Customer Reviews

Samsung LNT4069FX 40-inch 1080p 120Hz LCD HDTV

5 star:		(93)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

I received my 4069f about 10 days ago and just hooked it up after Direct TV installed my HD dish on this past Saturday. I have the Direct TV DVR and it came with an HDMI cable. I first noticed a problem when watching football. On a far shot when the ball is going through the air you see multiple balls. I then noticed trails when watching Law and Order. When someone turned their head you would see trailing. I called Samsung and they stated there is a known issue with this model and I require a firmware update to get rid of what they called triple ball effect. How do they ship out a product with such a major flaw is beyond me but hopefully the firmware upgrade will correct the problem. They ship it out to you on a thumb drive and then you plug it into the USB port. I will post what happens after I receive and install the upgrade.

Update 12/28/2007:

Okay after writing this review I started to read the reviews for the Samsung 4071f and noticed users were experiencing some of the problems as with my 4069f unit. There was a good bit of talk about the 120hz being a problem and basically useless. I went into setup and turned off the 120hz option and poof the ghosting on tv shows like Law and Order and CSI vanished. Samsung support had me turn off digital noise reduction previously. If I turn either option on the ghosting appears but with them off the picture is great. However, the triple ball effect (TBE) is still present when watching football. I should receive the firmware update in the mail today or tomorrow so hopefully that will remedy the TBE problem.

Update 1/16/2008:

Okay, as I said in my last update, turning off the Auto Motion Plus 120hz cured most of the problems. I waited for the firmware update to be mailed out but never received it (Samsung input my mailing address incorrectly). They did send me an email with a link to the firmware and instructions on how to do the upgrade. Installing the firmware onto a thumb drive and then onto the tv was pretty straight forward. One thing to note is the email link for the firmware expires in 1 week so download it along with the instructions. Also, the tv will only update if there is a newer firmware version on the thumb drive.

I went through and uncompressed the firmware onto the jump drive. Important Note: The firmare is labled for the 4071 model. These models are virtually identical and share the same firmware!!! After loading the firmware I set the Auto Motion Plus to low and the triple ball effect is indeed gone. Samsung recommends setting Auto Motion Plus to low and ONLY for sporting events and other programs with fast moving motion. They say to turn it off for regular programs. Here is the URL to what Samsung says about TBE on the 4071 model: For some reason the URL won't post but if you go to the Samsung site under Support and then News and Alerts you will see a report for the Triple Ball Effect and LNT series 71 LCDs. This also applies to the 69 series; I highly recommend reading this alert!

Samsung LNT4069FX 40" 1080p 120Hz LCD HDTV
If you are looking for a 1080p with 120Hz refresh rate, this is the right choice. I had this TV for about 2 weeks and I am absolutely satisfied.
It is a light, very nice looking TV. Has an amazing matte screen (less reflective) and has all the features you will need for the future.
The standard HDTV is still 720p on cable, but this TV is 1080p and has a refresh rate of 120Hz, that allows perfect showing of movies (120 is a multiple of 24, the number of slides per second in a film).
The speakers are good and I feel no need for buying new ones.
has a USB port where you can put a flash drive to see pictures or play music.
Even the regular TV signal (480) looks fine.
Great TV and great Shipping company (eagle) with a great service.

I spent two weeks in researching the best TV I can find under $2000. I looked at various TVs including Plasma, DLP, LCDs at Bestbuy and Frys and read lots of reviews on different websites before making a final decision.

Arguably, LCD is the best technology these days and Samsung and Sony are the leaders in this space. Among all the LCDs out there LNT 4069 is the best with unbelievable picture quality. You have got to watch NFL and NBA games in HD on this TV. Once you have this TV don't try to play too much with the Default settings. For your cable channels, TV will adjust the screen size according to quality of the signal.

The people at Sony will not like this post. I have been a loyal Sony TV buyer since 1978. I have owned three XBR models. (Remember the one with the foot pedals?) And, yet, I just returned my 40W3000 and decided to go with a Samsung.

I could not afford the 40XBR4 and considered buying a heavily discounted XBR2. But, the comments in this forum suggested that it would be better to go with the 40W3000 due to some regular improvements. I also wanted to avoid the XBR2 clouds issue. So, I studied the W3000 at the store and it looked good on the wall.

I got the W3000 home and connected it to my Comcast DVR via HDMI and to my Panny DVD player via component video (480i). I do not have a game player and I have not jumped into hi-res DVD, yet. So, to be fair, I am dealing with a 1080i Comcast input and a 480i DVD input. I cannot tell you about a 1080p input.

With great anticipation, I turned on the w3000 and I did not get a WOW. The colors looked muted and the people looked pale. My daughter said that there was an unnatural green tint to the picture -- and that the greens looked artificial. But, I saw in this forum that all the calibration choices and began the process. I re-seated the cables and tried different inputs.

Now, for the great test. Fortunately, I still owned my 32XBR400 set! I could do a side-by-side comparison on the identical video feed! I hooked up the Comcast box to the XBR tube TV via component video and the new 40W3000 by HDMI.

My goal -- get the new set to have the same quality picture as my eight year old tube TV. Could it be done?

