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  • Tour & Design

  • Performance: Summary

  • Performance: Blacks & Whites

  • Performance: Color

  • Performance: Motion

  • Performance: Viewing Effects

  • Remote Control

  • Audio

  • Connectivity

  • Controls & Menus

  • Formats & Media

  • Power Consumption

  • Conclusion & Comparisons

  • Tour & Design
  • Performance: Summary
  • Performance: Blacks & Whites
  • Performance: Color
  • Performance: Motion
  • Performance: Viewing Effects
  • Remote Control
  • Audio
  • Connectivity
  • Controls & Menus
  • Formats & Media
  • Power Consumption
  • Conclusion & Comparisons

Tour & Design

The front of the Samsung LN32A450 has a glossy black bezel that surrounds the display. At the lower right are the infrared receiver and a single red LED that lets you know the HDTV is on standby. Centered below the display is the Samsung logo. The stereo speakers are found on the bottom of the HDTV.

The front of the Samsung LN32A450 is simple and attractive.

**Back**

The back of the Samsung LN32A450 is matte black plastic with a collection of ports found on the left side.

Not as much gloss on the back, but you see how all ports are nicely grouped together.

**Left**

There are no features on the left side of the Samsung LN32A450.

**Right**

The right side of the Samsung LN32A450 has the on-TV controls and, slightly recessed, a strip of ports.

On the left side you find the on-TV conrols and a few additional ports.

**Stand/Mount**

The Samsung LN32A450 is also glossy black and comes in three parts that need to be put together before you can mount the HDTV on it. One nice feature that you don't see on many other televisions is that the stand allows you to swivel the HDTV about thirty degrees in either direction. The Samsung LN32A450 can be wall mounted, but you will need to purchase a mounting kit separately.

The Samsung LN32A450's stand swivels a bit, a nice touch.

**Controls**

The on-TVcontrols are found on the right side of the Samsung LN32A450. From top to bottom there are Source, Menu, Vol+, Vol-, Ch+, Ch- and power buttons.

The on-TV controls are found on the left side.

**Remote**

The Samsung LN32A450's remote is a curved, solid piece of plastic with a glossy face that is covered by buttons almost across its entire length.

The Samsung LN32A450's remote sits comfortably in your hand.

**In The Box***(4.0)*

The Samsung LN32A450 ships with a user manual, remote with batteries and cleaning cloth. We would have liked to see an HDMI cable as well.

**Aesthetics***(7.0)*

The Samsung LN32A450 design is simple but attractive. We like the glossy finish on both the front and the stand and the subtle curves. These features all combine to lend the Samsung LN32A450 an understated but attractive presence.

Performance: Summary

We were generallly pleased with the Samsung LN32A450's performance in our testing. The black level was reasonable for an LCD and the peak brightness was good, producing a solid contrast ratio. We were particularly impressed by the greyscale gamma curve, which was almost perfect, and the solid color performance. This isn't to say it was perfect, for example there were innacuracies in the color gamut and the viewing angle was unimpressive. Compared to the JVC LT-32P679, however, the Samsung LN32A450 performed markedly better in most areas.

**Calibration**

Few HDTVs come out of the box ready to give you the best picture possible. You can pay for someone to come out to your home and calibrate your Samsung LN32A450, or you can use the settings we used below for free! For our calibration purposes we use a program called DisplayMate, which is the same professional software used by many television manufacturers.

**Video Modes**

As with most HDTVs there are a variety of picture mode presets available for you. On the Samsung LN32A450 there are only three, Dynamic, Standard and Movie. Below you can see what each of these settings does.

**Dot Pattern**

LCD HDTVS like the Samsung LN32A450 have pixels made up of three elements, Red, Green and Blue. Just because we can we took a photo of the Samsung LN32A450's elements using a 20x microscope, you can see the picture of the HDTV showing white to the right there. As you can see white is actually made up of equal parts Red, Green and Blue. Each pixel on the Samsung LN32A450 can create any color by varying the intensity of each of these three colors.

