Reviews Samsung LN40D630 By Bob Robertson

I spent several months researching HDTV's and finally landed on this model (Samsung LN40D630). I read a lot of the forums online (Cnet.com) about this particular unit, and I had several concerns that wound up being unfounded. I think the best way to approach this review is to do it by some of the major features, so here goes:

AutoMotion Plus (AMP):
I was initially concerned about the AutoMotion Plus feature. Many forum posts complained about it. I was afraid it would be too smooth (i.e too much "soap opera effect"). My concerns were unfounded. It's easy to turn off this feature and it is easy to customize. I love that it is customizable by SOURCE (meaning the settings for your cable may be different for your DVD or BluRay player and the TV will save them as such). I like it very much for fast-motion (such as hockey games) and use the "clear setting" for just about everything else. The "demo mode" is a nice feature showing you the comparison of AMP on and off on a splitscreen. pretty cool.

Connectshare:
This is the feature that allows you to plug in a USB hard drive or thumb drive and play videos, music, or look at pictures. I'm pleased to say that this quickly has become my favorite feature since I have a lot of videos saved on my computer. The TV does a great job reading almost all of the major file formats. The external HD powers off when the TV turns off, which is a nice feature (because I don't have remember to unplug it every time I shut off the TV and vice versa). The built-in video player interface firmware works great (pause, fast forward, and returns you to the place where you left off if you have to shut down, even if you turn everything off and come back later). The music player interface is a bit clunky, but it works ok. My only complaint about the music player is that it doesn't include a shuffle feature. I've written Samsung and asked that such feature be included in future firmware upgrades.

Firmware Upgrade:
One of the first things I did was upgrade the firmware. The instructions on Samsung's website (and in the owner's manual) were easy and worked perfectly. I look forward to further refinements from Samsung.

Allshare:
As I understand it, this feature allows you to plug your TV into your PC and watch the videos, look at pix, or play music you have stored there. I haven't quite set this up yet, but I did download and install the Allshare software from Samsung on my PC and I setup my media server in no time flat. Very easy and straightforward. All I need now is a long ethernet cable to plug it into the TV (you can go wireless with a special USB wireless adapter, but the adapter is a lot more expensive than an ethernet cable!). I'll be plugging the TV directly into my router. Fingers crossed. But even if it doesn't work, it's really no big deal to save media on an external USB hard drive and plug it into the TV directly. [I'll update my review after I've had a chance to experiment with this feature].

TV Picture Quality:
Samsung is hard to beat in this category. The image in the store looked great. And looked even better in my home environment. Clear, crisp, beautiful. Very happy!

Sound Quality and Outputs:
This is perhaps the weakest feature of this TV. The sound is often "tinny." Fortunately there are several easily selectable default sound settings that allow you to compensate. The Clear Voice setting works great for dialog. An equalizer is included for a custom setting, which can also help compensate some as well. I was disappointed that the unit didn't have a dedicated headphone out jack on the side. It does, however, include a single "audio out" jack in the back. This works fine with my wireless headphones which are amplified (i.e. built-in volume control), but it won't work well with "dumb" headphones (with no amplification). Since there is only one audio output jack, I had to plug in a splitter to send the audio out signal to both my headphones and my home stereo, which works fine. It also has an optical audio out jack, but my home stereo is ancient and won't accept that input type. I wish the audio out jack was variable (i.e. volume would be controlled by the TV), but it isn't. Perhaps the optical audio output is variable... I don't know... haven't tried it.

That about sums up the major features of this TV. Overall I'm very pleased with my choice. Hope this helps you