Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #172984 in Consumer Electronics
• Brand: Samsung
• Model: LE52F96BDX/XEU
• Released on: 2007-08-20

Features

• Full HD 1080P LCD Television
• Screen Size:52
• Tuner Type:Analogue with Freeview
• Teletext:Smartext with EPG
• Nicam sound system

Manufacturer's Description
1080p HD Ready
Samsung now offers 1080p HD Ready - the highest definition you can get. This is an LCD TV that takes you to new heights in picture quality. These HDTV images have riveting impact - showing you lifelike detail, clarity, and colour like you've never seen before.

HD Ready
HDTV allows you to experience television like never before with the widest range of colours and the clearest images. High Definition contains four or five times as many pixels making the image much clearer than standard definition.

Super Clear Panel
This is our cutting edge technology that, combined with our 1080p Full HD, gives you the most realistic black reproduction you've ever seen. Blacks will never again appear grayish and you will see fantastic details even in dark scenes.

LED SmartLighting
Samsung’s unique technology, LED SmartLighting, allows multiple LED backlights to partially turn on/off depending on the image brightness on the screen, which results in: Dramatic levels of contrast ration (500,000:1 Dynamic Contrast Ratio) Superior blacker blacks and much clearer picture images.

3HDMI
Three High Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) connections make your TV a multimedia centrepiece. Connect HD digital devices like disc players, game consoles, satellite dish boxes into the 2 rear connections and use the side-mounted input for cameras, camcorders and laptops. HDMI is the best performing interface for displaying an HD source on a HDTV.

Game Mode
Samsung LCD TVs offer unparalleled picture quality that can be optimised for gaming at the touch of a button. It allows for H-sharpness and a faster response time in the games. In addition, its powerful surround sound effects produce a magical environ-ment of wonder that is filled with excitement and joy.

WiseLink
With the Wiselink USB connection, you can listen to mp3s or display photo/image files (jpeg only) in your digital camera USB memory stick or memory card. In addition, USB 2.0 supports high speeds of up to 480 Mbps which is 40 times faster than the speed of USB 1.1.

Box Contents

Customer Reviews

Smart back-lighting is flawed but essential - an experience.
I've owned an LE52F96 for a couple of weeks and I'm very impressed with it. I'll report its standard features first and then move on to it's non-standard feature (LED back-lighting).
The machine looks marvellous. The black gloss finish is very nice to look at and doesn't get over reflective. Likewise the super-black panel over the screen. It adds a glossy look to the LCD panel but it's not an issue except in a very bright room. It also makes the set look like a huge black mirror (of sorts) when off and it's a nice artifact to have in a room.
A basic configuration is easy but you might not want to stop there. The setup procedure begins on power-up, just follow the menu options. Most importantly be 100% sure to drop the system out of 'display' mode and into 'normal' or 'movie' mode. Display mode is for shops to use. It's massively over brightened and saturated and it makes any signal you input look awful. This display unit can go from unwatchable to perfect just by changing that option so be warned. It took me some considerable time to really tune the config options (using the menus) but it IS worth it. Be careful if you don't know what you're doing though. You can download recommended config settings from various forums if you want a clue. Again, it really does make a huge difference to the image quality if you spend some time on it.
The system has 3 HDMI inputs (2 on the back and 1 on the left side of the unit) which is useful. The internal Freeview tuner works well enough but isn't the highest quality option. I'd recommend an external upscaling Freeview tuner (easy to get) or SKY HD. There IS an analogue tuner much to my surprise. How many people will use that?!
Moving on to the HD qualities. Breathtaking! I use a SONY BDP-S300 Blu-Ray player that provides a 1080p/24 output and it looks stunning. Just remember to set the LE52F96 to 'Just Scan' when using a 1080p source and then it'll correctly map every pixel. The image quality at full 1080 is phenomenal, like a moving photograph. The colour range is massively enhanced from DVD and there are no scanning issues.
Now onto the black levels. All LCD displays have difficulty showing true black areas of their screen because they all have the back-light permanently on. The only thing that modulates the light is the pixel in front of it and some light seeps through even when the pixel is fully opaque. That's why LCD blacks look grey. Samsung have bravely got around this by replacing the back-light with multiple white LEDs that can be individually switched off or dimmed if the set's computer decides that their part of the screen is dark or indeed black. In practice this means that in a totally dark room (you do watch movies in the dark, right?) when the screen is totally dark then there is zero light coming from the LE52F96 - I mean NONE! Now this is flawed. Firstly it's tricky to configure a balance between the smart-lighting, the brightness and the back-light that achieves the desired full darkness but leaves subtle low light detail in the image. It took me a few hours to get it right. Secondly, because the number of LEDs is limited (96 I believe) there's no fine control of the back-lighting. That means a totally black screen with (say) a flashing white cursor (see the start of 'The Matrix') will show a flashing grey area around the cursor. It's not as bad as it sounds and the compromise is really worth it because that scenario is a rare one. The ability to show true black outweighs the disadvantages I think.
In conclusion. This is a very effective and useful display device. I'm certain that the back-lighting technology will become standard and that it will be improved and perfected. In the meantime if you want an LCD TV of this size then this is hard to beat.