Performance: Blacks & Whites

**Black Level***(7.27)*[

](https://reviewed.usatoday.com/televisions/content/How-We-Test.htm#blacklevel)

In this test we look at the deepest black that the Samsung LN32A450 was able to produce. We measured the deepest black at 0.14 candelas per meter squared (cd/m2). This is a solid score, slightly worse than the JVC LT-32P679 but slightly better than the Samsung LN46A750, the Samsung LN32A450's big brother. Especially for an LCD HDTV, where the backlight is always on and as such will always leak a little bit of light, we were pleased to see this performance.

**Peak Brightness***(8.42)*[

](https://reviewed.usatoday.com/televisions/content/How-We-Test.htm#peakwhite)

Here we look at the brightest white that the Samsung LN32A450 using our calibrated settings. We measured the peak brightness at 308.94 cd/m2. This is significantly brighter than the JVC LT-32P679, as you can see below, although it falls a bit short of the Samsung LN46A750. Overall its right about average for all the HDTVs we've reviewed to date.

**Contrast***(7.4)*[

](https://reviewed.usatoday.com/televisions/content/How-We-Test.htm#contrastratio)

Contrast is measured as the ratio of the brightest white to the darkest black. With a little bit of math you can figure this out yourself using our previous two scores, but we'll save you the annoyance of pulling out that remote and just tell you that we measured the Samsung LN32A450's contrast ratio to be 2207:1. This is an above average contrast ratio, as you can see below. It's significantly higher than the JVC LT-32P679, although it falls short of the Samsung LN46A750.

**Tunnel Contrast***(9.85)*[

](https://reviewed.usatoday.com/televisions/content/How-We-Test.htm#tunnelcontrast)

In real life you don't just watch a blank black screen, of course, so we also look at what happens to the black level as we add more and more white to the display. Below you can see a graph of the black level with the varying percentages of white on the display. You can see that there's very little variation in the black level, even when the screen was 95% white the black level was only one hundredth of a cd/m2 higher. This is an excellent performance and exactly what we want to see from an HDTV.

**White Falloff***(9.69)*[

](https://reviewed.usatoday.com/televisions/content/How-We-Test.htm#whitefalloff)

This is the opposite of the previous test, here we want to see what happens to the peak brightness as we add more black to the screen. Once again we're looking for consistency and as with our previous test the Samsung LN32A450 performed admirably. Below you can see graphically what happens to the peak brightness as more black is added to the display. The fact that there's a flat white line there means there's very little variance, which is exactly what we wanted.

**Uniformity***(6.75)*[

](https://reviewed.usatoday.com/televisions/content/How-We-Test.htm#uniformity)

In this test we look at how uniform the blacks and whites are displayed on the Samsung LN32A450's screen. With an all white screen we were generally pleased by the uniformity. The center displayed no significant problems. We did note some dimming along the bottom edge and corners, but this is not uncommon. The black screen, however, was less impressive. We noted some significant blotches across the display as well as along the edges and corners.

**Greyscale Gamma***(8.44)*[

](https://reviewed.usatoday.com/televisions/content/How-We-Test.htm#greyscalegamma)

Update: We have rescaled our scoring for this section. The original score was 10.0.

In this test we look at how smoothly the Samsung LN32A450 makes adjustments along a curve from white to black. Below you can see the Samsung LN32A450's performance plotted exponentially. We do this because the human eye is more sensitive to exponential changes than to discrete ones. The Samsung LN32A450's gamma curve is plotted in black while the blue line represents the line we test against.

You can see that the Samsung LN32A450's greyscale gamma curve fits almost exactly along the blue line, indicating that gradients from white to black are displayed accurately. There is a little bit of noise in the graph, which you can see better by looking at the actual greyscale gamma curve below.

What this indicates is that some of those shifts may happen a bit more granurarly than we'd like, we'll revisit this in the color section when we look at what happens to the red, green and blue as they shift between intensities. We don't pay attention to that granularity in this test, however, instead we look at the overall performance and in that the Samsung LN32A450's performance is exemplary.

