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By Philip Wong, CNET Asia
Feb 15, 2008

It has been close to a year since the Korean introduced its M8 integrated digital TV or iDTV in Asia, and it's still the only one of its kind so far until now. Replacing it is the latest F8-series, a stepped-up model combining the stylish shell of its premium F9 LED-driven TV with all the familiar features of the original iDTV plus Motion Plus function. The latter is its first and much-belated attempt at the highly sought-after 100Hz motion enhancements.

Design

If you are drooling over the beautifully crafted Samsung LA70F91B, the LA46F81BDX is about the closest you can get without forking out a whopping S$88,888 (US$58,478.95). To start off, there is the glossy black bezel with smooth sensuous soft corners. This is flanked by a pair of brushed metal trimmings which house its unique touch-sensitive and lit TV controls. Speaking of which, the bottom center blue lighting also doubles as a similarly designed power button. Beside a pleasing chime whenever the panel powers up and down, this can be further programmed to light up under different scenarios.

At 1,222.3 x 686.8 x 111mm, this sleek panel will fit readily into most tight quarters. You will, of course, need to reserve breathing space for ventilation and its left-mounted A/V inputs. Easy accessibility aside, the latter features an HDMI terminal in addition to the usual legacy jacks. And if you are wondering where the speakers are, these are stealthily lined along the sides and fired through an extremely narrow slit. Futuremore, three installation options are available complete with cable management. This ranges from the stock swivel stand to an optional manual and motorized remote-controlled wall bracket.

The ergonomic and matching remote is second only to Bravia X's equivalent. It offers manual backlighting for the commonly used volume and channel buttons, plus multifunction controls compatible with over 100 brands of DVD, settop boxes, etc. To work around the bottleneck of a single input toggle key, the F8 employs smart sensing technology. This automatically limits active selection to connected sockets, somewhat reducing video-switching elapse time. Our only major gripe here is an irritatingly lethargic response, typically requiring more than a fraction of a second for the menu to react.

In the same light, nor we were disappointed by the beefed-up software menu. There are definitely more than adequate settings to go around for just about all critical post-processing functions. The selection ranges from straightforward edge enhancement and panel backlighting adjustments to SpyderTV Pro-friendly advanced white balance cuts and gains. To get you up to speed, there are also onscreen navigation instructions and a well-written 61-page user manual. Alternatively, three custom video preset (Dynamic/Standard/Movie), a Game and Home Theater PC modes are at your disposal, too.

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