One glitch that I ran into on the Samsung was that it wouldn't reliably deinterlace film-sourced 1080i-format programs; its performance here seemed dependent on the TV's settings. Fortunately, though, the two main features found on this set - LED SmartLighting and LED Motion Plus - worked very smoothly. After turning on LED SmartLighting, I was amazed at the difference: Blacks in the picture deepened dramatically, while highlights kept their punch. And LED Motion Plus quickly proved its value with fast-motion sports, such as an NHL game on HDNet: The hockey sticks, puck, and rink markings all locked into place and looked noticeably crisper. The only catch is that picture brightness and contrast take a significant hit when you turn on Motion Plus - a potential concern for daylight viewing.

Performance Warner's Blu-ray Disc of Stanley Kubrick's The Shining arrived in time for Halloween, so I just had to see it on the Samsung. As I watched a scene of Wendy Torrance (Shelley Duvall) and her son Danny (Danny Lloyd) wandering through the labyrinth outside the Overlook Hotel, the fine texture of the leaves and stones lining the pathway looked sharp, and that crisp detail held up even as the characters' pace quickened during the long Steadicam shot. The Samsung's color rendition was also excellent. In a scene where Danny cruises through the hotel's spooky corridors on his Big Wheel, a wide range of red hues was apparent, including his pale red sweater and bright red shoes, as well as the carpet's rich crimson pattern. Even so, skin tones - such as those on Danny's pale, pink-tinged face - looked completely natural.

Another Kubrick film recently released on Blu-ray, 2001: A Space Odyssey, demonstrated the TV's awesomely deep blacks. The film's "overture" consists of a few minutes of eerie classical music accompanied by a completely dark screen. Watching and listening, I mistakenly thought the TV was turned off - a big change from my experience with other LCDs, which typically look dark gray when displaying an all-black signal. This ability to display bottomless shadows worked to great advantage on 2001's outer-space scenes, which were remarkably deep on the Samsung. Also, brighter scenes - such as the early ones of prehuman primates fighting over a water hole in the desert - displayed punchy contrast, though there was less detail visible in the creatures' dark fur than what I saw on a Pioneer plasma used for comparison.

Picture uniformity on the Samsung was mostly excellent, with the key exception being off-axis performance: As I shifted left or right of center, the TV's contrast lessened somewhat. But whereas this is a common problem with flat-panel LCDs, the Samsung's upconversion of standard-def was below average, with 480i signals looking soft compared with the same ones upconverted externally by my high-def disc player and cable box. The TV's Digital Noise Reduction proved effective, however: Grainy images got a decent smoothing-out with minimal detail loss, even at the High setting.

Bottom Line LCDs have been steadily improving, but Samsung's LED-driven LN-T4681F represents a dramatic leap for the technology in the key areas of black level and picture contrast. Even the fussiest connoisseur would be hard-pressed to find fault on those two points with LED SmartLighting switched on. Figure in the TV's accurate color, flexible setup, and LED Motion Plus, and it's a slam-dunk for movie buffs and sports fans alike. And although it might seem pricey compared with other LCDs, you can rest easy knowing that you'll be paying for the best.

Full Lab Results Test Reports RSS Feed More Test Reports Back to Homepage What's New on S&V