Samsung LE40F86BD Review

[Vincent]

Please discuss our Samsung LE40F86BD review in this thread. I'm still writing up the calibration and PQ section so please be patient.

Warmest regards
Vincent

[zAndy1]

Thanks, is the rest of the review likely to be up tonight or will it be tomorrow now? Wondering whether to wait up or not 

[SirTiger]

Reckon it'll be a day or so - it usually is! 

[Vincent]

Don't wait up... I'm trying to include some videos of Motion Plus so will take some time.

Warmest regards
Vincent

[Ryan]

i cant wait. keep up the good work guys!

[yemeth]

Cant wait to see some Motion Plus videos in action 

[zAndy1]

Thanks for the review vincent, as thorough and detailed as usual. Sounds like you were pretty impressed with it then (apart from the 100hz motion plus). I've just got rid of a Tosh 42X3030 as it was frankly awful on SD material and even watching BBCHD I could see lots of noise in the picture and don't even get me started on what the picture looked like with fast motion/panning shots...
How does this LCD compare to the Tosh? I've pretty much decided to abandon LCD for good and get a Panny plasma (probably TH42PX70) as I was under the impression that LCD at these sorts of screen sizes simply wasn't up to the job. From your review I'm thinking perhaps things aren't as clear cut as that and that perhaps the Samsung panels are a lot better than the one on the Tosh. I know you've reviewed both so are well qualified to comment so would you say that if I found the Tosh PQ to be poor then I'll probably find the PQ of the Samsung to be poor as well? I just want a clean picture on HD, if I'm watching BBCHD I don't want it to appear like I'm watching it through a mesh gauze but through a nice clean window! I guess the crux of it is, how overall does this compare with something like the Panny TH42PX70? I'll be using SkyHD and an Xbox 360 elite with HD-DVD drive and also a PS3 (when some decent games come out for it!). Would the lower resolution of the Panny lose a significant amount of detail compared to this Samsung? How do they compare with SD material? Any advice would be much appreciated

Oh and as much as I appreciate you taking the time to post the videos I'm not sure they really conveyed what you were trying to get across, I watched them and couldn't really see anything out of the ordinary to be honest, but perhaps that's cos I don't know what I'm looking for

Oh and in case it helps, I can get the Panny 37PX70 for about £700, the 42PX70 for about £780 therefore this will cost significantly more than either of those, would the extra £300 be worth it?

Thanks
Andy

[chelhydra]

Hey vincent, thanks for the review.
Could you give us some more information about the digital noise reduction and upscaling SD and how it compares to other sets (like 32D3000), and post your final settings for watching movies.
I hope we have a review of the Sony KDL-40X3000 too, before i make a decision.

thanks

[steliosfan]

.... when i thought i was more than happy with my -1 month old- 40M86, this came out... grrrr i hate technology (lol).

I think that apart from the deeper blacks, a great upgrade is the usb slot that give the user the ability to update the firmware.

[Mythos]

Vincent, I'm just wondering wheter you can provide a picture of the callibration settings screen to let people without any callibration tools but owning a F86 apply your optimized settings. Personally I can see wheter a LCD-TV is poorly callibrated or not but unfortunately I do not have the knowledge to get the best possible settings for my own. Thus a picture of the callibration settings screen will help people like me as a startpoint for own adaptations (assuming that the devices of the F86 series behave similar).

[KeanosMagicHat]

Vincent - Thank you for the review just a few points to clarify if I may.

As an owner of an M87, I've been hugely disappointed by the Freeview Stutter / Judder Fault which I have had on two TV's (so far).  I noticed you watched 100 mins+ of continuous footage and did not see any instances of the issue which is superb.  I'm just hoping your review sample is representative of the range as a whole and that this fault has been eradicated once and for all.   

The other widespread fault remaining on the M8 series is SCART Interference (some call it banding) where horizontal wavy interference lines move up the screen on one or both SCARTS on an affected TV.  I attributed this to poor shielding of the SCARTs from the PSU and this was subsequently confirmed by a Samsung Service Centre.

I noticed from your pics that there seems to be much more separation of the PSU from the SCARTs on the F86 based upon the moulding of the back of the unit.  Would you say this was a fair observation?  Also, before the TV is returned to Samsung, would you be able to please test whether this interference is present using a SCART enabled device?

Coming back to the points made in the review I noticed when talking about the handling of 1080p24 material you stated it was "Noticeably smoother" and that you observed a "reduction in judder".

I'm hoping for the day I see a review talking about no judder on 1080p24 material rather than a reduction. Perhaps my expectations are unrealistic at this stage (or price bracket) with current technology?

Just to clarify this point though, as I'm fairly new to the world of LCD, on Blu-Ray do you still see judders from the edges of large objects such as buildings etc on panning shots?  If so, you describe this as reduced, is it reduced enough to be classed as on of the best LCD's currently out there at handling this material (irrespective of the price)?

Thanks in advance for your reply.

[bandit]

vincent,

thanks for the review, it was an interesting read.

once thing i noticed and would affect me was a throwaway comment you made regarding the component input. you stated there was some interference or shimmer? was this on particular settings or a constant interference?
i have a Wii and its connected via component, so constant shimmer might rule this tv out completely.

you also mentioned that the cms options were poor, but colours ended up looking good. are they better then the M8 series review you did where you said skin tones were not so good?

Thanks again for the review. are you planning on selling on the TV, or was it a review model from samsung?

Also, as mentioned your calibrated settings (or instructions on how to get to them) would be amazingly helpful!

[Psychotext]

I'll be picking one of these up at the end of the week.  Thanks for the excellent review!

[mpclemen]

Well I received my f86 yesterday and have to say so far am very happy with it.
I owned an m86 for about 4 days before the freeview and general judder annoyed me to the level of returning it and waiting for the update or a fixed model.
I have noticed slightly more clouding than on my m86 (in both the top corners) but after reading the review and a few threads from the states I think this is a minor issue and can be minimised as Vincent stated, also some owners in the states seem to think it disappears after a few days use (not sure how this could happen, may just be your eyes get used to it??) plus you only really see it on very low light images.
I have tried playing bioshock on the xbox360 (over component) with 100hz on high and think (to my eyes) this is much smoother, I didn't see any major artifacts and think this is the best 100hz I have seen so far as all the sets seem to have issues with this, also the clouding is not an issue on this which is a very dark game.
The 100hz seems to suffer more from artifacts dependant on the source (hdmi and composite are good, freeview can be a bit flakey at times)
All the inputs look good now and thank goodness samsung has managed to fix the rgb input which on the m86 was just awful (had scrolling lines and terrible interferance), didn't see the problems you mentioned on the component so may be an issue on the set??
I took the m86 calibration settings and tweaked them slightly to produce a reasonable image on hdmi and component but would like to see your calibration settings as currently freeview is not looking quite right.

[KeanosMagicHat]

Well I received my f86 yesterday and have to say so far am very happy with it.
I owned an m86 for about 4 days before the freeview and general judder annoyed me to the level of returning it and waiting for the update or a fixed model

....

All the inputs look good now and thank goodness samsung has managed to fix the rgb input which on the m86 was just awful (had scrolling lines and terrible interferance)

So another ex M8 series owner who reports the absence of the Freeview stutter / judder and no SCART interference !!!

Superb.