Samsung LE40A626

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Caractéristiques
Screen size	40 inches
Resolution	1920 x 1080
HD compatibility (1080i/720p)	Oui
HD Ready certification	Oui
Brightness	500 cd/m²
Show all specifications

Contrast ratio	30000:1
Viewing angles (H+V)	178 ° / 178 °
Response time	6 ms
Sound level	2 x 10 Watt RMS
Connectivity	VGA • HDMI (x3) • Péritel (x2)YUV • S-Vidéo • Composite
Dimensions (LxHxW)	998 x 698 x 300 mm
Weight	20 kg
Type	LCD
3D	no
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Vincent Lheur
Test date: March 12, 2009

Our settings

Black levels:	0.08 cd/m²
ANSI contrast:	2131:1
White levels (Max):	340 cd/m²
Gamma (Av):	2.3
DeltaE on PC:	"3.5

We take these measuements using the best settings for watching a movie. Whether Cinema, Home Theater or Film mode, the majority of TVs have a preset for this. Wherever possible, we set the white levels at 150 to 170 cd/ cd/m², although, obviously, we measure the maximum brightness of white separately.

Available at a pretty low price, the Samsung LE40A626 is nevertheless no slouch. It has a a Full HD matt LCD panel, a TNT HD tuner, 100 Hz and Movie Plus technology, a backlit romote and USB2 connectivity. It seems well armed to stand up to the competition.

Well equipped and easy to use

As usual, Samsung has given us a menu that’s practical and easy to use. It lacks responsiveness at times but navigation down the options is pretty quick overall. You have what you need for easy use (base pivot, 3 HDMI sockets, a USB sockets for mp3s and photos) and even a little bit more with a backlit remote. The only lack: an Ethernet socket for the DLNA standard and to access files on a PC, or for a file server.

Close to perfection…except with SD

The default settings that are a little too contrasted, the Cinema mode is much more natural. Even with the dynamic contrast filter disactivated here, there is an excellent contast score of 2131:1, among the best currently. The other measurements are also good. The colours are excellent and the gamma curve nice and linear around 2.2.
In practice, the quality from upscaling from SD is down on the display panel quality. DVDs and TNT lose sharpness and the image seems blurred. You can see here on this screen capture (with our new test pattern) of an upscaled image that you’ll find in our Face-off.

On the left, an upscaled SD on the PS3 is much better than the TV. Go for the upscale from your DVD player if it is compatible with 1080p.

100 Hz limits ghosting although it is slightly visible along the horizontal. If you use it with Movie Plus, it reduces effects without creating too many parasites during movement; although low or medium settings are fine, the high setting creates too many artifacts.
There’s a very wide angle of vision if you only look at the colours. The black loses a bit of depth however as soon as a fourth person wants to view the screen.
Deinterlacing of 1080i sources causes anti-aliasing sometimes. But this is rare enough not to constitute a weak point, especially as you can’t really make this out at more than 2 m from the TV.
The use of the HDMI socket with PC works without any problem. The whole image appears without any deformation.

The sound is not as good as the image

Although the image quality on the LE40A626 is one of the nicest that we have seen up till now, sound quality is much less impressive. It’s a bit fuzzy, without any width or detail. For a real home cinema you’ll need to get an extra sound kit, as is unfortunately often the case.