Introduction
Tour & Design
From the front the Samsung LN46A750 is dominated by its 46 inch display. Surrounding the display is a glossy black and flat bezel. the whole front is covered in glass, which turns transperent right at the edges. Below the display is the Samsung logo and at the lower right of the bezel you see the touch sensitive on-TV controls.
The front of the Samsung LN46A750 is clean and simple.
Unlike most TVs where the back receives almost no design attention the Samsung LN46A750's black retains the clean lines and glossy black design that you see on the front. There are two speakers found on the back, at the top left and right, and you also find the main collection of ports grouped together in the lower middle of the back.
The back retains the same glossy finish as the front.
Looking at the left side of the Samsung LN46A750 you see a second set of ports for easy access.
The left side has a few ports for easy access.
There is nothing on the right side of the Samsung LN46A750.
The Samsung LN46A750's stand is glossy black, just like the rest of the TV and can be removed for mounting the TV on a wall.
The stand has the same minimal design as the rest of the TV.
The on-TV controls of the Samsung LN46A750 are touch sensitive and are found embedded into the lower right of the bezel on the front of the TV. From top to bottom you get buttons for Source, Menu, Vol+, Vol-, Ch+, Ch- and Power. These controls can also be used to navigate the menu if the remote is not handy.
The on-TV controls are touch sensitive, fancy!
The Samsung LN46A750's remote has a glossy black face, to match the glossy black of the TV, and an interesting countoured design with most of the weight found near the bottom.
The remote is slightly curved at the bottom and is just as glossy as the TV.
The Samsung LN46A750 ships with a remote, including two AAA batteries, a power cord, uesr manual, cleaning cloth and a ferrite core that helps stop interference on a cable. Speaking of cables there's not a single cable included with the TV, an unfortunate omission. The Samsung's box has an interesting feature that allows you to slide the top of the box off leaving just the base. We found this did make it a bit easier to get the TV out.
The Samsung LN46A750 is an attractive television, with the glass covering on the front and glossy finish. We also like the simple design with the display surrounded by a simple bezel. This won't be something you will be ashamed of having in your living room or den, and it just might cause some jealousy when you have friends over.
Performance: Summary
The Samsung LN46A750 had excellent performance; we saw deep blacks, bright, clean white and strong color. Motion was also good; even with lots of motion on the screen, the LN46A750 produced smooth, clean motion that still preserved the fine details that make a video come alive. The blacks were not quite as deep as a plasma TV, but they were very close; this display had the deepest blacks of any LCD HDTV that we have tested. Our only real complaint was a slight error in the color gamut, where the colors on the screen were slightly different than the recommended ones. But this was a minor issue; overall, the Samsing LN46A750 had excellent performance and produced sharp, bright and very attractive images.
To get the best out of a display, it has to be calibrated, a process that finds the correct settings for the individual display. We use the DisplayMate calibration process to set the display up correctly; the calibrated settings that we use are listed below.
There are a few things to note here: we normally use the custom picture mode, but on this TV, we could only get the 6500K color temperature setting that we test against by using the movie mode. In other modes, the Warm2 setting (which was the closest we could find) was not available. As part of our calibration, we also turn the backlight up to maximum to get the best numbers for peak white. Note that the settings that give the best results for your display or setup will no doubt differ widely from this; we look for the settings that give the most accurate colors with the maximum luminance for whites, but you may find another set of settings more pleasing to the eye. We also only use the controls that are accessible to the customer through the on-screen menus; we don't use the hidden service menus that professional calibrators might access to tweak the settings. If you want to get the best image quality out of your display, we strongly recommend that you use a professional home theater expert who can calibrate your set and advise you of the best settings for your display, the lighting around it and how to get the best performance from your display.
We look at the dot pattern of the screen using a microscope. The photo on the right (taken at a 20x setting with a microscope), shows the dot pattern of the display, with the familiar grouping of red, green and blue elements. All of the elements in the display seem to be the same size and have the angled-bar pattern that most LCD screens show. They are in groups of three; one red, green and blue element forms a single pixel. There are 5760 elements horizontally and 1080 vertically, providing a full HD resolution. We saw no evidence of any dead or stuck pixels in close examination of the screen.
The video below shows how the individual elements respond as the display goes from black to white, then to red, green and finally blue.
