Customer Reviews

Samsung LN40C530 40-Inch 1080p 60 Hz LCD HDTV (Black)

5 star:		(45)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Did a lot of research on TVs before I decided to get this one. Was not excited about the 120hz TVs; do not like the soap opera/camcorder motion. I was debating if I should get the internet options with the apps on the other models, but I have a PS3 so it wasnt worth paying for the extra features. So I got this 60hz LCD and I have no regrets! The picture this TV produces are amazing, especially on Blu Ray. I watched my New Zealand vacation videos on it and it really brings out the colors and makes my video look even more movie like. Avatar looks amazing on it as well. I got it for $640 and worth every dime.

Upon breaking the LCD panel in my previous Samsung TV, the LN4065F, I sent myself to Amazon in quest of a new TV. I wanted another Samsung, since their build and picture quality seem topnotch, but I also wanted something relatively entry-level as a cheap means of replacing my older TV.

The Samsung LN40C530 delivers in both departments, and with astonishing results. At under 700usd at the time of my purchase, this set provides an excellent picture with extremely rich colors. There is no problem with backlight bleeding or color inconsistency either. Compared to my older TV set, this one has more of a semi-glossy screen with some matte properties. Most people would view a semi-matte screen bad over a very glossy screen, but the matte elements in the screen do a great job of ensuring the colors this panel provide are very deep and saturated in well-lit environments. Having a very high contrast ratio helps a great deal of bit with color reproduction as well. At its default settings, the picture's a a bit too sharp, so setting sharpness down to around 30s will produce more desirable/natural pictures. Compared to my older TV, the sound seems to be lesser, and not as deep, so I manually had to go into its equalizer and raise the lower hz rates up a little to produce satisfying results. This is fine for most people, but ones who play games under game mode for lower input lag are forced to use default audio, so they should think twice if sound is a big issue to them. A year later after getting this TV, I've hooked up a pair of PSB speakers with a Dayton T-Amp to provide a boost in sound fidelity.

This TV doesn't boast any of the newer technologies we see today in higher end TVs-- such as 120/240hz, or led backlighting with or without local dimming-- but this TV doesn't need them. Almost all signals are capped at 60hz, and it's up to the TV's motion estimation interpolation to render false frames (which can sometimes lead to unwanted artifacts/effects) True 120hz won't be taken full advantage of until everything is broadcasted at a native 120hz rate. Led local dimming seems nice, but this TV already is very bright, and shows no signs of backlight bleeding (blacks could be a little blacker, but that can usually be fixed by setting HDMI black level to low-- if wanted) Besides that, there's little reason to be a stickler for very deep blacks if the TV shows no sign of backlight bleeding/clouding.

In terms of build quality, for an entry level TV, the LN40C530 looks and feels like a higher end tv. The bezel is small and compact (as well as a slimmer depth than my old TV: 3.1inches compared to 3.8inches), while Samsung included a row of touch sensitive buttons on the bottom right-- very akin to Sony PS3's power/eject buttons. One thing I am a bit disappointed in is the lack of Samsung's trademark lighting effect on the bottom center of the bezel, but the blown glass-like design of the clear plastic under the bottom bezel looks very nice. Even though Samsung says this TV doesn't come with a touch of color feature, you can make out a very faint amount of red accent in the very bottom of the TV. The remote is another letdown for me, as the general look to it is very cheep compared to my older model. Thankfully, the older remote works on this new TV as well.

As for the general consensus: If you're in the market for an entry level HDTV with amazing picture, you need not look further than this great piece of kit Samsung has introduced.

I haven't bought a television in 13 years and I wanted to make sure I got one that would last me at least another decade without breaking the bank. I did my homework and waited patiently for a price dip on a Samsung, which all the reviewers say are the best. I picked this one up for just over $600 and I'm so happy with it! Personally, I'm not interested in the technology race--I just want great picture quality and a set that is reliable and easy to operate. That's precisely what this is, with a fair amount of bells and whistles to boot.

