Jun 05, 2010 10:54 AM
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(Updated Jul 18, 2010 04:04 PM)
RESEARCH: We have had the SAMSUNG 40B530 for a few months. Purchased it last year in October 2009. After short listing 2 LCD brands – SAMSUNG & SONY, did quite a bit of research to see which aligned with our requirements and also which gave a better price: feature ratio. Both, the SAMSUNG 40B530 & SONY 40V550 [70K] / 40W550 [80K] met all our needs specs wise. LG was not an option since, our TV wall unit is tailor made for a 40 incher and 42” LG would be slightly oversize for our wall unit.
FINAL CHOICE: **We purchased the SAMSUNG 40B530 LCD from Reliance Digital(Banjara Hills, Hyderabad) for around 47K(Diwali offer). The SAMSUNG picture quality appeared to be slightly crispier with more vibrant colours for certain Tata Sky channels, when we calibrated both SONY & SAMSUNG LCDs equally in the showroom. Actually they were very close, since SONY LCDs with BE3 also have very clear and good PQ. But, the SAMSUNG was around 20K lesser than the 40” V series and 30K lesser than the 40” W series(with 100Hz Motion Flow) at that time.
Picture Quality: **The SAMSUNG 40B530 has a very clear and high contrast panel. The viewing angle at almost 175+ degrees is great with no loss of Picture Quality(PQ). The picture does not appear to be washed out even when viewing from wide angles. It is a Full HD and DVD [SONY Progressive Scan DVD Player] movies along with certain channels of Tata Sky look amazingly clear and crisp! I have not got a chance to hook up a Blu-Ray player so far. But I am certain the PQ will be amazing since, I have seen Blu-Ray movies in showroom on the SAMSUNG screen. It was superb in terms of PQ!
Specifications: **The SAMSUNG 40B530 has 2 composite inputs, 2 component inputs and 3 HDMI inputs. The 100Hz Motion Plus / Motion Flow feature is not missed at all. We watch fast moving sports games and action movies on it and the picture is very stable(no choppiness / judder, like they advertise in showrooms with special demo discs).The SAMSUNG LCD has the DNIE+ engine(similar to SONY’s BRAVIA BE3) which does a very good job on optimizing the Contrast, Motion & Color. The contrast on the SAMSUNG 5 series shows deep black levels with natural skin tones.
Peripherals:**We have hooked up the 40” SAMSUNG to our Pioneer 1000 watts Home Theatre System(HTS) with 5 surround speakers and a woofer. The picture quality along with the surround sound of the HTS makes it a pleasure to watch movies and play games etc. on the weekends. A true cinematic experience! Of course, for regular daily Tata Sky viewing we do not use the HTS(too loud). The SAMSUNG 40B530’s inbuilt SRS surround speakers, give a decent sound for daily TV viewing e.g. Hindi serials, kids cartoon programs, SONY & STAR TV channels, Discovery channel, National Geographic channels etc.
We also got a SAMSUNG(pebble model) DVD player(with an HDMI cable) which has a USB port. Even though the LCD TV does not have a movie enabled USB(only photo & music enabled) port, playing DivX format movies from a pen drive via the SAMSUNG DVD player works nicely! In addition we have hooked up another SONY DVD player [with Progressive Scan] and a Panasonic VCR and of course our Tata Sky+ box. Occasionally we also hook up our Xbox 360 for gaming with surround sound.
Conclusion: **The SAMSUNG 40B530 is a simple but amazing LCD in terms of PQ, contrasts and black levels. It has a wide viewing angle, vibrant colours and decent amount of inputs. It does not have any fancy internet connectivity ports etc. neither does it have any 100Hz feature. But for regular daily Tata Sky viewing along with weekend cinema / theatre experience(with a decent DVD player & HTS), it is an amazing LCD for the price: feature ratio.