Performance: Blacks & Whites
](https://reviewed.usatoday.com/televisions/content/How-We-Test.htm#blacklevel)
The deeper the black that a display can manage, the more realistic your favorite horror movies will look. We measured the darkest black of the LN-46A750 at 0.15 cd/m2 (candelas per meter squared; the smaller the number the blacker the black). LCDs create blacks by blocking the light from the backlight, but they can never block all of it; some always gets through. But 0.15 cd/m2 means that only a very minimal amount of light got through, and the blacks in our test sequences looked dark and deep. Although the blacks on this display are not as deep as some plasma displays (the Panasonic TH-46PZ80U, for instance, had a black level of just 0.06 cd/m2), they are pretty black for an LCD display, and they should not detract from your enjoyment of movies that use a lot of dark screens for effect.
](https://reviewed.usatoday.com/televisions/content/How-We-Test.htm#peakwhite)
The flip side of the coin here is the peak white; the brighter this is, the brighter the display and the better it will stand up to daylight and other light sources. The LN-46A750 did not disappoint here; we measured the peak brightness at a eye-watering 426.3 cd/m2. That's very bright; easily enough to make the screen stand out from the crowd and to make the screen visible in anything but the brightest sunlight. Of course, that may also be too bright; watch a display that bright in a darkened room and you'll give yourself a serious headache. Fortunately, the display offers 10 levels of backlight control, so you can dial the brightness down for evening viewing, but then crank it up for daytime soap operas.
](https://reviewed.usatoday.com/televisions/content/How-We-Test.htm#contrastratio)
This combination of deep blacks and bright white lead to an excellent contrast ratio; the LN-46A750 had an impressive contrast ratio of 2842:1. Higher is better on contrast ratios; that means deeper blacks and brighter whites. That is significantly better than most LCD displays; the Vizio VO47L was nearly as bright, but only managed a contrast ratio of 964:1 as the blacks were not that deep. One thing to note is that this is significantly less than the 50,000:1 contrast ratio that Samsung quotes, because they quote a figure called dynamic contrast ratio, which is where the black is measured with the backlight turned down as low as possible. Unsurprisingly, our figures (which are measured with the backlight at the same maximum level for both black and white measurements) are much lower, but our measurements more accurately represent what you would get in real world use.
](https://reviewed.usatoday.com/televisions/content/How-We-Test.htm#tunnelcontrast)
In the real world, blacks and white exist alongside each other on the same screen, which is why we measure tunnel contrast. In this test, we measure how well the blacks on screen hold up as the amount of white on the screen increases by measuring a small area of black in the center of the screen that is surrounded by a varying amount of white (see the image on the right for how this works; the small circle is the area that we measure). On some displays, the blacks get lighter as some of the light from the white areas of the screen bounces around inside the display, but that didn't seem to be a problem with the LN-46A750; in our tests, the black stayed pretty dark even when it was surrounded by white.
The graph above shows the results of our tests, with the percentage of white on the screen along the bottom and the luminance of the black (ie: how bright it is) along the side. As you can see, the black only increased very slightly, even when surrounded by a completely white screen. However, the LN-46A750 is not alone in performing well here; most of the displays that we have tested so far have performed well in this test.
](https://reviewed.usatoday.com/televisions/content/How-We-Test.htm#whitefalloff)
Some displays have an annoying habit of getting dim if there is a lot of light on the screen; they either can't handle the heat that produces, or the backlights they use just can't produce enough light. That's why we test how much the luminance of the white drops off as the amount of white on the screen increases; a perfect display would have the same white level if there was a small patch of white or a sea of white on the screen.
Again, the LN-46A750 did well here; the white level did not change significantly as the amount of white increased; it stayed at the same high level all the way through this test. This contrasts with plasma displays such as the Panasonic TH-46PZ80U, where the brightness of the white falls off sharply as the amount of white increased.
](https://reviewed.usatoday.com/televisions/content/How-We-Test.htm#uniformity)
A good display should have a smooth, uniform look on both black and white screens, and that's what we look for in this test. The LN-46A750 had a couple of minor issues here that cost it a few points; although the black is nice and deep, there was a distinct splotchy pattern on our all-black test screen; there were four patches of slightly lighter black around the center of the screen. This is presumably because the backlights that light the screen are located at these points, and this shows through. On our all-white testing screen, the corners were also a little dimmer than the center of the screen, again presumably because of the location of the backlights. We measured the luminance of the top left corner at 235.7 cd/m2; significantly less than the center. However, the human eye tends to gloss over gradual changes in brightness, and the white screen didn't have any problems with sudden changes in brightness; the shift was gradual from the center to the corner. Both of these issues are noticeable, but they don't really distract from the image quality; we found that both bright and dark sequences looked attractive and did not have any significant problems.