Normally I wouldn't order an item this size from Amazon... but I had some gift cards and needed a tv for the bedroom. I already own an LN52B550 which I am happy with. I was deciding between this tv and the LG42LD450. I decided to pay the extra money and go with the Samsung.

The first TV arrived in a badly damaged box, and the TV had a crushed corner when I opened the box. I quickly filed a return request, and also got Amazon customer service to overnight the replacement (thanks Amazon!). While the damage was not Amazons fault, the packaging of the TV does not lend itself to shipping. There is very little protection from the thin Styrofoam packing, and while the second set arrived undamaged, the Styrofoam had cracked in shipping on the set as well.

If your tv arrives in cold weather, bring it inside to warm up to room temperature for a few hours, to reduce the chance of damage from condensation.

Setup of the TV is straight forward, there are lots of options in the menu, and everybody has different preferences, but I set up my TV as follows :
Backlight 6
Mode : Movie
Color Temp : Warm 2
Colorspace : auto
Sharpening : 0
All enhancements (Noise Reduction, edge enhancement, Mpeg NR etc) : off

I have not had time to do a more thorough calibration, but with these settings, the picture is smooth and natural, while a little on the cool side. This can be tweaked, so its not a big deal.

The remote control is not programmable, so I am using the remote from the Fios HD box for now. I will probably get a Harmony remote at some point as there a few hiccups with changing inputs with the Fios remote.

This TV has a panel code of CN07... which is a lower end panel made by Chi Mei. I don't think you will be able to find this lower end set with a Samsung Panel. Viewing angles seem pretty good, color is good (needs some tweakes) and I don't see any back light leakage. I am not using the set for gaming, so i can't comment on lag. The good quality hd channels from Fios (History HD, Smithsonian) look great, and standard def content looks ok. I have an upscaling 1080p Samsung dvd player connected through HDMI, and high quality DVD's like Gladiator, Cars etc look great.

The lcd is somewhere in between glossy and matte. I do notice the reflections of lights from in front of the tv, but the overhead lights don't show up. I personally like it better than the highly glossy screens on many sets.

Sound is just ok in my opinion. Again, there is only so much you can squeeze into these LCD's, so it is pretty on par with what I expected. Stereo separation and bass response are lacking.

I didn't get to do a side by side comparison with the 42" LG, so I can't comment on that set. I feel that at the current price, the Samsung is a good value.

If you buy a Samsung TV, register it online at the Samsung site for an extension of the 1 year warranty. Samsung sets of this size are eligible for in-home warranty service.

Overall, I like the TV. The red "touch of color" accents are very muted, and you probably won't even notice it if the room is not brightly lit. It's a nice sized, no-nonsense set that won't empty your bank account.

Visually, this TV is excellent. The colors are vibrant and on-target (no purple cast like I've seen on some lower-end LCD TVs) and there's no ghosting. Like with any high-resolution TV without an expensive upscaler built in, regular definition sources (e.g. older DVD players and game consoles) look a little blocky. You can fix this with a fancy upscaling circuit like you find in the more expensive A/V receivers, but otherwise it's something you'll find on every TV.

The audio is pretty good for built-in speakers. It certainly has more bass than our old tube TV did; built-in amplifier technology on the TVs has advanced considerably over the past 5 years or so. The volume control seems a little odd, though, in that when it's quiet you have to nearly double the numeric volume before it's noticeably louder. I wonder if it might be using a linear scale instead of a logarithmic one (decibels, for example, are logarithmic). Still, decent built-in speakers; if you want really nice sound, you'll want an external receiver (which is probably true of any built-in TV speakers anywhere). It has optical and analog audio out if you want to plug it into a cheaper stereo instead of finding a more expensive receiver unit and speakers, which is nice (the analog is in the form of a stereo miniplug (headphone jack), which you can either plug in directly or get an RCA jack Y-adaptor for most stereos).