Well -- I spent days on it with no luck. I tried several settings from the spreadsheet, a couple of others in the forum, and some choices by myself. I ran the Video Essentials DVD and tried to get the optimum settings. I tweaked while looking at both monitors. Nothing was as good as the 32XBR400. Not even close.

To be fair, I watched a few movies to see if the input made a difference. But, Harry Potter looked sickly and the clothes on the Devil Wears Prada were drab. (The whites were beautiful, by the way.)

Then, my other daughter came by and watched Devil with me. She noticed that the pixels did not keep up with the motion in the running scenes. After she pointed that out, the set was ruined for me due to what I now call the "slow pixel" problem. I tried other DVDs and even noticed the problem when faces turned. I turned enhancements on and off. The problem was still there.

OK. Perhaps this set was a bad unit. Maybe an exchange would make a difference. (It was an August manufacture date.)

I started by returning to where it began -- the wall of screens at the store. I brought my own DVDs and was ready to annoy the sales person. But, it only took me a few seconds in front of the wall to see the "slow pixel" problem. Even if I could get the colors right, those slow pixels would ruin the set.

Since this is the top-of-the-line non-XBR set, I knew at that moment that if I wanted to be happy with my TV, I was leaving Sony after 30 years.

What next? Well, I know that Samsung makes most of the Sony LCD panels. And, my PCs are all connected to Samsung monitors. (And, the AVS Forum was favorable.) So, lets look at the Sammys.

Right next to the Sony was the Samsung 4071f. It had a beautiful picture, but I immediately dismissed it due to glare. The glossy screen would not work in my sunny family room. However, the Samsung 4069f is a very new set with a matte screen. It wasn't even on the wall of TVs at the store. But, they had one in stock that found its way to my credit card and into my house. It has a matte screen and is less wide than the 4071f.

I was ready to be disappointed. I was ready to believe that it would be drab and that I would need to start exchanging cable boxes and buying a new DVD player. (My wife would love that.)

Guess what. The Samsung picture is stunning -- I said WOW. It is vibrant and has a fantastic picture. The standard setting was very close to the 32XBR400 in color quality with my side-by-side test. A smile crept across my face. I know that there is some picture tweaking ahead of me. But, that will be a labor of love. I watched Harry -- without a skin condition -- and even enjoyed the Discovery Channel HD. I could not see any slow pixels (perhaps due to the 120Hz refresh rate, but I don't know.)

Finally, the SD test. I like Bravo, BBC America, and the SciFi Channel. All of them are in SD here. The pictures looked great on the Samsung.

Sorry Sony. And, sorry to those in this forum who love the 40w3000. It was a hard decision for me. But, I have a new video partner in the Samsung 4069f. I have already invited people over to my house to watch the Pats game on Saturday night. (It is a good year to be a Boston sports fan.)

I hope that my experience has been useful. It is very hard to walk away from 30 years of telling friends and family to buy a Sony. Now, I will say to buy Sony for your tube sets and Samsung for LCD.

Here are the calibration settings for 4069FX that I got after running AVIA II

Contrast: 100
Brightness: 41
Sharpness: 100
Color: 49
Tinit 48
Backlight: 10
Color Tone: Normal

This tv is wonderful. Drove my wife nuts with research and comparisons before buying a 4061. Returned it for the 4069 next day and for very little price difference the picture, color, and 120hz refresh are huge. Make sure you have a 10.2gbps HDMI or you will not get any advantages of the 120hz technology. Absolutely would purchase again.

I've been researching LCD TVs for a couple of years now, and finally decided to pull the trigger in early December on the LNT4069FX based on its technology and very good reviews. Upon receiving the set I was pleased to find that the out of the box experience was a lot better than what I expected. Every other system I've set up for friends and family involved the TV looking pretty mediocre or horrible when first plugged in, and then after tweaking looking either good or great. This TV looked pretty good right after the first power on. After tweaking the picture is stunning.

A few things I really like:

1. Very tweakable. It remembers the settings for each individual input, and depending on what mode you have it on (dynamic, standard, movie) it allows you complete control over every feature, whether on/off for some, or some nice color and white balance controls. If you are into tweaking you can go pretty nuts with this set, however as stated above, out of the box it looked pretty darn good.

2. 1080p and 120hz. This is the highest resolution tv you can get as a consumer and it probably will be a for a while. It is also the same resolution as the high def disk formats so you don't have to worry about scaling when watching your new expensive HD disks on your new expensive HD player. The 120hz means it can play back 30/60hz broadcast media and 24hz film media natively. After deinterlacing it either doubles the frames for 60hz or pen-tuples the frames for 24hz, which can help reduce 'judder' effects when watching film sources with a 60hz only tv. It even has the AMP feature to interpolate and add information so you get something similar to a full 120fps experience, although I'll get into more detail on that later.