](https://reviewed.usatoday.com/televisions/content/How-We-Test.htm#greyscalegamma)
Update: We have rescaled our scoring for this section. The original score was 8.37.
The gamma of a screen controls how the display goes from black to white; the gamma is the shape of the curve of the intensity of the grays in between the two, so it's an important measure for judging the quality of a display. The ideal gamma for a television is between 2.4 and 2.5, and the LN-46A750 fell just outside this range at 2.58. We determine the gamma of a display by feeding it a series of screens of increasing brightness, then measuring the luminance of each screen one by one. The graph of these results is below.
Because of the way that the eye interprets light, this graph has an exponential curve. It's a little easier to interpret if we plot it on a graph with a logarithmic axis. A perfect display would produce a straight line on this graph, with the intensity of the gray increasing smoothly as the intensity of the gray in the image increases. The blue line on the graph below shows what would be the perfect fit, the black line shows what the LN-46A750 achieved in our tests.
The LN-46A750 did a decent job here; the curve is smooth, and is pretty close to the perfect fit of the blue line. So the LN-46A750 has a good gamma curve; there are no major issues here.
**Resolution Scaling***(7.37)*[
](https://reviewed.usatoday.com/televisions/content/How-We-Test.htm#resolutionscaling)
The LN-46A750 is a full HD 1080p screen, but it also has to deal with signals that are at lower resolutions, such as the 1080i signals that most high definition cable boxes produce. So, we test how well the display does by feeding it a series of test screen in each resolution and judging ho good a job it does of scaling and processing the images to fit the screen. Let's run through each of the different formats that we test, one by one.
480p (8.05)
480p signals are generated by devices such as DVD players or DTV conversion boxes. the LN-46A750 did a very decent job of processing and scaling these; we found that text was sharp and readable, and that the scaling up did not overly affect the image quality. The images were overscanned by about 4 percent, which is means that the edges of the image were cut off. This is pretty standard with signals of this type, as it is the same way that standard definition TV signals are displayed.
720p (7.55)
720p signals are used by many of the TV networks to broadcast sports, because the progressive nature of the signals produces smoother motion than the 1080i signals that they use for most other material. Again, the LN-46A750 did a very decent job here, with images looking clean and sharp after they had been processed and scaled to fit the screen. There was a slight dithering pattern on some screens, though; screens that used alternating black and white lines had a slight checkerboard look to them. By default, the images were overscanned by 4 per cent, as the display defaulted to the 16:9 aspect ratio mode. This could be a pain if you are using the display as a computer screen, but it can be easily overcome by switching the screen to Just Scan mode, which took two presses of the P.Size button.
1080i (8.25)
1080i signals are what most people think of with high definition; this is the type of signal that most high def set-top boxes and devices produce. These looked good on the LN-46A750, as text was sharp and the fine details of our test screens were well displayed. Images were not overscanned.
Performance: Color
**Color Temperature***(7.35)*[
](https://reviewed.usatoday.com/televisions/content/How-We-Test.htm#colortemperature)
You might think that white is white on a television, but it isn't that simple. Instead, the color of white can vary as a display shows different intensities of white, and that's what we look at here. On a perfect display, the color of the white would stay the same whether it is a pale grey or the brightest white that the display can manage. In reality, that doesn't happen; because of the way the display processes colors, the color of white varies slightly, and that's what we test here; how constant the white is. When the color temperature increases, the picture gains a slight bluish hue; when the temperature decreases, it acquires a reddish hue.
The LN46A750 did well here; the shifts in color change that we saw were generally very minor and would not be noticeable by most users; they are just too small. Another way to look at this test is to plot the actual color data, which we do in the graph below. The red circle on this graph indicates the minimum color change that is generally detectable by the human eye, and the dots represent the measured color values. The bottom line here is that if a dot falls within the circle, you aren't going to be able to spot the difference between the two whites. but if it is outside of the line, you might be able to spot a slight color cast in the white.
As you can see from this, a lot of the points are right on the edge of the circle, while others are outside, veering towards the red, indicating that there are some of the grays that have a slight, but possibly noticeable color cast to them. These errors are generally small, though, and most people won't notice them.