One of the HDMI jacks has a stereo miniplug linked to it for audio input so you can plug your DVI-capable computer in and pass the audio in through the analog jack (since many computers have DVI, which is easily and cheaply adapted to HDMI but does not carry audio content). This is a nice feature if you have a media PC or plug your laptop in for photo shows, etc.

One thing I wasn't such a fan of was the menu system. Samsung has always made nice TVs, but I feel their menu system has always been a little clunky (my old roommate had an older model and it was almost the same). This machine is at least pretty responsive when you push the buttons, unlike older ones which were a little sluggish, but the menu system goes far too deep and doesn't seem particularly well organized. I still can't figure out how to turn off the dynamic contrast scaling; the menu says it's off, but black screens full of white text (like the credits after The Office) cause the contrast to adjust up and down, making the text a different brightness on each subsequent screen depending on how much white text there is. Minor quibble, and it probably does improve the picture on the show itself, but still.

And, like most LCD TVs these days, it takes about 5 seconds to turn on or off, which is puzzling for people when they hit the power button and nothing happens instantaneously. This isn't unique to this TV or even Samsung TVs, of course, but if it's a surprise to you, don't panic.

My chief complaint about the menu system is that you can really only select from a handful of preset names for each of the sources; items like "TV", "Game", "DVD", "DVR" and a few other assorted oddities. I have a PS2, an XBox and a Wii; I guess I name them all "Game" and hope I can remember which input goes with which? I also have the new AppleTV (which is wonderful), but the closest category that fits it (to my mind) was "IPTV". This is somewhat superficial and not at all a dealbreaker, but it does occasionally confuse the less technical members of my household. Given that it would have been trivial for their software engineers to add an option for specifying a custom name, it's a little disappointing. I think I actually remember being able to do that on my old roommate's older Samsung TV, but maybe I'm misremembering.

Last complaint: No S-Video input. I'm probably part of a sub-1% group that finds this annoying, but I have several older game consoles which provide S-Video out and not component out, and their composite looks terrible (specifically the Super Nintendo). I suppose I'll just have to wait until I get a real receiver, most of which do have S-Video inputs (and better upscaling). I think I was just more surprised than anything else, since this is the first TV I've seen that doesn't have any S-Video inputs.

All in all, I am 100% happy with this TV, and I can't say I've ever seen a modern-day HDTV with a reasonable menu system. Make sure you measure your space before you pick the size, though! I did, and 40" is the perfect size for us; my wife thought it sounded way too big, and we almost went with the 36" (which would have looked oddly small in the space it's in). Eyeballing it is a good way to wind up with a TV that's too big (won't fit or overwhelms people at the viewing distance) or too small.

And, of course, if you're looking for bells and whistles like 120 Hz (I don't really watch anything that takes advantage of it, so it seemed like a waste of money to me), you'll need to pick a higher-end model.

I realize that this is probably a "guy thing" but this remote is the quickest responding remote of any flat screen I've seen. It also has a "favorite" button where you can easily program it to just scan your favorite channels. I got this TV for my mother and was so pleased with it, that I ordered another for myself before they change anything. I'm really happy. I've also bought the Western Digital TV Live device for $119 at Amazon. This allows me to view my digital pictures on my 40" Samsung TV via the inexpensive $2.63 HDMI cable. Wow!

We had a 52" Samsung that we purchased for my mother-in-law. We've watched TV on it for 2 years and are extremely happy with it. For this reason, we decided to stick with Samsung. This 40" TV fits our space perfectly and after comparing a 60hz LCD HDTV side-by-side (playing the exact same nature DVD) with a 120hz, I did not notice any difference. Since the 60hz was about $150 less, I decided on this TV. We are extremely happy with it.

