HDTV over the air (1080i) looks very nice and is pretty quick to change from HDTV channel to HDTV channel. I have satellite broadcast, however it does not offer HDTV signals :(.

*UPDATE. I have plug ed my USB thumb drive with a racing .mkv file and I was amazed of the quality of video I saw in this highly compressed file (3hrs in a 1.1GB file). All the scenes look very nice with vivid colors and very detailed even the fast moving scenes from on board cameras.

*UPDATE. I would have expected to read my Ethernet disk drive to play this videos, but is not able to connect a network shared drive. The blue ray player is able to do it, however is not able to play .mkv files. So I need to copy them to my thumb drive and play them directly on the TV.

*UPDATE. Infolink is good, but you are not able to select cities from other countries for weather update.

Unless other reviewers say not, mine has buttons, they are touch sensors discrete icons in front of the TV i.e. power button is beneath the SAMSUNG logo.

PROS:

– Excellent Picture

– Slim Design

– Light Weight

– Stylish Design

– Discrete Buttons (some owners might have not notice them)

*UPDATE – Ability to play a lot of audio and video formats including .mkv, video files.

CONS:

The only thing that I have discovered is that Picture in Picture can only be done with an HDMI input and Air. I have not been able to have PIP with Air and the analog A/V input from my satellite nor the satellite with the HDMI input. I have not installed the Ethernet and might a firmware upgrade solve this.

*** UPDATE ***

I did connect the set to my Ethernet, firmware upgrade was done and it didn’t solve the PIP issue. There is also no way to swap the images of PIP. Not too much of a concern for me.

I’m pretty happy with my purchase.

Review by Joshua A. Patrick for Samsung UN40B6000 40-Inch 1080p 120 Hz LED HDTV
Rating:
I really wanted to give this a 4.5/5, but that isn’t an option. I bought this TV with 3 things in mind: sports, movies, video games. The picture on this TV is absolutely incredible; it’s on par with any picture on any hdtv out there. It did take a lot of adjusting to get the picture (color, contrast, dejudder, etc) to the level I wanted. I suggest using a THX certified dvd to calibrate it, for those who do not want to pay to have it calibrated. The factory settings for the TV are not good, but after tinkering with it for quite a while, I think the picture is near perfect. Unlike regular LCDs I’ve been accustomed to, the colors on this LED are better. Blacks are blacker, whites are whiter. Also, I’m a very big video game player, and this TV displays my 360 games (using an HDMI cable) better than any TV I’ve ever used. Also, there is no lag while playing, which I’ve noticed before on some HDTVs. Sporting events are crystal clear and crisp without appearing fake, which was a “must” for me while shopping. The clear and crisp picture isn’t just for sporting events; it also looks great for all HD channels, particularly Discovery, Travel, Food Network. It makes you feel like you are there. Another thing I like about it is simply the way the TV itself looks and is designed. It’s very thin and light weight, which is great. I also really like the “touch of red” design; it’s just nice to look at.

With all those good things said about the TV, it is not perfect. Probably my biggest issue came up while watching my first dvd with this tv. The LED edge-lighting can cause an issue during scenes that are intended to be very dark/black. However, after some adjusting (again), I got the picture to look the way I wanted it to. (Note: this was a regular dvd played on an upscaling dvd player; NOT a blu-ray. I can’t say how a blu-ray would look on this tv or how the backlighting might affect it). A VERY good thing about this tv in respect to this problem is that you can have different settings for each input. For example: the settings I chose for picture quality for video games, dvds, and cable are all different. However, all three of these use different inputs to the tv, so when I decide I’ve had enough cable and want to play a game, I switch it over and my settings do not need to be adjusted; they are saved individually. My second issue: sound. This TV simply has mediocre sound. It’s not bad, it’s not great. My biggest problem with the sound is that when switching between a video game, dvd, and cable, I had to adjust the sound dramatically for each one. That’s more of a nuisance than a true problem though. Lastly, alot of people complain about the viewing angle of this tv. Personally, I do not have a problem with it at any of the angles in the room in which I have this TV, so that hasn’t been an issue for me.

So in conclusion: If you are like me and want to use this TV mostly for video games, sporting events, and movies, I highly recommend it as the picture quality can compete with any HDTV out there. Do be aware of the edge-backlighting issue for black/dark scenes in movies and be prepared to adjust each of your inputs to compensate (cable, games, dvd players, etc). And you might want to invest in surround sound, if that is an issue to you. If you want a GREAT picture for the reasons above, this is a very good option.