**Resolution Scaling***(7.55)*[

](https://reviewed.usatoday.com/televisions/content/How-We-Test.htm#resolutionscaling)

The Samsung LN32A450 natively displays 720p content, but of course video content comes in many different resolutions. As such we fed different resolution signals to the Samsung LN32A450 to see how well it handles them.

480p**(7.65)**

480p is the resolution of standard definition television and DVDs. The Samsung LN32A450's biggest problem with 480p content is with overscan, which means how well it can fit the content onto the screen. We noticed that content was overscanned by about 7% vertically and 5% horiztonally, so you'll lose that information at the edges of your screen. We were not able to get rid of the overscan completely but if you put the television into 4:3 format you can get rid of the horizontal overscan. Legibility was good at 480p, with even the smallest text legible and resolution was also good.

1080i**(7.5)**

Much of the high definition content broadcast by television stations comes in 1080i format. With a 720p television like the Samsung LN32A450 it needs to downsample this content to fit it into the fewer pixels on the display. Despite this we found the Samsung LN32A450 did very well with 1080i content. Text was not as legible as 480p, with only 10 point font and above easily readable, but resolution was good and it scanned perfectly. We also did not notice any moire patterns, which appear in some complex patterns on some displays.

1080p**(7.5)**

The highest quality HD content currently available is 1080p, which is the same resolution as 1080i but produces the content progressively rather than interlacing the signal. 1080p content is much rarer, however, as it is currently only available from Blu-Ray discs. As with 1080i the Samsung LN32A450 has to downsample to fit this content into the lower resolution display, but once again we saw few issues. Text was once again only legible at about 10 point and above, but there were no problems with overscan, resolution or moire patterns.

Performance: Color

**Color Temperature***(9.09)*[

](https://reviewed.usatoday.com/televisions/content/How-We-Test.htm#colortemperature)

Whites come in many variations, from the brightest white all the way to deep greys. When looking at whites want we want to see is for the color temperature of that white to stay constant regardless of the intensity. The Samsung LN32A450 did a very good job with this. Below you see a graph with the different intensities of whites graphed on the bottom and the color temperature along the left. You can see some variation, especially with darker whites, but not a lot.

To get a better idea of how serious changes in color temperature are look at our second graph below. Here the same data points from the graph above are plotted into a color space. Since the human eye is not sensitive to any variation in color temperature we draw a circle on the graph that tells us when changes become visible. Any points inside the circle represent shifts that are not apparent to the human eye, while those outside the graph are.

You can see that the vast majority of data points fall within the circle, with only a few trailing off outside. What this means is that the vast majority of variation we saw in our first graph was not significant enough to make a difference for the viewer. Those that were visible were fairly small and effected darker greys. What this means in practice is that most whites will look exactly the way they should, while darker whites may have a very subtle bluish cast to them. Contrast this performance with the JVC LT-32P679, where the variation in the darker greys was much more pronounced and you can see why we were happy with the Samsung LN32A450 results here.

**RGB Curve***(8.04)*[

](https://reviewed.usatoday.com/televisions/content/How-We-Test.htm#rgbcurves)

Colors on any HDTV are made up of pixels that can each produce different intensities of red, blue and green. These three colors are mixed together to produce the whole range of colors that you see, so how accurate the colors are is very important. In this test we graph the luminance of each of these three colors against the intensity. We specificallly look for three things, the smoothness of the curve, peaking and artifcats. Below you can see the graphs for red, blue and green.

First, let's talk about smoothness. Ideally we'd like to see each curve almost perfectly smooth and slightly concave like a slide. You can see that all three curves are relatively smooth, but there are some noticeable bumps. What this means is that occasionally the Samsung LN32A450 doesn't make the smoothest transition as intensity increases. Now we don't see any major notches or plateaus, which would be a major problem, but the granularity we did see made us take a close look at our test images for artifacts that can appear. Thankfully we did not see any major problems, so in practice this granularity doesn't have a big impact.