](https://reviewed.usatoday.com/televisions/content/How-We-Test.htm#rgbcurves)
All of the colors that you see on the screen are made of three basic components; red, green and blue, which are created by the individual elements of the display that we discussed earlier. To create colors, the display turns these on to create a color mix. To create yellow for instance, the display turns on the red and green elements. To create violet, the display turns on the red and blue elements. To create white, the display turns on all three. This means that it is vital for the TV to work correctly that each of the primary colors is displayed correctly, and has a good response to the incoming signal. That's what we test here; we look at how the display takes a signal of each of the primary colors at different intensities and translates this into the colors you see on screen. Our tests produces the following graphs that show the curves for each of the primary colors.
On a perfect display, these curves would be completely smooth like a child's slide, indicating that the intensity of the input signal was accurately reproduced; every slight increase in the intensity of the input lead to a similar increase in the intensity of the color on the screen. In practice, the graphs we see tend to look more like a bumpy mountainside than a child's slide, because of the way that the TVs process the images.
The curves for the LN46A750 were very smooth; we didn't find any big jumps, steps or other problems. This means that slight changes in all of the colors are accurately represented, so subtle details won't get lost. And this was borne out with our testing with a number of difficult test images; subjects with lots of subtle color (such as sunsets, skin tones and foliage) looked great; all of the subtle details were visible and well reproduced. Overall, the LN46A750 did very well in this test, producing accurate color across the range of tones.
](https://reviewed.usatoday.com/televisions/content/How-We-Test.htm#colorgamut)
Television signals contain a certain range of colors, called the color gamut that are defined in an international standard (called the ITU Recommendation .709). So, a decent display should accurately match this color gamut, and we measure the properties of the red, greens and blues that the TV can produce and match them against the standard; a perfect display would exactly match the standard gamut. On the graph below, the gamut is shown by the dotted line, while the measured gamut from the LN46A750 is shown by the solid line.
For the geeks amongst you, the chromaticity values of the colors are in the table below.
This is a decent result; the measured maximum limits of the gamut only vary from the recommended ones by a small amount on the gren and blue corners of the triangle. The biggest error is in the green, where the maximum extent of the gamut was shifted slightly towards the blue.
Performance: Motion
**Motion Smoothness***(7.75)*[
](https://reviewed.usatoday.com/televisions/content/How-We-Test.htm#motion)
The Auto Motion Plus 120 Hz processing mode of the LN46A750 did a very creditable job of smoothing out motion, getting rid of the jerky, juddering effect that you often see in fast-moving scenes. However, it is not without a price; it creates a rather flat, almost abstract cartoonish look to some videos when put on maximum. It's perhaps a question of taste; some will prefer the smoth movement, while others will find the flat color more distracting.
**Motion Artifacting***(8.25)*[
](https://reviewed.usatoday.com/televisions/content/How-We-Test.htm#motion)
As we mentioned above, the motion processing of the LN46A750 has a price; the rather flat looking color. We did not see any evidence of other artifacts, though; there was little or not chopping or other glitches, even on scenes that had a serious amount of movement, such as the first monster attack scene in Cloverfield. Hope we didn't spoil the movie for you there.
**3:2 Pulldown & 24fps***(8.5)*[
](https://reviewed.usatoday.com/televisions/content/How-We-Test.htm#3:2pulldown)
All movies and many TV shows are shot at a frame rate of 24 frames per second, then converted to the 29.97 frames per second of a TV signal using a process called Telecine. Many displays can detect this and try to restore the filmic look using a process called 3:2 pulldown. The LN46A750 is one such display, and it did an excellent job of detecting the telecine effect and processing it to reproduce the filmic look of the origional. You can also turn this effect on or off; the display calls it film mode. The LN46A750 also did a nice job of rendering a 24fps video source (we use a Blu-ray movie and a PS3 set to output a 24fps signal), producing a clean image with smooth motion.
Performance: Viewing Effects
](https://reviewed.usatoday.com/televisions/content/How-We-Test.htm#viewingangle)
The viewing angle of a display is a critical part of its performance. Only one person typically gets to sit right in front of the display (or two people if you are good friends); the rest get to sit at an angle to either side of the screen. So, we test how the display performs at a variety of angles, right up to 85 degrees from straight on. The graph on the right shows how the luminance of the screen holds up; as the angle increases, the brightness of the screen decreases.
The manufacturers produce ratings for the viewing angle of displays based on a number of different measurements (based on brightness, contrast, etc), but we look at the angle at which the contrast of the screen falls by half. With the LN46A750, we found that this angle was 55 degrees off axis, for a total viewing angle of 110 degrees. That's not bad, but it is a bit less than some; the Panasonic TH-46PZ80U had a wider angle of 139 degrees. However, 110 degrees is more than enough for most situations, and we saw no problems at wider angles; the screen was not bright, but it was watchable. Some screens have problems at wide angles with colors being reversed or otherwise mangled, but we didn't see any evidence of this with the LN46A750.
