Samsung HT-X810 home theater system

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By Ty Pendlebury, CNET.com.au
Jul 2, 2008

One of the keys to a successful home-theater-in-a-box is simplicity, and Samsung may have just delivered this with its new HT-X810 sound bar system. Basically, if you can plug in a power cable, you can set up this system. This is because almost everything about the Samsung is wireless--from the subwoofer to its support for Bluetooth devices.

Design

In keeping with the curvy looks of the company's past offerings, the HT-X810's main module has a rounded bottom bezel, sides and speaker grille. It's quite a wide unit at 1m across, and is designed to complement 42-inch screens. It's also wall-mountable with the ports at the rear angled so cables won't break off.

The digital readout is small and a little hard to read due to the high gloss finish, but the capacitive play controls along the other edge are quite nifty. One minor quirk we found though was that only the Eject button on the unit itself can both "open" and "close" the DVD mechanism. Meanwhile, the remote's Eject will only eject.

While the main unit is stylish, the subwoofer gets off less dashingly; it's a black, rectangular box. A piano black, though. But unlike the sub from Sony's DAV-IS10 system, it's not as fussy about placement, and given that it's wireless, you can put it in the next room if you really want.

The pointing stick itself is ok, but is somewhat confused. It suffers from the "little button syndrome" at the bottom--a lot of functionality is offered, but it's hard to tell at a glance what everything does.

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