3. Pretty full set of inputs, and the VGA input works flawlessly with my 1st generation Macbook.

The one thing to be aware of with this set is that the AMP feature currently doesn't work 100%. Many people notice what is referred to as TBE (triple ball effect) with the feature turned on. What happens is if, for example, you are watching football and there is a long pass, the ball can sometimes appear to triple as it crosses the yard lines. In addition I notice that during camera pans the background stutters with AMP on. Samsung is working on a new firmware to address these issues, but they are not completely fixed yet. In the past Samsung has gone to the extent of sending techs to people's houses with new circuit boards to fix issues, so I'm sure if firmware can't fix it, Samsung will eventually fix it for us.

That being said I'm not really into the AMP right now anyway. Since it adds frames that didn't exist before it create a super realistic depth to the image, almost making it seem 3D. To my eye it makes many things look more like animation that real though. Most people who buy the TV really like the feature so I'm definitely in the minority on this opinion.

Still even with the AMP issues, this is definitely a great set and still worth 5 stars in my opinion. Give the TV and try and I'm sure you will be happy.

PS - One last note. Since this TV is 1080p, and somewhat large (although not nearly the largest available) it really magnifies anything in the video signal. This can be good or bad. If there is anything that was not properly done in the source video you can see it. Some DVDs/TV will look crisp and great, others will look horrible, and some will change in quality from scene to scene. Film noise, poor digital encoding, all of it you can see. This should be the case with any 1080p TV from a good manufacturer, so don't jump the gun blaming the TV when maybe a better upconverting DVD player, or just another choice of TV/Movie could make a huge difference.

I did a lot of research on LCD TV's. My first conclusion was that Samsung was the best quality and value. My second conclusion were that I wanted the following pre-requisites: 40", 1080, 3 HDMI inputs, Samsung's clear panel (some models don't have it), at least 15k dynamic contract and a slick stylish look. So I tracked the 4065 price on Amazon to get that....

And all of a sudden, while waiting patiently for the right price on the 65, I came across the 69 and 71 lines came out of nowhere. It was excellent timing! That's when I came to my third and final conclusion, which is I wanted 120hz (after seeing it in action in BB). The 69 won because of its slimmer look and lower price (only differences I noticed were slightly higher contrast on the 71 model but thicker trim). Anyway, I spent $1699 or $300 more than I was going to pay for the 65. It was absolutely worth it. It's currently $1499, so an even better deal.

This set is beautiful in every way, not the least of which is the picture quality and features. 20k contrast ratio is great, but I think above 15k doesn't make a great difference. So the main differentiating factor is 120hz. You can alter the 120hz between low, medium and high. What this does is eliminates the slight motion blur when people/things move on the screen. For example, I was watching Snakes on a Plane in HD, and the outline of Samuel L Jackson's bald head when he was moving around stayed sharper than with 120hz off. It looks amazing, but because it's on TV, it looks kind of like an artificial reality. So that's something to consider if you prefer a little blur to remind you that you're just watching TV...

On my way out to work every morning I spend a few minutes just watching it and admiring it. I'm at work right now writing about it. Bottom line, this TV is so good I'm at risk of losing my job for it!

This TV is excellent so far. Owned for 3 days. I was looking at the 4061 since I liked all these features then I was about to order the 4061 for 1299.00 on Amazon and then noticed the 4069 for only $200 more on Amazon (1499.00). Went to Best Buy to compare and see in person before ordering and I was sold. This is a newer model and newer technology for just a little more. I'm glad I decided to get this model instead. I would say it is closest to the 4071 for features and style without the glossy screen. The 4069 has the 120 Hz auto motion plus, 6ms response, greater contrast and matte finish which I prefer over the glossy. This TV is perfect for our bedroom. Great style and performance. I haven't played with all of the adjustments yet, except lowered the brightness and contrast, but already I'm very pleased with the picture in HD and SD. I was also happy to see that the TV did have any bad pixels on arrival. This is my second Samsung HDTV purchased from Amazon (also own the LNS4696 which I also love). No problems with Amazon or the delivery company they use. I highly recommend this TV you will not be disappointed. Pick one up at Amazon today and buy a PS3 for the cash you save.

Here is your list of choices:

Samsung :
LNT 4065 F (was on sale in many places doing the holidays. it is good, but does not have the 120Hz feature. naked eye, every little difference.
it is easily better than Sony KDLw3000. )

LNT 4069F (Best value for money out there)
LNT 4071F (Good features, But I liked Sony XBR4 picture better.)
LNT 4081F (all the features and picture quality that is been there. costs atleast $600 more than 4071F)

Sony :
Sony KDL40XBR4 : One of best LCD TVs. I would have bought this if I was able to get one from a offical sony dealer below $1900. (or $1899).
SonY KDLW3000 : Very good Value, if you get it less than $1400. else just buy Samsung's LNT 4069F...

(above i have used 40 inch TVs as reference, But I saw same effects in 46 inch also. so all the LNT 4071F will be LNT 4671F and KDL40XBR4 will be KDL46XBR4 etc)

Coming to :
Item being reviewed


Samsung LNT4069 :
Easy to setup.
Easy to use remote.
Was not able to get Dishnetwork's program Guid at the center. not sure why.
works great in a room with two windows at the side and windows with curtain covered at the back.

Buy Sony KDL40XBR4 or LNT4081F If your room has too many bright light sources. Bestbuy and Sears have 2 years zero interest finance avaible too.