Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Samsung LN40B630 LCD HDTV

Samsung LN40B630 40-Inch 1080p 120Hz LCD HDTV with Red Touch of Color

Samsung LN40B630 40-Inch 1080p 120Hz LCD HDTV with Red Touch of Color


Product Description

With Samsung's LN40B630, you're connected to great HD entertainment and up-to-the-minute online info. Enjoy a Full HD feast for the eyes, courtesy of the 1080p resolution and 40-inch LCD screen. Check sports scores, stock quotes, weather and other update able RSS content at just the touch of a button on your remote, with the InfoLink feature. Samsung's Auto Motion Plus 120Hz technology keeps even the fastest on-screen motion smooth and natural. Enjoy bold black tones with an impressive 80,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio. The stylish yet subtle Touch of Color design adds to the bezel's border - perfect in any modern home.


Product Details

  • Amazon Sales Rank: #9 in Television
  • Color: Toc Red
  • Brand: Samsung
  • Model: LN40B630
  • Dimensions: 25.60" h x 39.20" w x 3.10" l, 32.00 pounds
  • Display size: 40

Features

  • 40-inch LCD HDTV with full HD 1080p resolution for the sharpest picture possible and red Touch of Color design
  • Auto Motion Plus 120Hz for amazingly fluid motion, 80,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio, 4ms response time, Wide Color Enhancer 3 for more vivid colors
  • InfoLink RSS feeds of news, weather and sports via Ethernet; ; side-mounted USB port for displaying JPEG/MPEG files and listening to MP3 audio
  • Inputs: 4 HDMI-CEC, 2 component, 2 composite, 1 PC, 2 USB, 1 Ethernet, 1 optical digital audio output
  • Includes removable stand; measures 39.2 x 27.8 x 10.3 inches with stand

Editorial Reviews

From the Manufacturer
Manufacturer's Review (April 20, 2009)
With the Samsung 40-inch LN40B630 HDTV, you're investing in a high-quality LCD TV that offers top-of-the-line picture quality with 1080p high definition resolution. Enjoy the sharpest details and vivid color with an 80,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio for more realistic images and Samsung's Wide Color Enhancer 3 technology for a more natural rendering of colors. It also incorporates a number of innovative features to reduce the motion blur and image judder, which traditionally plague LCD HDTVs when displaying fast movement. This B630 series HDTV combines an ultra-fast 4ms (millisecond) response time with Samsung's Auto Motion Plus frame interpolation technology, which utilizes a 120Hz refresh rate helps ensure crisp, easy viewing of sports, video games and movies.



The stylish Samsung LN40B630 1080p HDTV with innovative Touch of Color design.
You get superb connectivity and networking with 2 USB ports--for playing MP3 audio and displaying JPEG/MPEG files--and four HDMI 1.3 ports, and it also includes access to Samsung's InfoLink RSS service, which can instantly display updated news, sports, weather and stocks information with a touch of the remote. This HDTV is accented by Samsung's TOC (Touch of Color) bezel design, which offers a hint of red translucent color around the edges of the unit for a uniquely fashionable look. Plus, it's Energy Star compliant, which helps you be green while saving on your electric bill.

In addition to this 40-inch model, the Samsung B630 series also includes the 1080p 46-inch LN46B630 and 52-inch LN52B630. (Learn more about what size TV should you get.)

Key Features

  • Screen Size: 40 inches
  • Blazing fast 4ms response time minimizes blurring of fast motion in sports programs. (Learn more)
  • HD-Grade 1920 (H) x 1080 (V) pixel resolution: High-resolution pixel density is combined with a built-in image scaler to handle inputs from a variety of digital and analog audio/video sources.
  • Built-in digital tuner: No external box needed
  • Auto Motion Plus 120Hz: Advanced processing that reduces blur and enhances image detail when viewing fast motion video sequences. (Learn more)
  • Picture-in-Picture (PIP) enables convenient, simultaneous viewing of TV programs and video or PC content sources.
  • Game Mode enhances dark areas, sharpens the picture, speeds up the image processing response and enhances the sounds of your games. Picture and sound quality optimized for the special needs of gaming systems at the touch of a button.
  • Side-mounted USB 2.0 port: Connect USB devices directly to your HDTV to view JPEG photos or MPEG movies or easily listen to your MP3 player through your HDTV's audio system or your home theater system.
  • Touch of Color (ToC): Samsung's unique manufacturing process accents the surrounding bezel with a stylish red tone. (Learn more)
  • Wide Color Enhancer 3 optimizes a given color's hue, resulting in more natural rendering of colors. (Learn more)
  • Audio: Two 10-watt stereo speakers (for 20 watts of total power)
  • SRS TruSurround HD creates an immersive, feature-rich surround sound experience from two speakers, complete with rich bass, high frequency detail and clear dialog.
  • InfoLink: Get free RSS feeds of news, weather and sports right to your HDTV with a built-in Ethernet port (Learn more)
  • Variable sleep timer can be programmed to turn the TV off at different time intervals.
  • Trilingual on-screen displays in English, Spanish or French.
  • Energy Star Compliant: Reduces energy consumption by up to 25 percent compared with standard TVs.
  • Swivel stand included.
  • Warranty: 1 year parts and labor with in-home service, backed by Samsung toll-free support