The last thing we look at is peaking. On some HDTVs like the JVC LT-32P679 you see these curves end in a plateau or start to flatten toward the higher end. In these situations the result is that you lose a lot of detail with brigher colors as the HDTV is unable to make significant adjustments in luminance as colors get bright. Thankfully we did not see any sign of this problem with the Samsung LN32A450. You can see from the graphs that the graph remains smooth and increasing for all three colors right up to the highest intensity. This, combined with the lack of artifacts and minimal granularity, produces a solid color score for the Samsung LN32A450.

**Color Gamut***(5.36)*[

](https://reviewed.usatoday.com/televisions/content/How-We-Test.htm#colorgamut)

Color Gamut refers to the range of colors that an HDTV can produce. HDTVs should conform to the international standard known as ITU Recommendation .709. This is important because the color gamut will effect how HDTVs produce colors given information from a broadcast. If the color gamut does not match this standard then you will see innacuracies in color production. Below you can see the international standard in a solid line with the Samsung LN32A450's color gamut marked with a dotted line.

You can see that there are some serious innacuracies in the Samsung LN32A450's color gamut, particularly in the blues and reds. What this means is that the Samsung LN32A450 will have trouble accurately reproducing reds and greens, especially stronger versions of each color. Below you can see the exact color coordinates of both the international standard and the Samsung LN32A450, along with the recorded error between the two.

Performance: Motion

**Motion Smoothness***(5.5)*[

](https://reviewed.usatoday.com/televisions/content/How-We-Test.htm#motion)

We were not particularly impressed by the Samsung LN32A450's handling of motion, not surprising given that the HDTV sits near the bottom of Samsung's lineup and lacks advanced features like 120Hz refresh that help with motion. As it is we saw a lot of blurring and loss of detail in our motion tests and significant problems with interlace effects when dealing with a 1080i signal.

**Motion Artifacting***(5.75)*[

](https://reviewed.usatoday.com/televisions/content/How-We-Test.htm#motion)

In addition to problems with smoothness in our motion tests we also noted some problems with artifacts. In particular we noted significant jagged artifacts in high contrast test screens, both at the native resolution and with 1080i content. Combined with the unimpressive smoothness we mention above this makes the Samsung LN32A450 a less than impressive HDTV for watching high-speed, action content.

**3:2 Pulldown & 24fps***(6.0)*[

](https://reviewed.usatoday.com/televisions/content/How-We-Test.htm#3:2pulldown)

3:2 pulldown is produced to provide a film-like effect. To see how well the Samsung LN32A450 handles this type of content we ran both a 3:2 signal and a 24fps signal through the HDTV and took a close look at some test patterns. What we found is that there were some significant problems with 3:2 pulldown in areas of high contrast and patterns. In particular we noticed obvious jittering. 24fps content is also produced to create a film-like effect since film is shot at 24 frames per second. Not all HDTVs are capable of playing back 24fps content, but we were pleased to see that the Samsung LN32A450 was able to do so.

Performance: Viewing Effects

**Viewing Angle***(4.58)*[

](https://reviewed.usatoday.com/televisions/content/How-We-Test.htm#viewingangle)

We measured the Samsung LN32A450's viewing angle at 19.3 degrees from center, for a total viewing angle of 38.6 degrees. What we look for in our viewing angle test is the angle at which the contrast ratio falls below 50%. The Samsung LN32A450's performance in this test was unimpressive, worse than the JVC LT-32P679's 23.37 degree viewing angle and the Samsung LN46A750's very impressive viewing angle of 55 degrees. Below you can see the graph of the contrast ratio versus the viewing angle, with the red line indicating the point at which the contrast ratio falls below 50%

One interesting thing to note is that despite the rather poor overall viewing angle the Samsung LN32A450 did a very good job of holding the contrast ratio steady for the first five or ten degrees. This can be seen in the plateau at the top of the viewing angle graph. This plateau means that you will get a very good viewing experience from a decent range of angles directly in front of the HDTV. Another point in the Samsung LN32A450's favor is that colors held up very well across the range of viewing angles. So despite the rather poor overall viewing angle of the Samsung LN32A450 it did have some positive points. Basically if you're just watching the HDTV from a couch directly in front of the television you should be fine whether you sit in the middle, left or right side of the couch.

