Small but mighty! (Samsung LE-26R71B)

Member Name: B_O_M_B_A_

Product:	Samsung LE-26R71B
Date:	22/07/08 (83 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great picture quality

Disadvantages: Poorish sound

I purchased this LCD screen through TribalUK.co.uk (See TribalUK review) around 2 years ago. At the time the TV was one of the best available in the 26" range and I was more than happy to pay the £484 that I did. I had done a thorough scan of all the high street and web shops and compared picture quality live via Curry's/ Comet etc. I decided that a Samsung TV would provide me with the picture quality and clarity I required. The TV seemed to provide a far brighter image than all the others around it and for me this is quite important, I had dark pictured screens because they can never quite provide the same level of detail.

I received the TV in full working condition and as I lifted it out of its ridiculously oversized box I was surprised at just how nice it looked standing on my set of drawers, far better than I had remembered it. Its black glossy rim shone beautifully in the light and really accentuated the brighter screen that it encased. I followed the simple instructions of how to fit the stand which involved no more than pushing it on and I was away. The controller is very easy to use and clearly labelled with the buttons a good distance apart to prevent 'Double pressing', usually only an issue if you have fat fingers but it can sometimes get annoying. The controller came with its own batteries was a good surprise and I was quickly turning the TV off stand by ready to get viewing!

The instructions guided me through tuning in the TV which took around 5 minutes; simply tell It to start searching for Free view channels and away it goes, very easy. It provide around 40 channels including E4, IT2, ITV3, Dave and many others.

The TV picture settings weren't quite at my desired level so I spent around 10 minutes tweaking the contrast, brightness and sharpness to create my own picture, although there are 4 presets that you can have Dynamic, Cinema, Standard and Custom. Dynamic is ideal for a bright room, Cinema for films and standard for a dimmer room.

The TV is HD ready and produces a pixel resolution of 1366 x 768 which is fine for a screen of this size, even now I don't think there is any 26" television that is Full HD, although please correct me if I'm wrong. It has a contrast ration of 3000:1 which means there are 3000 shades of grey between the blackest black and the whitest white. Again this is actually quite good for a screen of this size and age (If you consider 2 years along time).

The sound quality is respectable and amplifies easily around my living room in the new house, I have no problems hearing it even at a quiet moment and I very rarely have it over level 35, when the maximum is 100 that isn't too bad. It has two 5 watt speakers that are built in and out of sight to improve the look of the television and it works well. The trouble is you cannot get the full movie experience unless you have a good surround sound system hooked up to it.

I have a Panasonic 1080i up scaling system, which means it up scales all of your old DVDS into HD as long as you connect the DVD player to the TV via a HDMI cable. I have to say the picture quality is very impressive and you definitely notice the difference between the standard uplink and the HDMI uplink, I especially notice the difference in older films, the colours are far brighter and every line is far more detailed. The TV has 480p, 720p, 1080i, 480i, 576i, 576p output levels, which is perfect for the everyday watcher, hardcore TV fans will want a Full HD screen these days though which can be picked up at less than £500, my advice is the Samsung LE40A656 (Around £650 from Dixons) or LE37A559 (Around £550 from Dixons), both great televisions with equal or over a 15000:1 contrast ratio, I have asked for the 37 inch 5 series to be added and am awaiting so I can review (at time of writing).

Overall a very good television, strangely however I have seen it on Amazon for a price of around £1100, very weird. You can get it much cheaper and is worth around £400, happy viewing!

Summary: Very good buy at the time, maybe not so much now.

Processing/Quality:
Reliability:
Ease of use:
Installation:
Sound quality:
Features: