With 32 inches, HD Ready definition (1366 x 768), and two HDMI connections the LE32S86BD represents the mid-range television par excellence.  This is all the more so true given its retail price of 799 Euros which can sometimes go as low as 650 Euros.

Hard on the eyes

After first turning on this television we weren’t exactly mesmerized.  In fact, we would have been very disappointed if we hadn’t recently tested other Samsungs.  Apparently, this brand has the habit of giving users presettings that aren’t immediately impressive.

The first thing to do

You will need to make several adjustments to find an image quality worthy of this brand.  First of all, deactivate or at least decrease the image filters (DNIe and Noise reduction).  You should also avoid the Dynamic mode which results in too much contrast in extreme shades and makes gradations disappear.  We set options to Cinema mode, color temperature to Warm2, and backlighting to 4.  Below the value of this last parameter, the image is bland and without depth.

With these settings and after having adjusted brightness and contrast, we obtained black at 0.19 cd/m² and white at 257 cd/m² giving us a very good contrast ratio of 1352:1.   Color temperature reached 7315°K and was only 13% away from the desired 6500°K.  Rendering was therefore slightly bluish.  In fact, colors were this TV’s the biggest problem with most differences (delta E) going beyond 6 and with a max of 27.  Even going through the numerous menus (gain, offset, color temperature, black level, gamma...) didn’t allow us to correct this problem.


A soft image

In watching movies, there was a soft rendering of images.  This effect was even a little too much because image sharpness was slightly affected in both HD as well as SD.  Nevertheless, SD rescaling was well done and didn’t result in any large defects.