**Reflectance***(5.5)*[

](https://reviewed.usatoday.com/televisions/content/How-We-Test.htm#reflectance)

The Samsung LN32A450's is reflective, you can easily make out items in the room reflected in it, especially when the screen is dark. That said it's not as bad as what we saw from the JVC LT-32P679. For example with the latter we were able to clearly make out individual LED lights when we shone an array of LED lights at the screen and there was almost no diffusion of the light. On the Samsung LN32A450 we were also able to make out individual lights, but the overall light was better diffused. More importantly the Samsung LN32A450 did a much better job with light coming in at angles, which is where most of the light in a room will likely be. Basically unless you're going to place a high powered light directly in front of the Samsung LN32A450 you probably won't notice too many problems except in very dark scenes.

**Video Processing***(1.0)*[

](https://reviewed.usatoday.com/televisions/content/How-We-Test.htm)

As with most HDTVs the Samsung LN32A450 offers several different video processing options that ostensibly help improve the picture. Most of the time these processing features are not very useful, and we found that this was the case with the Samsung LN32A450 as well. We did see some minor differences with Dynamic Contrast and Black Adjust, but we recommend leaving these options off and use proper calibrated settings instead.

Remote Control

**Ergonomics & Durability***(6.55)*

The Samsung LN32A450's remote feels fairly comfortable in the hand. It's rather long, but the back is very well curved, which helps it sit right in the palm of your hand. You will need to shift your hand up and down to reach many controls, but the balance stays good due the relative light weight of the remote. The buttons on the Samsung LN32A450 are made of soft plastic and are easy to press, although we would have liked to see some more tacticle feedback and key travel. We've certainly seens worse remotes, for example the JVC remotes we've seen are much bigger, not contoured and lack the balance of the Samsung LN32A450's remote.

**Button Layout & Use***(6.3)*

The buttons on the Samsung LN32A450's remote are relatively large with all the main controls found toward the middle. Those with smaller hands may find they need to shift some to reach the volume and channel buttons from the control pad, but those with larger hands won't have this problem. Regardless of your hand size you will need to shift your hand up the remote to enter a channel using the number pad or to reach the power and source buttons. Still, the shift isn't huge and the fact that the remote gives you decent balance no matter where you hold it makes this easier. We also liked that you could control the Samsung LN32A450 with the remote from a fairly wide angle, out to 90 degrees.

**Programming & Flexibility***(1.0)*

The Samsung LN32A450 is not a universal remote that can be used with any piece of your home theatre system. It does support Samsung's Anynet+ service, however, which allows you to control any Samsung device with the remote. We will award a single point for this functionality.

Audio

**Sound Quality***(6.0)*

We were quite pleased with the sound quality we got from the Samsung LN32A450's two built-in speakers. We detected no tinniness or distortion as we've seen on some other HDTVs. The sound was clear with both voices and background noises easily detected. About the only thing we felt it lacked was a bit of depth, but that's not surprising for built-in speakers.

**Surround Sound***(4.0)*

Like most modern HDTVs the Samsung LN32A450 has a simulated surround sound mode. In practice we found that this muted the sound a bit and added just a hint of depth. Overall the sound quality remained good, but the fact is that it was still nowhere near as good as the surround sound you would get out of even a cheap set of speakers.

