Samsung UE40ES6300U Pro Reviews

The Samsung UE40ES6300 is a good LCD-based HDTV. Having reviewed countless LCD panels over the years, its performance is not really surprising. Its out-of-the-box performance in the best preset, the “Movie” mode, is adequate but leaves room for improvement (our review sample had a blue tint, but this will vary from panel to panel). For users with access to calibration devices, or for users who are going down the professional calibration route, the ES6300 has a great selection of controls which allow quirks like this to be eradicated, with all the controls for performance finetuning by an ISF/THX calibrator included. On top of this, it has a good selection of internet-based Smart TV features. Speaking bluntly, every different type of LCD display (VA, IPS, TN) on the market today has problems of one sort or another, while competing display technologies (for example, Plasma) also have their quirks. Plasma is where Samsung are really exciting us lately, though, with year-on-year improvements – in comparison, we don’t feel LCD’s picture quality has improved much at all over the last few years. So we can end on a high note, though, input lag for video gaming has been decreased from last year, allowing a better sense of immersion with fast-paced games (for example, online first person shooters). The charges levied against the UE40ES6300 consist of less-than-perfect screen uniformity, and the usual VA-LCD problem of poor contrast and colour saturation when the screen is viewed off-axis. Commonly for LCDs operating in 3D mode, there is some motion stuttering with 24p (Blu-ray 3D) and 50hz (European broadcast) 3D material. On the positive side, the 3D display mode is full resolution (unlike a Series 6 LCD we saw last year!), motion performance is good (although not top-tier), and the same goes for the panel’s contrast performance. Provided you comply with the usual LCD rule of only sitting face-on with the display, the 40ES6300 is capable of putting out high quality video, and as such, comes recommended for anyone looking for an LCD TV in this price range.

There’s no mistaking the ES6300 for anything other than a Samsung product with the trademark quad-foot stand and slim chassised design and even if the former isn’t to our taste, it’s difficult not to be impressed by the rest of the package. Connectivity options are plentiful although we would like to see 4 HDMI ports as standard at this level but the inclusion of built-in Wi-Fi does go some way to compensate and make accessing the abundant feature-set that much more straightforward for those that don’t seat their TVs near to their internet connection.