Check this out
http://www.samsung.com/uk/consumer/...evision&subtype=ledtv&model_cd=UE40B7020WWXXU
Boertjie, yea apart from the picture which I hear is amazing, they seem to have awesome features. And the pricing isn't *too* bad for brand new technology. I remember about 6 months ago when I herd of LED TV's I thought that'd either only be mainstream in 5 years or cost R60,000.00 on launch. But check this :
Samung UA40B7000 40" LED TV
Price: R26,999.00
(Cats Digital)
These aren't the OLED sets which are due to replace LCD.
Peter is 100% correct on this. Samsung is pulling the wool over consumer's eyes on this. Strictly speaking it is a LED Backlit LCD screen. The set uses LED lighting instead of CCFL (Cold Cathode Flourescent). LED lighting has some advantages: physical size, instant on off, and power consumption. But, as I'll explain later in this post, the 7 and 8 series are not the ideal LED backlight sets.
Panasonic is mostly a Plasma maker, as is Hitachi and Pioneer. Sony Qualias were LED BL based I believe.
However, LED backlit LCD TV is not something new. Samsung may be deliberately confusing some people, making them think they are buying an OLED display or an AMOLED display (the $2.5K XEL-1,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_XEL-1 )
True. In fact Sony has had LED backlight sets in the consumer market for 4 years. The X-series BRAVIA in the market now (46" and bigger) use RGB LED backlighting (which is better for picture quality than the Samsung side-lit white LED system.
LED backlit is not the future. OLED and AMOLED sets are, for they offer the picture contrast ratios of high end plasma.
Actually higher than the best Plasma. Plasma cells do retain some charge even when "off". OLED is pure black. OLED also use very little power. Main issue with OLED is cost and lifespan. Expect to see some 30" models on the market this year with a very high pricetag.
The LEDs are controlled according to the image displayed... so if the picture is black, the TV turns off the back lighting in that area so that the black is darker. With this technology the backlighting is split into a matrix of blocks which can be enables/disabled on the fly as the image is displayed.
In the past, the whole screen had one static backlight. Unless I understand this wrong...
In theory you are right, but not in the case of the Samsung 7 and 8 series.
The Sony LED backlight models (like the X-series) use a matrix of red, green and blue LEDs across the entire backlight of the LCD. This allows excellent colour reproduction because the backlight can be tuned to the colour required in each area of the screen, and that the screen can enhance contrast by lowering the backlight in darker areas of the picture. In addition, the use of LEDs allows for blackframe interpolation to enhance the 100Hz motion adaption of the set. This visibly reduces the appearance of LCD ghosting.
The Samsung LED LCDs use side-based LED lighting. i.e. In order to make the TV thinner, the lighting electronics are moved from behind the LCD to the edge of the screen. Cosmetically it is a great idea (this is the way most notebook LCD screens are lit), as the TV looks thin and modern. But functionally it has some drawbacks. Notebook screens are fairly small and getting an even coverage of light is not so problematic. But on a 40" or larger screen it gets very difficult to get even backlighting, and the Samsung sets suffer from this quite badly. Also, the advantage of selective LED tuning to enhance contrast and colour is nullified because the LEDS don't correspond to a certain portion of the screen. Lastly, as far as I am aware (and I could be wrong on this), Samsung is using white LEDs. These LEDs do not cover the same colour gamut that is possible using component colour LEDs (RGB).
So, my advice, if you're looking for the best quality LCD TV (and I mean one that does its main job best), look at the
Sony KLV-46X450. It may not be as pretty as the Samsung, but it's a far better television. For the 46" the price is around the same as the Samsung I think.
Sign up with Google