Note (29-Apr-11): This score has been changed due to a production error in the writing of the review. This was one of our launch reviews when the site first went live in 2008. The TV is not available on the market anymore, so we hope this doesn't impact readers too much. But, hey, it's important to own your mistakes.
](https://reviewed.usatoday.com/televisions/content/How-We-Test.htm#reflectance)
The LN46A750 has a shiny glass edge around the screen, and this is very prone to picking up reflections (as well as fingerprints). But the screen itself is less reflective; although reflections can be seen, they are somewhat softened by the matte coating of the screen. With proper positioning of the lights, the LN46A750 should not have a big issue with reflections.
](https://reviewed.usatoday.com/televisions/content/How-We-Test.htm)
TV manufacturers try and tempt people in by offering features that they claim will enhance the image quality by processing the image in various ways. In this section of the review, we look at these processing features and how effective they are.
None of these are particularly useful or helpful. The color space might be useful if you are working with a particularly poor signal and want to boost the color, but the rest are either pretty much useless or positively harmful. You might, for instance, think that the black adjust might help produce a darker, gloomier feel for a horror film, but all it really does is to loose shadow detail and make it harder to see. Rather than try and use these to make your display look better, calibrate it properly and it will look a lot better all around.
Remote
**Ergonomics & Durability***(6.65)*
The Samsung LN46A750's remote looks like it has more thought put into it than the remotes we've seen for other televisions like the JVC LT-47X899 or Vizio VO47L. It's nicely contoured so it sits very comfortably in the hand, and it is heavily weighted towards the bottom, which helps make sure that the remote stays balanced as you move up and down to access different controls. This is important as the Samsung LN46A750's remote is rather long. We did find that the plastic was a bit slick, however, which might make it easier to drop than we would like.
There is a backlight on the remote that you turn on and off by hitting the dedicated backlight button at the top right of the remote. The backlight is a dim reddish light, and all controls are lit evenly and clearly. We like the dimmer reddish light more than the bright white lights you see on some remote backlights as it's less likely to blind you in a dark room. The buttons on the Samsung LN46A750's remote are made of rather hard rubbery plastic. The buttons have good key travel and tactile feedback.
Our biggest concern about the Samsung LN46A750's remote is durability. We received a loaner from Samsung so we have to believe that it got some use before it arrived, but we have to mention that it did seem to have a part rattling about inside the remote. In addition the remote features a rotating dial embedded in the directional pad, ostensibly for quickly moving up and down lists, but any moving parts like this cause us concern. Thankfully the battery cover has a proper embedded latch rather than just sliding off, so that shouldn't be too much of a problem.
**Button Layout & Use***(4.8)*
As we mentioned above the Samsung LN46A750's remote is rather long, measuring 9 3/4 inches. Controls are laid out along it's complete length except for the very bottom. We found that when holding the remote at neutral with our thumb on the directional pad those with smaller hands had trouble reaching the volume and channel controls, those with larger hands should have no problem. The length of the remote comes into play as you have to shift your hand significantly to reach the number pad near the top or the controls near the bottom. With the slick plastic we have to be concerned that the remote will slip out of your hand quite often as you make this shift.
The labeling on the remote is a mixed bag. Most controls have large and clear labels, so even those with poor eyesight should be able to distinguish them. Some of the controls, however, have arcane or even no labeling, in particular the four color buttons found underneath the D-Pad have no labels and the controls that sit right under them are a bit confusing. For example what does DMA, E.Mode, or Info.L mean?
Switching to another channel with the remote will require that you shift your hand almost all the way up the remote to access the number pad, not particularly easy to do. We were pleased with the control angle of the remote, we were able to turn the TV on or off from an angle of about ten degrees, amongst the best we've seen from any television.
**Programming & Flexibility***(1.0)*
The Samsung LN46A750's remote is not a proper programmable remote that can be used with any other device in your home theatre system. It does support Samsung's proprietary Anynet+ technology for controlling other Samsung devices that support that feature, however. We're not big fans of proprietary systems, so it only get a point for this.
Audio
The Samsung LN46A750's speakers actually produce better than average sound quality for TV speakers. We detected more depth with a good amount of detail in the audio quality, not up to surround sound standards, but better than what you might expect from built-in speakers. For this test we listen to a standard sequence from a movie to judge the audio quality.