We only watch TV -- we don't do gaming, watch DVDs, nor do we have a Blu-Ray. So, we're pretty basic TV watchers. The picture is excellent from all viewing angles -- no distortion. My girlfriend came over 2 nights ago and wants to order a Samsung for her Mom. I don't think you can go wrong if you are basic TV watchers like us! By the way, I'm not sure if I can say this here but I priced this TV at Walmart for $674.00 online, however, through Amazon, we didn't have to pay any shipping costs nor taxes! Amazon, by far, had the least expensive price over Best Buy, Walmart and any other online merchant. The delivery guys took the TV out of the box, set it up and made sure it did turn on. They were great. Getting it to sync up with Dish TV and the Dish Remote was another matter but 2 phone calls to Dish was all it took. We had it up and running in an hour or so. Excellent buying experience!

Purchased this specific model based on the recommendation by Consumers Report. After 24 yrs of following their recommendations for cars, household appliances and smaller goods, they have never steered me wrong. Samsung is excellent television thus far. Good price, easy to set up and sync'd w/ our cable system quickly. We have not used all the features yet, but on the HD channels the clarity, richness of detail and color is outstanding. Son even plays his Wii games on the set and the large screen gives you more a sense of being in the game. Since we have small children (5 and 7) and fear one of them crashing into the set, we tethered the set into the wall studs, rather than a wall mount.

Delivery was as per projected. Box probably weighed 45-50 lbs and the set-up to the stand was simple. Would buy this unit again and from the same Amazon vendor.

Looked and looked at these TVs. Decided on this one for the bedroom based on reviews and seeing this set in a store. The picture is really nice, sound too. We were so happy with the picture quality that we decided to go ahead and order the 60" for the livingroom as an early Christmas present for each other on Monday. Glad we didn't now. We received it on the 20th at about noon, and it worked great for one week. Monday morning turned the TV on and it had picture for about 30 secconds then picture went out and sound stayed on. Called Samsung and they had a local TV repair guy contact us. He came on Monday about 5:00. I had gotten on line to find out about this and was surprised to find out that this is a problem with these Samsungs. Read one where it said to unplug for 4 hours and it resets the computer, so I did. Sure enough when the tech came it was working perfect. Wife turned it on this morning and it went out again. Called the TV repair and he just came and took the TV with him after opening up the back of it. Funny thing, he walked in with a box of capacitors, Already figured that was what it was, but turned out not to be in this case. This is a known problem with the Samsungs, and has been for awhile. (google "Samsung picture problems"). Bottom line -Had TV for 8 days, and could only watch it for 6. Now at the shop. Wish I would have dug a little deeper into Samsung problems on the net. Suggest you do, before purchasing.

I got this TV as a replacement for a faulty LG 37LD450 I had gotten for my dorm room. This is obviously of much higher build quality.

The picture is terrific, whites are clearly white, and the blacks are very black (no blue/gray tinting). The audio is nice, for TV speakers, but I use an external system (this model DOES have a 3.5mm external audio output) so I have no complaints.

The one thing that I wish I would have known is that it doesn't actually have a swivel stand, as far as I can tell. It doesn't rotate at all if I try to turn the TV (thought it might just be stuck, but I've pushed as hard as I want to without risking damage).

Also, just because I think this might annoy some people, when you mute the TV, the little mute graphic stays and sort of dances (slowly) around the left of the screen until you unmute it. It does not disappear with time. This might annoy some people (gamers especially) but you can still just turn the volume down to 0, or "hard" mute it in the options menu, neither of which will display that annoying little box.

Those are the only two things that bug me though, and overall I would definitely recommend this TV to anyone looking for a solid 40". THE 40" IS CHEAPER THAN THE 37" RIGHT NOW, SO DON'T BUY THAT ONE! Also, I think you get in-home service with TVs that are 40" and larger, not with 37".

Also, I'd like to note that PS3 games look fantastic on this TV, even though it still is in the 60hz camp. Personally, I don't think 120hz is worth the extra $100, especially after seeing what this TV can do,