Connections
A wide variety of multimedia devices can be connected to the set through any one of the four HDMI 1.3 inputs (including one on the side), and the handy Anynet+ feature (HDMI-CEC) lets you control all your CEC-enabled peripherals--such as a DVD or Blu-ray player--using just one remote. Connect HD digital devices like disc players, game consoles, and satellite dish components into the two rear connections and use the side-mounted input for cameras, camcorders, and laptops. HDMI is the best performing interface for displaying an HD source on an HDTV.

  • HDMI (version 1.3): 4
  • Component: 2 rear
  • Composite A/V: 1 rear/1 side (shared with component)
  • USB 2.0: 2
  • PC input (15-pin, D-Sub): 1
  • Ethernet: 1
  • RS232C: 1
  • Digital audio output: 1 optical

Dimensions

  • TV without stand: 39.2 x 25.6 x 3.1 inches (WxHxD); 32.0 pounds
  • TV with stand: 39.2 x 27.8 x 10.3 inches (WxHxD); 40.8 pounds
  • What size TV should you get?

Learn More


Full HD 1080P

full HD 1080P Full HD, or 1080p, contains 1.5 times more scanning lines than conventional HD TVs. More scanning lines mean more pixels, more details and a better picture. The new Samsung LCD TV with resolution that is approximately 2 times greater than conventional HDTVs, creating the most perfect picture imaginable. Samsung's 1080p panel uses a new high-speed liquid crystal to cut response time to 6ms (milliseconds).
1080p

Auto Motion Plus 120Hz

auto motion plus 120Hz This technology doubles the frame rate from 60 to 120 frames per second (120Hz LCD panel) without repeating the same image to make more frames. Instead, the TV intelligently calculates the ‘middle' image between frame A and frame B and inserts it in between (Auto Motion Plus 120Hz processor), making a fluid transition from one frame to the next.
automotion graph

Wide Color Enhancer 3/Cold Cathode Fluorescent Lamp

Wide Color Enhancer 2 The NTSC (National Television Systems Committee) has established the color standards all TVs in America try to meet. And typical LCD TVs only meet about 72 percent of this standard. Samsung LCD HDTVs use Cold Cathode Fluorescent Lamp backlights to give you 92 percent coverage of the NTSC standard, ensuring truer, more breathlessly vivid colors.

Samsung's Wide Color Enhancer 3 technology delivers more brilliant colors by expanding the gamut of color expression into a third axis, creating a 3D diagram of luminance. This creates a dynamic display of on-screen color and allows traditionally weak colors, such as green and blue, to look vivid and deep. In addition, red colors are enhanced to provide strong colors across the spectrum and the perfect balance of RGB.


80,000:1 Dynamic Contrast Ratio

70,000:1 Dynamic Contrast Ratio 80,000:1 Dynamic Contrast Ratio will give you a picture better than you ever thought possible, with whiter whites, blacker blacks and a nearly infinite subtlety of gradations in between. As two of the most important determining factors in overall picture quality, contrast and brightness levels achieve new heights in this latest generation LCD panel. Samsung's new LCD TV's give the most stunning realistic picture quality ever.

Touch of Color

Touch of Color In 2008, Samsung created its unique Touch of Color (ToC) design, which uses dual-injection molding to coat a translucent, colored surface to achieve an attractive crystalline appearance. The latest evolution of Samsung's ToC design begins with a deep piano black bezel that fades into distinct chrome that finishes as light ruby highlights. The intensity of the color subtly changes depending upon the viewing angle, and further accentuates these TV's slim bezels.


Which Size HDTV is Right for My Room?

HDTV Size chart
With standard-definition TVs, the rule used to be that viewers would feel comfortable watching a set from a distance of 3 to 6 times the screen size in inches. With HDTV, the resolution is so much better that you can sit closer to a larger TV without noticing the pixels. So with HDTVs, the rule tends to be you can sit anywhere from 1.5 to 3 times the screen size (in inches) for the best experience.