**Loudness***(7.53)*

We measured the Samsung LN32A450's loudness at 75.3 decibels, using a sound pressure meter from five feet away with the HDTV's volume at maximum. This is quite a bit less loud than most HDTVs we've seen, which tend to be between 80-90 decibels. This doesn't mean the Samsung LN32A450 is not loud, but especially if you're trying to fill up a large room with sound or have hearing problems the more muted

Connectivity

**Input Ports***(7.0)*

The Samsung LN32A450 has a reasonable selection of input ports. Most important are the three HDMI ports, which is a good number for a 32-inch HDTV. There are also two component video inputs but only one composite video input. There are four analog audio inputs and an S-Video input. There is also a VGA input for connecting the HDTV to a computer and a 3.5mm audio input port, which is also used for connecting a computer. The Samsung LN32A450 also supports both digital and analog cable and antenna inputs. It does not have a DVI input, but that's about the only input that's missing.

Most of the ports are found in single group on the back towards the left.

There are a few additional ports found on the left side of the Samsung LN32A450.

**Output Ports***(2.0)*

As with most HDTVs we've reviewed the only output ports on the Samsung LN32A450 are a single analog audio output and a digital audio output.

**Other Connections***(0.0)*

The Samsung LN32A450 does not support any wireless connectivity options like Wi-Fi or Bluetooth.

**Media***(0.0)*

The Samsung LN32A450 does not have ports for connecting USB devices or memory cards.

**Placement***(7.5)*

The Samsung LN32A450's ports are arranged into two groups. The first is found on the back towards the right side. The second group is found on the right side of the HDTV, slightly recessed. The second grouping is very easy to reach, especially as the HDTV swivels a bit on its stand. The main grouping on the back is also easy to reach due to its position, the smaller size of the HDTV and the fact that it swivels. We were very happy with the Samsung LN32A450's port placement.

Controls & Menus

**Ease of Use***(6.0)*

The Samsung LN32A450's menu system is relatively straightforward. Its a simple tabbed interface with five main sections listed on the left: Picture, Sound, Channel, Setup and Input. Sub-menus are kept to a minimum and the on-screen information and instructions are relatively clear. There are a couple of interface inconsistencies that did annoy us. For example many menu items have an arrow next to them. This arrow indicates that you can use the Right button the directional pad to either open a pop-up menu or open a whole new sub-menu. Related is the fact that Left on the directional pad will often take you to the previous level in a menu, but sometimes does not. These are relatively minor issues, however, and for the most part we found the Samsung LN32A450's menu system easy to use.

**Picture Controls***(7.0)*

The Samsung LN32A450 offers an impressive array of picture controls, more than we've seen on other entry-level HDTVs. In addition to the standard controls like Backlight, Contrast, Brightness, etc. In addition to these there are two sub-menus with more advanced features.

The main Picture menu gives you access to a standard array of controls.

First up is the Detailed Settings menu where you can adjust Gamma, make adjustments to Color Space and White Balance and turn options like Dynamic Contrast and Edge Enhancement on or off.

The detailed settings menu gives you access to more advanced features like color space.

The Picture Options menu offers a few additional options such as Color Tone, Digital NR, Film Mode and Blue Only Mode. The last is a useful feature for calibrating the HDTV.

The picture options menu offers additional picture settings.

Overall we were quite pleased with the array of options available on the Samsung LN32A450. They are far more comprehensive than those we found on the JVC LT-32P679.

**Audio Controls***(6.0)*

The Sound menu on the Samsung LN32A450 is fairly straightforward. At the top of the menu you can choose between various presets including Standard, Music, Movie, Speech and Custom. The second options allows you to make custom adjustments to the equalizer, a nice feature we like to see. You can also turn the simulated surround sound feature on/off here as well as turn the TV speakers on/off.

The sound menu is fairly sparse.

**Other Controls***(6.0)*

In addition to the Picture and Audio controls the Samsung LN32A450's menu systems offers a Channel menu, where you can manage your cable or over the air channels. There's also a Setup menu where you can access various items like Language, Time and V-Chip options.

The setup menu gives you access to basics like language, time and V-Chip settings.

Finally there's an Input menu where you can re-label input names and manage Samsung's Anynet+ feature.

The input menu allows you to manage your various inputs.

