Samsung UN46B7000 46-Inch 1080p 120 Hz LED HDTV

Review by Paul Moskowitz for Samsung UN46B7000 46-Inch 1080p 120 Hz LED HDTV
Rating:
My requirement for a television is quite simple: plug it in to the cable box and have it work the first time; then turn on the sports event of the day, e.g. Mets or Yankees, Jets or Giants, etc. The Samsung 46 inch LED TV does that very well. You plug it in, it works.

This TV does more with less. It weighs only about 40 pounds plus another 10 pounds for the stand. Compare that with the older Samsung 950 model of the same size which weighs 70 pounds. The elegant stand allows for easy rotation. The TV is only a little over one inch thick! Power consumption has been measured by reviewers at about 105 watts. The 950 model comes in at 180 watts.

The picture is great. The contrast ratio, rated at 3,000,000 to 1, exceeds that of older LCD TVs. The black areas are dark and the picture has an almost 3D quality. There are four preset picture options. I chose the “normal” setting. The next higher setting, “standard”, makes infield grass look almost dayglow. I do not think that there is a need to have any further adjustment done on the picture. However, there is an automatic dimming of the overall brightness for dark scenes. For instance, when the credits of a movie run against a black background the lettering becomes dimmer. This has no effect on sports, but does effect dark movie scenes.

The screen surface does reduce reflections but does not eliminate them entirely. The black frame is shiny and does also reflect some light. Rotating the screen to the best angle helps.

The remote provides choices for four picture size variations. I use “16:9” for the HD format or “wide” to make the non-HD, 4:3, video fill the screen. That loses some of the 4:3 picture at the top and bottom edges, but the picture quality is still good.

The sound also has four preset choices. Although, the internal speakers are not bad, I decided to use my sound system for the audio. The TV has an audio output connection, but the TV remote volume control only allows variation in the sound level for the internal speakers. The audio output stays at a constant level. I got around this by taking the audio from my cable box directly to my sound system and controlling the level with the cable remote. This works.

Although Samsung provides a version of the instruction manual on a USB drive with the TV, I found it easy to download and print a pdf of the manual from the Samsung support center. Having the printed manual is helpful. See my comment for the web address of the support center.

After one month, I still really like this TV. It is great for sports. An added bonus is that my electric bill has actually gone down.

Note: This review was written for the 6000 model. The 7000 model differs from the 6000 model in its I/O capabilities. Recently some people have reported that the 7000 has a better picture. If you do not need the extras, go with the 6000 and save a few dollars.

Review by DXM for Samsung UN46B7000 46-Inch 1080p 120 Hz LED HDTV
Rating:
I won’t go into as much detail as some others, but I do want to say that I’ve had this TV for 3 weeks and I absolutely love it. One thing I noticed on all TV’s my friends have is when the scene goes dark, you can see the entire screen glow and most LCDs will only go so dark. Due to LED technology, which does not disappoint, this TV will go pitch black on dark scenes and very bright on light scenes.

One thing I do want to mention is that Samsung’s Auto Motion Plus (AMP) is something that takes time to get used to, if you choose to use it. The funnies thing I’ve read about this TV is a person who paid over $2k and then sent the TV back because they said TV made everything they watched “look cheap, like a soap opera”, so they rated TV one star, shipped it back to the store and bought a different brand. As soon as I got the TV hooked up, I popped in Matrix II into the DVD player and I did notice what that person was talking about. Entire movie didn’t feel quite like a movie, but more like someone was holding a video camera and was following all the car chases and everything else. It did remind me of those “cheap” TV programs, but is also looked kind of like you are actually there. I read more about it and realized that if I turn off AMP, the TV will show everything “normally” and there is absolutely no reason to send it back if AMP is not your thing.

However, I read more about AMP and from what I can tell, it is the imperfections in normal movies and motion blur that we are all used to. What AMP does is figure out where all moving objects are, “unblurs” them and actually plays back the scene at 120fps instead of 24fps. Extra frames are extrapolated based on object motion in the scene. The result is that everything is extremely sharp and clear and motion blur is almost entirely gone. I’ve seen Matrix II about 8 times and when I watched it with AMP turned on, I noticed extra cool, little details which I’ve never even noticed before when watching it on a regular TV.

Review by R. Williams for Samsung UN46B7000 46-Inch 1080p 120 Hz LED HDTV
Rating:
This TV has produced a lot of controversy. After having spent a lot of time wading through it, passively and actively (debating it in threads), I came to the conclusion that I would get this set for a number of reasons:

1. I was not convinced by the people who were claiming that there were serious issues with this TV. One reviewer claimed to have seen trails in large dark objects. I went to the store and found NO ability to see it, and it was right next to the 750 (and a lot of other sets). As to the LED being edge and thus the lighting being inconsistent, ditto. I am not saying that it’s all lies and local dimming is useless. I am saying that it’s not something I can see right now (and that’s really all I care about).

2. This set is INSANELY thin. I have a space for mine where this actually makes a big difference.

3. I like to vote with my dollars. This is the lowest consuming television ever made. The CNET list of sets showed that the range was 8:1, which is pretty phenomenal if you think about it; in cars, mileage is not even that spread out. This is a REMARKABLE achievement and it’s a drag to hear people whining about dumb little imperfections that 99% of people would never see while they are buying from the other end of the spectrum. Of course, the amount of energy less you are going to use is not going to make a revolution, but a tiny percentage of all TVs using this amount would make a huge difference (game theory 101).

The biggest difference from my prior set (Westinghouse LCD) is this one actually has blacks.

