Samsung LA40F71B (40-inch LCD)

By Pam Carroll, CNET.com.au
Nov 8, 2006

There are only a few 1080p or full-HD TVs on the market so far, and to tout their superior picture capabilities most of them have adopted a very serious, clean black design template. Fair enough, 1080p is all about the displayed image and nothing should distract from that.

Design
The Samsung LA40F71B sports a black stand and black piano-finish frame (a fingerprint cloth is included). The only visible front elements are a Samsung logo and round Power indicator that is rimmed in a blue light which turns off when the power is on, but lights up in standby mode. (You can set this light to be off completely if you choose). When on the included stand, the cabinet swivels 20 degrees.

There are two small speakers concealed on each side at the bottom of the frame, with manual TV controls hidden on the left edge and memory card slots, PictBridge, USB, S-video, composite-video and headphone ports along the right. The back panel houses all your standard array of A/V connections, most notably, two HDMI ports.

The remote follows the black theme--there are no backlights, but it's very slender and nicely weighted. It's pretty button-intensive but needs to be as you can set the remote up to control five different devices--TV, DVD, cable, settop box and VCR. Quite an extensive array of brands and models are supported. Some of the remote buttons, such as the ones that control viewing photos and playing music from memory cards or USB media are quite tiny, but the most often-used buttons that change volume and channels and the cursor menu control are large and well located in the middle of the remote.

This TV was launched to partner one of the first Blu-ray players on the market, Samsung's BD-P1000, and it should be pointed out that the matching finish and design of the two devices make a very smart-looking combination.

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