SETUP

The LN46A750 has plenty of connection options, including four HDMI 1.3 ports, with one in the set of convenience jacks on the TV's left side. The Samsung's Movie mode looked very natural out of the box and delivered a grayscale that measured not far off the 6,500-K reference standard.

There's a deep and sophisticated raft of picture controls for fine tuning, including an unusual Color Space function that lets you adjust all the primary and secondary color points. Translation: With the right tools, you can tune the colors from which all other colors are derived, until they're perfectly in line with industry standards. I did just that, with excellent results, and then fine-tuned the grayscale with the White Balance controls in the advanced user menu.

After some viewing, I ended up setting the TV's Black Adjust control to Medium, HDMI Black Level to Low, Gamma to +1, and Digital Noise Reduction to Auto. I also found that I could leave the set's 120-Hz Auto Motion Plus circuit engaged at Medium or High all the time. Unlike the 120-Hz processing on some other sets, it improved clarity on fast-moving objects without introducing obvious artifacts that reminded me it was turned on.

PERFORMANCE

Watching the opening sequence of I Am Legend on Blu-ray Disc, in which Will Smith tears around a desolate and deserted midtown Manhattan in pursuit of a dinner of wild deer, I noticed how well the set reproduced the city's hues. The blue of a mailbox, the yellow of a taxicab, the green of a trashcan, and the red of an office-supply-store banner were all delivered with unhyped accuracy. Smith's car -- a red Mustang with a white racing stripe -- popped off the screen without seeming overdone.

The image on this and other good film-based high-def material had a solidity that I'm still a little surprised to see in any LCD display. Consequently, details like the fine blades of overgrown grass that Smith wades through in Times Square were breathtakingly crisp. The black levels were very good, although not up to the standard set by Pioneer plasmas or Samsung's own LED-driven sets. I didn't make the blacks as dark as I could have, but I was satisfied with the balance between contrast and shadow detail that the adjustments yielded. I could clearly make out the texture of Smith's black jacket as he moved in and out of the shadows in the waning afternoon sun, and during a close-up of his German Shepherd companion, I saw details in the black ring of fur surrounding the dog's snout.

High-def cable programs also looked great. A Yankees vs. Padres baseball game demonstrated the TV's natural reproduction of the field's manicured grass and the white of the pinstriped Yankee uniforms. Standard-def playback was more hit or miss, though. The Samsung performed well on SD test discs, but some material -- like a DVD of Contact delivered as 480i -- looked very soft and dull, as did most SD cable programs being transmitted as 480p. A reference-quality DVD of Seven Years in Tibet looked much sharper, but the Samsung's internal processing still wasn't quite up to the quality that the best upconverting DVD players can deliver.

BOTTOM LINE

With its solid picture quality, good sound (for a flat-panel TV), and tons of extra features, Samsung's LN46A750 has plenty going for it. An average price tag of $2,400 makes it a bit expensive for its size, but several online retailers have been selling it for far less -- and as the price goes down from there, it starts to look like a pretty good deal. If you're in the market for a high-value LCD TV with some cool features, this one's worth taking a close look at.