High Definition Masterpiece (Samsung LE-40N87BD)

Member Name: Xbox_Tipster

Product:	Samsung LE-40N87BD
Date:	23/01/09 (447 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Full HD 1080p * Stunning design * Fantastic picture quality * Great price

Disadvantages: Sluggish remote control, Attracts dust & finger prints

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SHOPPING FOR A TV
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Ahh .. shopping for a new TV - isn't it wonderful ? The joy of walking through the shops looking at hundreds of TV's that all look the same with that bloody blu-ray cartoon feed being screened on all of them, or the thrill of shopping online reading the specifications for the latest and greatest TV's whilst your brain pretends it actually understands the technical terms that keep being shoved in your face.

So when you think you've found your perfect TV with it's one thousand billion trillion to one contrast ratio and its twelve trillion pixel picture quality you think it will be sensible to do some research on it. Now you find yourself on a forum where the TV you previously thought was nothing short of perfect - is now being verbally torn apart by pages and pages of geekspeek that causes you to sigh and instantly fall asleep on your keyboard.

Here is my advice to you - according to people on the internet, every TV is not good enough for you, and according to the shops every TV is perfect for you. Ignore everybody and make your own mind up by asking normal humans who will tell it to you straight - all most of us really want to know is does the friggin' picture quality look good when I watch television or not !

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FIRST IMPRESSIONS
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OK, so after months of thinking I had found the right TV and then being told it sucked - I finally stumbled across a TV known as the Samsung LE40N87BD - a high definition 1080p set.

I should first mention here that the LE40N87 model is extremely similar to the "LE40M86BD" & "LE40M87BD" models, the only differences are their physical looks & that the M86/87 uses a reflective screen with a 15,000:1 contrast ratio whereas the LE40N87BD uses a non-reflective matte screen with a 10,000:1 contrast ratio (much better in my opinion, I hate it when televisions suffer from lights reflecting off the screen).

I first saw the Samsung N87 in Richer Sounds hanging on the wall looking stunning with it's slick black design and puppy dog pixels fluttering at me begging me to buy it. I had heard of this TV before on the various forums I visited for advice, and as usual some people loved it and some people complained about various problems, such as juttery freeview - clouding - flickering - bla bla bla.

Despite reading about its few problems, I went ahead and paid Richer Sounds £880 for it, which gave me the TV & 5 years warranty (£699 without warranty). Right - sorted, so what's it like:

After unpacking the box and placing it on its stand, I can tell you that it looks fantastic (and huge!). The design is very posh looking - it has perfectly smoothed edges with a deep black colour surrounding the screen with a matching base. Very impressive.

Once finished admiring the beauty of the television, I turned it on and started the setup installation which was a breeze, just follow the simple on-screen instructions and you're done. Once finished setting it up I then tried out the free-view which I was expecting to be fairly average...

ARGH ! MY EYES ! IT BURNS, IT BURNS TURN IT OFF. Wow ... with the out of the box settings the TV sure does like to terrorize your eyeballs with bright colours. Changing the colour settings in the menu soon fixes this (very easy, just select movie-mode or something similar) and you'll find yourself with a stunning clear picture.

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PICTURE QUALITY
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I had always heard that freeview on most LCD televisions was crap - well that's certainly not true with this TV, every channel looks great, just as good as a CRT television if not better. The colours are spot on after some tweaking, with very good dark blacks.

DVD's look absolutely fantastic on this TV, I really was surprised at how much better they look compared to my last CRT television, everything on screen is just crystal clear. I played my DVD's through my upscaling Sony DVDR, so it was amazing to see older films look so impressive on this TV.

As for HD-DVD and Blu-Ray, I have only watched one movie in HD which I downloaded onto my Xbox 360 via the marketplace and I have to say it was stunning, the picture quality is so life-like - I found myself distracted from the film as I was too busy gawping over how good the picture quality was.

I personally can't afford Sky television, but I envy anybody who has this television along with a Sky HD subscription because I viewed this TV in a shop that had a Sky HD source, and the picture was jaw-droppingly good. It was showing a pet dog just laying there doing nothing, but I could see every single little strand of hair on it's body - it looked incredibly real, I just wanted to reach into the television and take the dog home with me. Now imagine having Sky-HD and being able to watch your programmes in HD Quality like that all the time ... wow, that must be incredible. I'll just have to settle with HD-Movies and HD-gaming for now !

Gaming is also brilliant on this TV, I personally play Xbox 360 and having it set to 1080p is nothing short of exceptional. All my games look great (especially gears of war and call of duty 4 !) and it's good to finally be able to see my games the way they were meant to be seen. Gameplay is fast and as good as a CRT with no input lag with its 8ms response time. My previous TV was a CRT 26 inch, so upgrading to this 40 inch 1080p HD screen really improves my gaming experience, I can see so much more than I used to making it that much easier to get those all important headshots on those losers using their crummy standard def 20 inch televisions (no offense anyone, haha).