The controls, menus, remote, etc., are all fine (I use a universal remote). Having a bunch of HDMI ports is great. I plugged in the connection to the web and looked at the Yahoo Widgets. Calling them useless at this point is an understatement. Should be interesting to see what is coming from that direction.

The argument that if the 750 looks just as good, save the money and get that is a compelling one. In terms of value overall, I paid ~$1500 for my 42″ Westinghouse 3 years ago. I just replaced it because it had developed background noise (patterns you could see). If this set lasts 2 more years, it will have exceeded the prior value in size and savings of energy.

Again, this is a remarkable achievement in an industry that had told us we’d all be using power sipping OLED by now, this is a hybrid strategy, here today.

Review by D. Samuel for Samsung UN46B7000 46-Inch 1080p 120 Hz LED HDTV
Rating:
I bought this TV about a week ago and have been fairly impressed. There is a lot to like about this TV, but there are also a few problems.

The Good:

The picture is great; very clear with both HDTV and BluRays. The black levels and contrast are very good. The sound isn’t terrible (with some tweaking), but it isn’t anything to write home about. The settings are very intuitive and easy to work with.

The Bad:

I’ve already mentioned the sound, but it bears repeating: the sounds levels are just okay. You will not be able to turn the bass up to what I would call an acceptable level without making the speaker housings vibrate which can be very annoying. This wasn’t a deal killer for me as I paired it with a surround sound system, so I barely hear the TV speakers.

This TV is terrible for gaming. I should qualify this: This TV is terrible for playing music type games. There is considerable input lag using a Wii, even with the game mode turned on. I attempted to play Guitar Hero: World Tour after connecting the Wii to the TV using the new composite cables I had to buy (more on that in a minute), and found it to be unplayable. Because there is considerable lag, the strum does not register until just after the notes have passed, resulting in a missed note… many, many missed notes actually. This is not acceptable for me.

There are not enough inputs for gaming devices and there are only inputs for HD devices. While this may seem like a stupid complaint, remember that neither the Wii, nor the PS2 (outdated I know, but bare with me) have an HDMI output. I had to go buy HD Composite cables for both and a switch box because there is only 1 composite input on the TV. These cables aren’t really cheap, so that was another $60 I had to shell out. Also, there are only 4 HDMI inputs total, so if you have multiple gaming systems, a BluRay player and a cable/satellite box, you may need to buy an HDMI switch to get everything to work.

The Ugly:

You will need to take quite a bit of time to calibrate this TV to make everything look the way it should. Here is a quick tip though: if you don’t want everything you watch to have the quality of a commercial, turn off the 120Hz options (located in Picture Options > Auto Motion Plus 120Hz). Some people may like the ultra crisp effect that this adds to movies and programs, but I just feel it makes everything look very plastic and without depth.

All-in-all, this is a decent TV, that could will be great for some… but terrible for others. If nothing I listed will bother you, this is a great TV for the money and will not disappoint.

Review by Mike Andrella for Samsung UN46B7000 46-Inch 1080p 120 Hz LED HDTV
Rating:
I was eyeing this tv the day it was introduced and had to put it off for a while because of my upcoming wedding.

After that was over though, I was right back to salivating over this set. I was ready to pay retail for this at a certain blue big-box store. Never even thinking to check Amazon for it. Long story short I did and I am in LOVE with this set! It has been worth every penny so far.

I have been drawn to Samsung LCD’s ever since they came out with the Touch of Color. We ended getting this one in the red because it brought a really good balance of color to our living room. This tv is also available in TOC gray at the aforementioned big-box store. But why get something this beautiful in a color that won’t make it stand out?! Of course the profile only being a little over 1″ makes this look incredible mounted with Samsung’s slim wall mount kit. With the kit it only stands off of the wall about two inches and is easy enough to install. I love when people first come over and see it. I get comments on how nice this tv is every time. And that’s before I even turn it on!

Hit the power button and WOW, the colors are just incredible and the blacks are actually black. No issues have been seen that have been mentioned in other reviews(ie: inconsistent backlighting). I was afraid I was going to have to adjust the settings like crazy to get the screen as good as it looked in the store. Boy was I wrong. I changed maybe two sliders slightly in the menu. Speaking of which…. the menu’s are very easy to use and are laid out thoughtfully. Everything seems to be customizable too, including the standby light and little jingle when you power on and off(Nice touch, Samsung! I cannot say the same for the Vizio in our bedroom.). Tons of connections in the back too.

I also cannot get around the fact that this tv just flat out saves us money too!! It’s power consumption is insanely low. We use the DLNA Technology in this to access our home server directly and watch movies, listen to music and view photos we have saved. So it is on almost all the time in our home. I was intending to do this with whatever tv I purchased so this one is essentially paying for itself over a standard LCD. And of saving money makes my wife happy! 🙂

Two things that bug me though:

The internet features that seperate this model from the 6000 series seem to be of limited function though. I check it occasionally to see the new content that is available, but nothing has really seemed to interest me yet. I will keep watching though, I have heard of some promising things on the horizon for this.

The glossy finish on bezel is EXTREMELY SCRATCH PRONE!! I knew this, my wife did not. With luck though, I realized that Zaino show car wax fixes the bezel back to better than new. Much better actually! It almost looks liquid now! I have yet to take a good picture but look at the Nissan 350Z on their home page and you’ll get the idea. […]

I would say that covers all of the major stuff with the Samsung UN46B7000. I have owned this tv for about four months now and would say that if any other annoyance would be popping up, it would have happened by now. Thanks for reading and hope I helped you decide to pick up this amazing television! Please rate!!