The Samsung LN46A750 has a simulated surround sound mode, as most modern TVs do. With this feature turned on we noticed more depth from the audio, but lost detail in the process, for example the conversation in a busy scene was significantly more difficult to hear. When we hooked up even a cheap surround sound setup we got even more depth, but with much more detail than the Samsung LN46A750's simulated surround sound provided. Once again we have to recommend that if you want surround sound you are far better of going out and spending even a little bit of money on a set of speakers than depending on the TV's simulated surround sound setup.
To test how loud the Samsung LN46A750's speakers get we use a sound pressure meter from a range of five feet with the sound on the TV turned up to maximum. Using a standard signal the Samsung LN46A750's speakers were able to produce 85.9 decibels. This is about average for a television, and certainly loud enough to deafen anyone who tries to listen at this volume level. Loudness should not be a problem with the Samsung LN46A750.
Connectivity
The Samsung LN46A750 offers a reasonable selection of input ports in two locations. On the back of the TV you will find three HDMI ports, VGA with an audio line in, two Component Video ports, DVI, three HDMI and two analog audio ports. There's also an antenna port on the back that supports digital and analog cable as well as digital and analog over the air signals.
Most of the ports are found on the back middle of the TV.
On the left side of the TV are several additional ports for easy access. Here you will find the only analog video input and another set of analog audio inputs. There's also a fourth HDMI port and the only S-Video port on the TV and a 3.5mm headphone jack. We were surprised at the dearth of analog video inputs, most TVs still have at least two despite the move to digital connections, perhaps the Samsung LN46A750 is just ahead of the curve. We were pleased with the good selection of HDMI ports, however.
There are a few ports in easy reach on the left side.
The only output ports on the Samsung LN46A750 is a digital audio out and and an analog audio out, both are used for connecting audio equipment to the television and both can be found on the back of the TV along with most of the other ports.
The Samsung LN46A750 does not support Wi-Fi, Bluetooth or any other wireless connectivity options.
The Samsung LN46A750 has a USB port on the left side of the TV that allows you to plug in any USB mass storage device. You can view photos and play music or videos stored on this device. The photo support is limited to Jpeg images and the music support to Mp3 files. Video support seems to be limited to MPEG-4 video files, but we had mixed results even using that file type. Several of our MPEG-4 files were unable to play back and many of those we could play were displayed with significant errors that made them unwatchable. There is no support for memory cards directly, but you can plug a USB card reader into the port to view images on a memory card.
The main collection of ports on the Samsung LN46A750 are located on the back of the television toward the center-bottom. These will be difficult to access if you're TV is not easily accessible from the back, as most are. Thankfully there are a smaller subset of ports much more easily accessible on the left side of the TV. These include analog video and audio ports, an S-Video port, the USB port for attaching mass storage devices and a fourth HDMI port. This will make it much easier to attach a camcorder or other transient device to the Samsung LN46A750, something we very much like to see.
Controls & Menus
The Samsung LN46A750's menu system is a tabbed interface, with icons on the left that you move up and down using the D-Pad's up/down or the scroll wheel. Each item brings up a menu with options for that section, from top to bottom the top-level menus are Picture, Sound, Channel, Setup, Input and Application. When each item is selected press right to enter the menu system for that section. You can then move up and down the options in the same manner as the top level menus using the D-Pad's directions or the scroll wheel.
A typical tabbed interface with top-level items listed on the left.
We found that at the top level the menu system is fairly intuitive and easy to use, but once you start getting into the sub-menus there are inconsistencies in the interface that make it a bit less intuitive. Some options can be changed within the menu system moving left/right to adjust the setting, some bring up a small pop-up menu with options and others bring up a whole new menu interface that is detached from the top-level interface. This can create some confusion about where in the menu system you are actually at. Probably not a big deal for those who don't delve into the deeper levels of the menus on their TV, but anyone who does will likely find it a bit frustrating.
The tools menu offers quick access to important features.
In addition to the standard menu system there's also a Tools Menu available on the Samsung LN46A750 that is supposed to give you quick access to commonly used features. Press the Tools button on the remote to bring up this menu where you can adjust Picture Mode, Sound Mode, Sleep Timer and PIP.
The Picture controls on the Samsung LN46A750 are all found in the Picture menu, as you would expect. At the top level are adjustments for various straightforward items including the Mode, which allows you to adjus between Dynamic, Standard and Movie modes, Backlight, Contrast, Brightness, Sharpness and Tint. There are also two more advanced menu options here: Detailed Settings and Picture Options. Finally there's an option to reset all of the picture options to factory default.