Another brilliant thing about this television is that I can use it as my PC monitor (yup, a 40 inch pc monitor !) by connecting a dvi to hdmi cable from my PC's graphics card DVI port to the televisions HDMI port. Changing the TV's mode to "just-scan" makes the quality outstanding at the resolution of 1920 x 1080, it's just like using a regular monitor but everything is obviously larger. The text on screen is very clear with no blurring at all, and images don't lose any of their quality compared to a smaller monitor. I love surfing the net with a 40 inch screen, it's fantastic, especially when watching a film on the PC. Using the TV as my PC monitor also means i can switch from my PC to the television with the click of a button - excellent for us lazy folks out there !

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GHOSTING / MOTION BLUR
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When buying an LCD people always warn you about the "ghosting" that they suffer from, which is where when something on the screen makes a movement, a slight ghosting trail will be seen following behind them. I'm sorry, but unless my eyesight is rubbish I cannot see any evidence of this so-called ghosting and as such I believe this TV is definitely not haunted which is fine because I never believed in ghosts anyway. ;)

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PROBLEMS
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My only real problem/s with the TV is that the remote is rather sluggish. It takes a while to switch channels, and switching between sources can be rather tedious at times, so if you're rather impatient like me you'll occasionally find yourself raging at the TV-screen to hurry up as you flick through the channels, hoping it will somehow understand you and speed up (...it doesn't !). Also, the glossy black design of the TV really is a dust magnet and will gladly keep your finger prints on it if you wish to touch it, so be prepared to pamper your TV with a cloth every now and again !

As far as the problems go that I had read about before buying the television (juttery freeview - clouding - flickering - bla bla bla), they are non existent. The freeview NEVER jutters, I don't see this so-called clouding, and there's certainly no flickering. Whoever complains about this stuff really is trying to hard to find problems that just aren't there - either that or the issues must have been solved via a firmware update.

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ELECTRONIC PROGRAMME GUIDE
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The built in Electronic Programme Guide is great, you can switch between it showing what's on now and what's on next, or with the push of the button see the entire guide which shows the times of each scheduled program, and even lets you skip forward to any time you want, so checking what's on in a few days time is no problem at all. The EPG shows up to 8 days ahead I believe. My favorite thing about the EPG is that if you press Enter on a TV program, it sets itself to 'remind' you when that particular program is starting, so if you're for instance playing on your xbox 360, about 60 seconds before the program starts your television will automatically switch back over to the free-view source and switch the channel for you !

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SOUND QUALITY
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The sound quality of the TV is good, but a little on the quiet side. There are two well hidden 10 watt internal speakers. Turning up the volume past 30 makes little difference, but it is more than loud enough for me. This TV has "SRS TruSurround XT" which is errrr ... a fancy name for an option that changes the audio style - I find it makes everything a bit more 'deep' ... it gives a bit more bass, but I prefer to have it turned of, so it's really down to your preference. The overall sound quality is good, but if you're a bit of a movie enthusiast you might want to hook up your home cinema kit. ;)

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PICTURE-IN-PICTURE
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Picture-In-Picture is also available on this TV. PIP is where you can have a small window in the corner of the screen showing a different source. For example you can play on your games console but also have a small window in the corner showing a television channel, this is ideal if you're waiting for a certain programme to start but can't be bothered to watch the adverts.

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CONNECTIVITY
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Connectivity for this TV is also very good, you're given 3 HDMI slots which is more than enough along with all the other usual connections (scart, s-video, headphone, component, composite, etc etc) so this is all good with regards to 'future-proofing' your self.

Here's a full list of the connections (taken from hdtvtest.co.uk):

HDMI 3 (HDMI 1.3; 2 rear, 1 side)
VGA 1 (HD-15; rear)
Component 1 (YPbPr 3 x RCA connectors for video & L-R 2 x RCA connectors for audio; rear)
Scart 2 (21-pin; rear)
S-Video 1 (4-pin; side)
Composite (including audio input) 1 (1 x RCA video & 2 x RCA audio; side)
Analogue Audio Output 1 (L-R 2 x RCA connectors; rear)
Digital Audio Output 1 (Optical; rear)
Headphone Output 1 (3.5mm stereo minijack; side)
Serial RS232 1 (rear)
Common Interface Slot 1 (side)

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SPECIFICATIONS
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For a full list of the N87's specifications, visit this page (ignore the spaces, dooyoo has a 80 character word limit so just connect the two parts of the link together:

http://origin.samsung.com/uk/products/
television/tftlcd/le40n86bdxxec.asp?page=Specific ations

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END THOUGHTS
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I've probably missed out on some things but it's hard to review such a great TV with so many features. I don't regret spending £880 on this television at all, and that was over a year ago so I expect you can find it for a bargain price these days, however finding a supplier may be difficult as the shops usually only stock the latest models.

I recommend the samsung N87 for anyone looking for a high definition TV that wont break the bank, if you can find this television for around six/seven hundred pounds then you are getting an absolute bargain, don't waste your money on the new models that are over £1000 - buy this one, it really is exceptionally good.

~ Review also published on Ciao under same username.

Summary: A high definition masterpiece, oozes quality

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