If you know the size of the room you have already, where you want to sit, and where your new HDTV should go once you get it, you can figure out the size HDTV you should get.

  • Minimum size = Viewing distance/3
  • Maximum size=Viewing distance/1.5

Customer Reviews

Samsung's Fabulous B630 Non-glare LCD HDTV5
Being the first to review the 2009 Samsung LN40B630 on Amazon was purely an accident in that I actually bought the new Sony KDL-40V5100 on April 2nd. At that time, the Samsung B650 had just come out, but its high gloss panel would not have performed well in my brightly lit room. My high definition projection TV had kicked the bucket after 8-years, but I rarely enjoyed watching HD because the daylight glare would wash out the picture. The Sony's non-glare screen performed well except when the picture would black out during dark movie scenes. I discovered that many of the V5100 series have had this glitch and Sony had no fix for it at that time. To Best Buy's credit, they cheerfully exchanged the Sony under their 30-day return policy and delivered the Samsung B630 model which has a non-glare screen and is similar to the popular B650.

My expectations of the new Samsung were that it would perform much like the Sony. I could not have been more wrong. The B630 was like viewing another huge leap in a television experience, while the Sony seemed to be of past technology. The depth and breadth of Samsung's visual color tones are astounding and mesmerizing. A perfect example of that came from viewing scenes of the Caribbean Sea. The Sony could not match the Samsung's Wide Color Enhancer 3 processor with its three dimensional qualities and vibrant tones of turquoise, sea green, cobalt blue, coral pink and white sand clearly seen under the sea. It literally was like being there.

The Samsung's dynamic contrast of 80,000-1 was visibly superior to the Sony's 50,000-1 and convinced me that Samsung's contrast rating was more than a marketing numbers game. The viewing angle of the Sony was horrific when moving away from center by seeing flesh tones morph into green. Samsung's viewing angle was far better by maintaining the proper color tones, but it did lose contrast and brightness. Of course, a slight turn of its swivel base helped to alleviate Samsung's viewing angle issue.

The downside to Samsung's advanced technology was that every movie appeared as video and lost its magical cinema quality. Sony was superior in dealing with this issue. To address that problem, the backlight and contrast settings have to be toned down to soften the picture and to preserve a film's attributes. Most importantly, an adjustment to the 120 Hz Motion Plus feature must be done in order to keep movies from appearing surreal. While some recommend turning the 120 Hz off, I found video blurring far too annoying and placed the Auto Motion Plus to a custom setting of 6 for blur and judder reduction. That seemed like a good compromise without losing much of the film's realistic movement. Experiment with every adjustment to find your best settings and calibration instructions are easily found on [...]. It all came together beautifully for me and hopefully this information can be helpful to you.

One bad design feature was the power and channel functions on the TV itself. You cannot see where they are unless you have light shining directly on them. As long as you use only the remote control, it may be a non-issue. By-the-way, in case you were wondering how effective the non-glare screen was on the Samsung B630; it was perfect. I experienced crystal clear high definition TV -- Day or Night.

An excellent LCD HDTV at any price!5
I recently purchased this item locally but am so impressed by the TV that I felt I should post my impression for others trying to decide where to spend their hard earned money, especially these days.

First, I would recommend that you to your local electronics store and look around and see which sets grab your attention as what is best to my eyes may not work for you. In my case I was somewhat limited in selection since the TV must fit into a TV cabinet that we own, so 40" was my absolute max. This criteria limited me to Sony, Samsung, and Vizio (in order of price point). A local warehouse club had the Vizio and a comparable Samsung (ln40b610 vs. ln40b630) for side by side comparison, and simply put there was no comparison what-so-ever. The Samsung wins hands down in terms of picture clarity, overall brightness, and contrast. The 80,000:1 contrast on this TV really shines. The Samsung to Sony comparison was a bit tighter as both units offered incredible picture quality and features but again the contrast ratio on the Samsung just made everything appear more pleasing to my eye. Given this, we purchased the Samsung and haven't looked back. Every time my wife and I watch a Blu-ray movie we are even more impressed with the picture quality! Seriously, this is a great TV at any price. The only TV I looked at that had better contrast was the Samsung LED (3,000,000:1) model but the price difference was just too much to justify.

I do have to agree with other reviewers regarding the "Auto Motion" settings producing images that are almost surreal. I have found that setting this on the middle setting produces the best results for me, but I have not played much with the custom adjustment mode yet, so I will hold off on a final review until I have had more time to tweak.