There are three picture modes available.
The Detailed Settings menu gives you access to more advanced picture controls. Here you will be able to acess Black Adjust, Dynamic Contrast, Gamma, Color Space, White Balance Flesh Tone, Edge Enhancement and xvYCC. Even more advanced settings can be found in the Picture Options menu.
Detailed picture settings.
Here you will find the ability to adjust Color Tone, Size, Digital NR, DNIe (Digital Natural Image engine), HDMI Black Level, Film Mode, Blue Only Mode and Auto Motion Plus 120Hz. Confused about what these settings do? Check out our Performance: Viewing Effects section to see which ones actually make a difference and which are just filler.
Advanced features are found in the Picture Options menu.
All of your audio controls are found in the Sound menu of the Samsung LN46A750. Your first option in this menu is Mode, which allows you to choose from various presets for sound or use your own custom preset. You can set these custom settings in the second menu item, the Equalizer. Once you make those adjustments you can just choose the Custom option from the Mode menu to get those sound settings. You can also reset the equalizer to factory defaults if you don't like the adjustments you've made.
The Samsung LN46A750 has an equalizer, a feature many TVs lack.
The Sound menu is also where you can turn the Samsung LN46A750's simulated surround sound system, called TruSurround XT on or off. See our Audio section for our opinion of how effective this setting is. The next option in the menu is your preferred language, which should be self-explanatory, and then the Multi-Channel Sound track option, where you can choose between Mono, Steore and SAP settings.
The main sound menu
Automatic volume control will attempt to automatically adjust the sound level to compensate for differences between broadcasts. You can also turn the TV speakers on or off and make adjustments to how sound is handled when using PIP. Finally you can reset all the sound options to factory default if you wish.
In addition to the picture and audio settings there are four additional top level menus available on the Samsung LN46A750. The Channel menu allows you to add and remove channels, as well as setting favorite channels and a reservation system for automatically switching to a channel at a specific time.
The setup menu is where you find escoteric features like language.
The Setup menu gives you access to a grab bag of options including Language, Time, V-Chip settings for parental controls, Captions and Energy options. This is also where you setup the behavior of the PIP (Picture in Picture) interface.
Wiselink, Anynet and other proprietary Samsung technologies can be found in the Application menu.
The Input menu is where you pick the input that is being used. The Application menu gives you access to a couple of extras, including the Wiselink feature that allows you to view music, photo and video content on a mass storage device attached via USB, the Anynet+ option, which allows you to control other Samsung devices and the InfoLink feature, which allows you to access some Samsung approved internet content if you plug an ethernet cable into the TV. See our Formats & Media section for more information on the Wiselink and Infolink features.
The Samsung LN46A750's manual is a book, The size of a magazine with hundreds of pages it's definitely not light reading. Not only is it huge, but it's also dense, with smaller screen photos for the menu than we would have liked. What annoyed us the most, however, is the lack of an index. With something this huge you really need to have an index to facilitate moving around.
Formats & Media
The Samsung LN46A750 supports all modern video formats including 1080p, 1080i, 720p, 480p and 480i. This means it will be able to handle anything from standard definition content all the way up to the highest quality high definition content. It also supports 3:2 pulldown, which provides a fill like look for appropriately encoded content. It also support 24p, for content that is playing back at 24 frames per second, which is the standard for cinema and will preserve the film look.
The Samsung LN46A750 can play back photos that are on a mass storage device connected to the TV via the USB port using Samsung's Wiselink feature. Entering the photo interface you are greeted by a set of three thumbnails at a time with a timeline for the current sort setting below these and an indicator for controls at the bottom of the screen. To the left of the timeline you'll find a menu where you can choose to sort photos by one of the following options: Timeline, Monthly, Preference, Folder, Composition and Color. We found that changing the sort options did not make a big difference for our test photos, in fact some of them were just plain confusing, for example what does it mean to sort by Composition?
The photo interface gives you nice large samples, and you can go full screen with them too.
You can switch from photo to photo using left/right on the D-Pad or rotating the dial built into the D-Pad. Pressing the center select key will start a slideshow with the first photo the one currently selected. You can also select multiple photos for deletion using the yellow button on the remote or favorite photos using the green button. Pressing the Tools button will give you a menu where you can do things like rotate and delete the currently selected photo(s).
