A Truly Outstanding LED Television, July 1, 2010

By 

Ray “A Reader” – See all my reviews

  

The Samsung Series 6 6400 LED television is, in my opinion, one of the most impressive on the market today. If you have the opportunity to see one operating next to similar models from the other major brands (yes, even the leading ones) you can immediately see what sets this set apart from the others. A truly rich, vibrant, and crisp picture which is shockingly realistic when you pump it with a true HD signal. It even does well with non-HD signals.

The physical design of the set is striking. It’s hard to believe, but this unit is only about one inch thick, and when you see it from the side, its hard to make yourself believe it can actually function. Add to that that the built-in speakers actually sound pretty good, and you’ll sit there and scratch your head as to how this can be possible. Yes, as difficult as it is to believe, somehow Samsung managed to cram speakers into a set than is only one inch thick which actually sound pretty good. As I sit and listen over time, I’m still surprised.

But of course the major factor is the picture quality, and after long comparisons with other brands, I’ve come to the conclusion that nothing on the market is close to it in its price range. Colors are bright, rich, and vibrant. The 120 Hz motion flow seems to work very well indeed. And if you have a large existing DVD collection, just use an upsampling DVD player and this TV does a great job of recreating a near-HD image. But, as I say, when you browse over to a true HD channel, the image quality is shockingly realistic. This appears to be a set that should do remarkably for the coming years, featuring everything except 3D (if that interests you). The LED technology is clearly superior to standard LCD technology in terms of both image quality and power consumption. Really, there is no comparison between LED and LCD technology.

The unit comes with a litany of features which are too long to list here. The unit has PIP (yes, its there, even though not advertised much – dig through the menus and you’ll find it there), a number of preset adjustments for both audio and video, plus generally full manual control of virtually every setting. The 46″ size is a large, but not overpowering, size for an average living room, and the potato-chip thickness coupled with a relatively low weight means you can easily point this on a wall, if desired (separate mounting hardware required). The unit supports Internet connections using a wired or wireless LAN hookup (wireless USB key purchased separately), can play both photos and videos off a USB drive, and has multiple hookups in the rear for computers, HD sources, and component video. It goes on and on.

I’ve bought nothing but Sony televisions for 20 years. I’ve always appreciated Sony’s leading edge technology and design, and when it came time to replace our big Sony Trinitron set, I went into the deep investigation of LCD, LED, and HD televisions. That I picked this Samsung speaks volumes. Compare one for yourself and see if you agree. This is a class leading set. And these comments on the 6400 will likely be applicable to all Samsung LED sets, regardless of the specific series.

Five stars for a quality build, four stars for price (a tad high), and six for picture quality.

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Very good buy, October 9, 2010

By 

Charles A. Schuler (Naples, FL USA) – See all my reviews

  

I’ll provide a PROS and CONS type of review:

PROS: Really nice picture. I invested a fair amount of time on this aspect by visiting retail sites where I could see several brands displaying their best. This is subjective, as the signal source was not always the same. I found that some retailers connect the sets with the big price tags to the better sources. Anyway, I cannot fault the in-home performance that I am seeing with decent signal sources. Colors, sharpness, brightness and contrast ratios are all five stars. Internet features are very nice and seem to work well (but can be a bit of a chore to set up … see the CONS). Rear-panel connections are standard for a TV of this ilk. Audio is not great but is actually better than average for this type of TV. It is good enough that many users will not have to add equipment to enjoy it. Physical design is sleek and very modern. The base is well designed and should support the main unit safely. The PROS are strong and all merit 5 stars.

CONS: The remote control is finicky. I might have a bad one. Wireless Internet was a no-go here. Was on the phone with Samsung for over an hour and no solution was found. I returned the wireless Samsung dongle and bought an Ethernet cable to connect to my router and all is working great. Setting up accounts (for streaming movie content) for this TV has not been a no-brainer in all cases but all problems have now been resolved and watching streaming movies with all the user controls associated with owning the movie are worth the hassles in getting it working.

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Problems with Dark Scenes, December 20, 2010

By 

S. Le (Suisun City, CA) – See all my reviews

  

Does anyone have any problem with watching the dark scenes in a very dark room? My Samsung UN46C6400 TV looks like I’m watching the scenes through a haze because of light leaks at the edges and uneven brightness at the left side of the screen. When the screen is supposed to be totally black, mine looks like the cloudy sky at night with patches of brighter spots at the left side of the screen and at the edges. Is my set defective or it’s the way edge-lit LED TV’s are supposed to be? I have tried turning the back light, the brightness, the contrast… all the way down to zero, pictures look dark but the problem is still there. Changing the settings to “Dark”, “Darker”… does not help the problem either. Other than that, the normal & bright scenes are stunning and the sound is really good.

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