TechRadar Verdict
Samsung follows up its recent LED successes with another excellent LCD performer that's also aggressively priced
Pros
- +
Superb pictures
- +
Gorgeous design
- +
Great value
Cons
- -
Sound is a bit feeble
- -
Limited viewing angle
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Samsung is usually pretty good at pushing the boundaries of value, so the LE32B650 32-inch LCD TV's price tag initially looks surprisingly high. But once you see what the set can do, it's really not bad at all.
For starters, this screen can provide an instant exotic design highlight to any room, thanks to its glorious 'crystal' glass-like finish, delightful curves and elegant lines.
Then there are its prodigious connections that include four HDMIs, along with two USBs and even an Ethernet port, with which you can access files stored on a networked, DLNA-certified PC.
Widgets
The latter port also enables you to access Samsung's specially designed and rather good 'Media 2.0' internet portal, with its YouTube, Flickr, news and Yahoo Widgets service options (among others). You can even access Media 2.0 wirelessly via an optional (£50) Wi-Fi USB dongle.
Those USB ports can also play a variety of music and video file formats as well as the usual JPEGs.
The 32-inch 32B650's multimedia features continue with Samsung's exclusive Content Library system, comprising a raft of multimedia content stored on flash memory inside the TV. We personally didn't revisit this pre-installed content much, but it's there if you want it.
Performance
The LE32B650 LCD TV has plenty to talk about with its picture features, too. Especially notable is a 100Hz engine that boosts motion reproduction, but there are also enough tweaks to satisfy tinkerers, not to mention extra processing assistance from Samsung's multifaceted Digital Natural Image engine (DNIe).
Provided you use the set's Natural picture preset, the sheer dynamism of the image is a sight to behold, as remarkably inky black levels sit side by side with bright whites and rich colour saturations, to an extent seldom seen beyond the LED-backlit models.
Enhancing the stunning drama of the image further is the picture's extreme sharpness with HD – a function in part, we suspect, of its full HD resolution.
The 32B650 is no mug with SD sources, either, upscaling them to the screen's native resolution without introducing as much video noise as many other full HD TVs do, although there's definitely room for further improvement.
In an ideal world the 32B650's contrast would have held up better when the TV is watched from the side. Also, the set's audio is a touch feeble, with precious little bass to speak of and a tendency to sound harsh during action scenes.
But while it might not be perfect, the LE32B650 is exceptionally good, not to mention great value considering how much it offers.
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