Just awe-inspiring!
Being a person that loves films (good films that is) and playing video games both on PS3 & Xbox, for this reason I've had a number of large screen viewing options so far from rear-projection to start with (being the only affordable large screen option to start with years ago) to having a front-projection HD projector beaming a 110" HD picture on my living room wall, and finally to full 1080p LCD TV's. Finally I have the Samsung LE52F96 - 52" TV and this, I have to be honest, beats any other TV on the planet.

The LE52F96, despite any minor flaws it may have and there isn't a TV in existence that does not have any negative points out of the multitude of technical features a TV has i.e. colour gamut, contrast ratio, black level, pixel response time, resolution, refresh modes, 24p blu-ray compatibility, just scan 1:1 capability, design, flexibility, etc, etc.; the Samsung LE52F96 however, for the price is truly stunning. I won't go into too much detail here because you could easily go on and on with this TV, but I will describe just a brief bit of the features. From the start when you first unpack and reveal the beauty that is the LE52F96 it simply looks stunning, it is by far the best looking most attractively designed TV that an manufacturer has ever produced and the quality looks like a TV that would cost about £5K I kid you not, it looks that good. Secondly the all important picture quality is overwhelmingly good and get ready for your first spookily impressive experience of seeing a picture fade to black and\or experiencing a picture where there is a lot of black level around i.e. like when the beginning or end credits show up on the screen where the writing is white or coloured and the rest of the screen is black, both these experiences you have to behold and will send shivers down your spine - this is attributed to the matrix of LED's (approx 96 LED's in all) illuminating behind the LCD screen while using 'local dimming technology' in which each LED can individually vary the amount of light that it emits or completely switch off in different areas of the TV's screen, there's nothing like it in the consumer market at this price. Also the whiteness of the LED's are most welcoming as the whites in a picture leap-out at you in your living room (this is not so apparent in a shop where the settings are not set up properly and the florescent lighting interferes with this superb TV).

I did consider alternatively one of the top spec versions of Samsung's '6 Series TV's' and don't get me wrong, while the 6-Series range and the model that I considered was and is very impressive as well, even having the 100Hz which the LE52F96 does not have, despite this the LE52F96 is still more impressive and way ahead with its LED technology. The only thing that may go against this TV, and is an impossibility both cost-wize to manufacture & implement and to make possible at the current world of technology today; is to have more LED's to more closely match the number of pixels, therefore 1:1 ratio, but this is not possible at the moment and this is more likely to be taken over by the near future 'Organic LED' concept.

In fact, and forgive me for being abrupt and straight to the point, but you would have to be born stupid not to buy this TV over other models, but thats just my own opinion. Judge it for yourself!

Dudley Lionheart

WOW!
hi, iv'e had this tv for nearly a week now and im amazed. i could bang on about all the features and wot-not but 'P. White' has reviewed it pretty much how i would any way. if you enjoy your movies and games and want to spoil yourself then this is perfect for all you HD needs. looks great on the wall (black mirror!) and is not too reflective. spend a little time to set up the configs and your flying. well worth investing in, money well spent in my eye. was a little cheaper when i bought it (£2,069) but its still great value. Prc Direct take over once you order, and they are v. helpful and quick (6 days from order, on the doorstep) and professional. would definatly recommend them. 5 stars!