Review: Samsung Series 7 LED LCD
By Branko Miletic
I know that in many parts of Asia, certain numbers are considered more auspicious than others, so when it comes to the Koreans and Samsung, the number 7 surely must be a lucky number.
The 55-inch Series 7 LED-LCD TV is a great piece of entertainment technology. From the Über-thin 30mm bezel, to its LED-backlighting, 4 x HDMI, USB, built-in wifi, Clear Motion Rate of 600 and a 1920 x 1080 HD resolution, this is what TV is supposed to be like- beautiful to watch and easy to use
For this unit, I tested all 3 possible resolutions- 576p, 720p and 1080p and regardless if I tried to watch something in SD, HD or in the case of 576p, the picture was clear, smooth, without even a hint of lag – no matter what was on the screen- sport, drama or cartoons.
The sound too was refreshing; quite good for in-TV speakers. And let’s not forget, theSeries 7 is a 3D TV. With Samsung’s Series 7 you can convert your favourite 2D movies and TV shows and watch them in 3D. Built into this TV, is what’s known as a ‘3D Converter’, which is designed to enhance your 3D viewing and to create an immersive and natural-looking image.
And for those that like their TVs to be almost as smart as a rocket scientist, well this TV can do that too. With the Smart Hub now a standard addition with all Samsung flat screens, you can browse the Net, talk to your friends on Skype, rent and watch movies, listen to your music collection, browse your digital photos, play games, surf the web, update twitter and Facebook and play with the ever-increasing number of Samsung-specific web apps.
To add to the ease-of-use of this TV, with a proprietary technology Samsung calls ‘Anynet+’ (also known as HDMI-CEC), you can control all of your HDMI-CEC compatible digital AV devices with a single remote control.
In terms of connections, as soon as it was turned on and connected to peripherals such as the DVD, Satellite, AV and Foxtel receivers, the TV recognised the hardware and connected itself—there’s no need for creative swearing or time-wasting calls to tech support guys. The unit was a breeze to configure and customise.
Playing DVDs was also an exercise in multimedia pleasure and I only wish I had Blu-ray player to fully road test this unit. And even though this was a 55-inch behemoth, at less than 19 kg in weight, installing and configuring the TV is basically a one-man job, unlike many other units in this size range.
The one thing where this TV fell down was not in the digital side, but rather in the mechanical side. For some reason, known only to Samsung, getting all the screws in the 3-piece stand to line up and go in properly, and for the unit to actually sit properly really was an exercise in patience and mechanical engineering expertise.
Otherwise, the Samsung Series 7 LED TV is a wonderful example of what consumer electronics companies achieve do when they really try hard.
Pros: great picture, easy to set up, growing number of apps
Cons: setting up the stand is no fun at all- in fact it was a right, royal pain
4 Shacks out of 5
RRP
$4,099