Amazing picture with tons of options for tweaking5
My old RCA 27" tube finally died, so it was time to enter into the world of HDTV's. After a ton of research and price hunting, I settled in on this 40" model for the full 1080, 120hZ experience (plus a smokin' deal from Amazon helped seal the deal).

First one arrived shattered, so that was a bit of a buzz kill. Fortunately the delivery includes set up & power up, so we immediately saw that the thing was destroyed. The delivery crew took it back with them and Amazon got another one out. The 2nd one arrived in perfect condition, and after getting DirecTV out to install the HD dish, I've been on HD for about a week now. I know this is not part of the product review, but Amazon's customer service was excellent in this matter.

All I can say is that the picture is more than I anticipated, having never owned an HDTV before. The clarity is unreal, the colors and images just pop off the screen.

Sports and movies are incredible to watch. I do see how some folks are a bit taken aback by how crisp movies appear (as if in 3d), and they have to get used to the look of cinema based stuff. It doesn't really bother me that much, as I know that's the byproduct of HD. It's crisp. It's clear. But I set the 120Hz option to standard, and I find that works well enough for my eyes. There are certain scenes in some movies that just look surreal, but not in a bad way (at least to me).

The amount of control that this TV gives you to adjust the picture is great -- you can stick with one of their built in "modes" (dynamic, standard, natural or movie) and then customize every aspect of the picture as much as you wish. I spent a couple of days just playing with the settings & calibrating. The dynamic mode is way too bright, and gives results that are just not natural. I've found that the "natural" mode works best for me, with additional adjustments in contrast & brightness to enhance the blacks as much as possible. The "standard" mode allows you to push the blacks even more deep, so I've been going back & forth between both that & "natural". If desired, you can adjust for gamma, white balance, flesh tones, so you can go pretty deep.

I do have to say that at this point, the 120Hz feature doesn't really appear to add that much. I did read in a number of reviews that it is not easy to discern the difference between 60 and 120Hz in most viewing situations. A fast millisecond response rate is where you want to be, and with this TV's 4ms response time, there's no issues. And for me, I don't mind having a little blur on fast moving scenes.

I have watched movies & sports on my dad's samsung 37" HDTV (LN37A450), which is a 60Hz model, and have to say that the picture looks just as incredible as on this 40". So if you're looking to save a couple hundred bucks, don't get too hung up on the 60Hz/120Hz issue. Go with the 60Hz, and you'll be plenty satisfied. But if you can get a deal for a 120Hz Samsung for under $1k, it's worth it. Always nice to have extra options, as long as you're not breaking the bank to do it. I just have not seen a major difference between the two. Having said that, I've not watched any blu-ray movies yet, but have watched a couple of HD movies from DirecTV. But most of the complaints about the 120Hz are with people who think it makes movies look weird -- so again, 60Hz won't kill you there. If you're a gamer, you may want to do some more research on it. I don't own an Xbox, Playstation or Wii, so I can't speak to that.

Many complain about the sound on this TV as well, but I found that with the surround turned on, the TV gives off a pretty decent output. I hooked up the stereo to the tv, so usually have the audio coming through the full stereo. But on it's own, the TV isn't too bad, especially for such a slim profile.

The touch of color is a really nice feature as well -- it does give the TV a very sophisticated look. I was concerned that the red may be distracting, but it's tastefully done and very subtle.

Overall, I don't regret purchasing this TV - I could've saved some $$$ by going with the B550 model and sticking with 60Hz, but for the price that Amazon had at the time($999), I felt that I'd just get the extra options.

For what it's worth, I believe that this TV is also an 'A' panel. I'm not even sure if there are 'S' panels being made anymore. If the last letter of the serial number is how this is determined, then I don't see 'S' panels on any of their models. But whatever type panel it has, it doesn't matter. It looks fantastic, and even more so after being adjusted/calibrated best to display in my living room. There is a review out there (hi Matt!!) that gave the tv one star because of this panel issue...but said little to nothing else on how the tv actually was performing. One of the complaints about 'A' panels was that the 'off angle' viewing was very poor. First of all, I don't know why you'd want to view these TV's from too severe of an "off angle" -- you want to be in front of it as much as possible -- maybe 45 degrees off...but I've also inspected it from severe angles (pushing 160-170 degrees) and the picture holds up just fine.

This model is fantastic. I still can't believe my eyes when watching some stuff...there was a show about the Grand Canyon on National Geographic channel this weekend. All I can say is, wow. Unbelievable. The epic Wimbledon final between Federer and Roddick was also fun to watch.

No regrets here at all. Great TV. Brilliant picture, with plenty of options to tweak to your preference.

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