Once in a slide show you can press the Info button to view information about the current photo and show the control map. Pressing the Tools menu in a slide show will display a menu where you can access slide show options like the speed of the slide show and the ability to play music stored on the USB device during the slideshow. You can also rotate, zoom and access picture settings form this menu.
We didn't find the photo interface on the Samsung LN46A750 to be very intuitive. Yes, it provides a lot more features than many other picture viewers on TVs, but it's also somewhat difficult to navigate. In particular we wish there was a way to simply view a photo full screen without necessarily entering the slide show mode.
The Samsung LN46A750 can also play back video stored on a connected USB device using the Wiselink feature. When you connect a device the TV will prompt you to enter the Wiselink interface. Alternatively you can Wiselink menu at any time by hitting the dedicated button on the remote control. The main interface gives you the option to view photos, listen to music or view movies. Selecting this last option will give you a strip of thumbnails for all of the supported videos on the USB device. The interface gives you several sorting options but isn't particularly intuitive to use, you'll want to pull out the manual for this one.
The Samsung LN46A750 had seroius problems with most of our video files.
The Samsung LN46A750 only supports Mpeg-4 encoded videos, including those encoded in H264. We found, however, that this support is very touchy. We tried several different Mpeg-4 videos encoded at different bitrates and sizes and found that only one of the videos we tested was able to play back without problems. Others wouldn't play back at all or would play back with serious problems in the video. As such we are only awarding half the points we would normally award for Mpeg-4 support. No other form of videos are supported.
The Samsung LN46A750 can play Mp3 music files found on connected USB devices using the Wiselink interface. The interface is the same as that found for photos and video, you get a line of thumbnails with a timeline below and the option to sort by various options like Genre, Mood, Artist or Title. Press in on the D-Pad to play back the currently selected item. Playlists are not supported. The interface is a bit more intuitive with music simply because the sort options make more sense here than they did in the Photo interface.
The Samsung LN46A750 supports Samsung's proprietary Infolink service, which allows you to connect the TV to the internet using an Ethernet cable and then access a selection of Samsung services including Weather and News. The content offered is limited and you can't access other online services like Youtube or Hulu, but we will award a point in this section because there is some streaming video content available.
The Samsung LN46A750 does not have a built in DVR for recording television content. This is a shame as the presence of a USB port means you could theoretically plug in a hard drive to use for storage in conjunction with a built in DVR.
Power Consumption
**Power Consumption***(8.45)*[
](https://reviewed.usatoday.com/televisions/content/How-We-Test.htm#powerconsumption)
The Samsung LN46A750's power consumption is just about average. If you were to run the TV for five hours each day and pay the average rate for electricity you could expect to pay $31.03 over the course of the year. To get to that figure we set the TV's backlight to 200 cd/m2 (candelas per meter squared), which is a decent viewing brightness for both dark and lit rooms. We also look at power consumption when the backlight is turned down to minum and maximum, see the table below for those results. You can see that backlight level has a significant impact, although this is slightly less on the LN46A750 than some other televisions we've seen.
Value & Comparisons
Priced at around $1900, the LN46A750 is no bargain basement TV, but it provides a lot of performance and features for the money. If you don't mind spending a bit more to get better image quality and features, it's a good pick.
Vizio VO47L - The Samsung is more expensive than the Vizio, so those on the lookout for a bargain may want to go with the cheaper model. But the Samsung is a better TV, both in terms of features and image quality. Whether these extras are worth the extra $400 or so depends on you, but it's definitely worth considering.
Panasonic TH-46PZ80U - Again, the Panasonic is somewhat cheaper than the Samsung, and the plasma display type has some advantages (better viewing angle and better color accuracy, for instance). But the Samsung is a very good TV with a few nice extras (such as well placed video inputs, decent speakers and media playback), and the extra brightness will be useful for viewing in daylight.
Sharp LC-46D64U - The Sharp is definitely cheaper, but you get what you pay for; the Samsung is a significantly better display all around.
Conclusion
The Samsung LN46A750 is an all-around winner. In our tests, we found excellent image quality and a good selection of features. Some of them feel somewhat tacked on (such as the proprietary streaming video; we would have preferred YouTube support), and others are of limited use (such as the photo playback features), but they add up to a good balance of features and price. And the performance is the thing that makes it work as an overall package; we found deep blacks, bright whites and accurate grays and colors. Although the price may drive some to cheaper models, the LN46A750 is a strong contender if it fits into your budget.
Ratings & Specs
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Meet the tester
Alfredo Padilla
Editor
Alfredo Padilla is a valued contributor to the Reviewed.com family of sites.
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