**Manual***(4.0)*

The Samsung LN32A450's manual is a rather large magazine sized booklet that incorporates both the English and Spanish instructions. There's a good table of contents, but there's no index. We found the instructions relatively clear, but the text is small, even the header text, and the screen shots are also small. This may be a problem for those with poor eyesight. We've seen much better manuals from manufacturers like Vizio.

Formats & Media

**Formats***(6.0)*

The Samsung LN32A450 is a 720p HDTV, which means it has a lower overall resolution than full 1080p HD televisions like the Samsung LN47A750. It does support playback for 1080i and 1080p content, however, as it can downsample that content to fit on the lower resolution display. It also supports playback of 480i and 480p content, which is the format used for standard definition television and DVDs respectively. The Samsung LN32A450 also supports 3:2 pulldown and 24fps content, both of which are used to produce a more film-like quality. For more information on how well it handles such content see our Motion section. It does not support a wider color gamut, which is called Xvycc color, as do some modern televisions.

**Photo Playback***(0.0)*

The Samsung LN32A450 does not support photo playback from devices like memory cards.

**Video Playback***(0.0)*

The Samsung LN32A450 does not support video playback from media storage devices like hard drives or flash cards.

**Streaming Playback***(0.0)*

The Samsung LN32A450 does not support streaming video content from online sources like Hulu or Youtube.

**DVR***(0.0)*

The Samsung LN32A450 does not have a built-in DVR for recording television content to view at a later time.

Power Consumption

**Power Consumption***(9.23)*[

](https://reviewed.usatoday.com/televisions/content/How-We-Test.htm#powerconsumption)

The Samsung LN32A450 did a good job with power consumption, consuming only 79.3 watts when calibrated to a brightness of 200 candelsa per meter squared, which is a good brightness level for both bright and dark situations. This was achieved by setting the backlight level of the Samsung LN32A450 to 3. At this level the Samsung LN32A450 will cost the average family only $15.49 to operate over the course of a year. Below you can also see how turning the backlight all the way up or down will impact your bill.

 

Conclusion & Comparisons

The Samsung LN32A450 is an entry-level HDTV, available for as little as $600 we're sure that many first-time HDTV buyers will give it a hard look. As an entry-level HDTV there are some drawbacks, the 720p resolution is not as high as 1080p HDTVs. Although it is capable of displaying 1080p and 1080i content, this is necessarily downsampled to fit on the lower resolution display. Thankfully the Samsung LN32A450 seemed to handle this downsampling well enough, so even though you won't get the full effect of your Blu-Ray movies on the Samsung LN32A450, you'll still be able to watch them without trouble.

Despite some other additional drawbacks like the lack of a memory card reader or USB port, the Samsung LN32A450 did rather well in many of our tests, significantly better than the JVC LT-32P679, the only other 32-inch 720p HDTV we've reviewed to date. The Samsung LN32A450 impressed us with good black level and peak brightness, producing an above average contrast ratio. This means that blacks on the television will be deep and whites will be plenty bright. We were also happy with color accuracy, so unlike the JVC you don't lose detail when you get particularly bright colors. We were perhaps most impressed by how well the Samsung LN32A450's whites and blacks held up across intensities or when they only take up a part of the display. We also like that its an attractive, if unassuming, television.

That's not to say that the Samsung LN32A450 performed well in all of our tests, you have to expect to see some compromises in performance on an entry-level HDTV like this and the LN32A450 certainly had some. Perhaps the most obvious to many will be the less than impressive handling of motion. Here you see the lack of a 120Hz refresh rate seen on higher end televisions as our motion tests revealed problems like blurring and trailing artifacts. We also found the viewing angle to be very limited and the color gamut was slightly off.

The question is, of course, are you getting enough bang for your buck here? We'd say yes. The reality is that any television at this price point is going to bring some tradeoffs along. The obvious ones here are a smaller size, lower resolution and less than impressive handling of motion. Frankly none of these surprise us much, and in our minds it is more than offset by the Samsung LN32A450's pluses like solid blacks and whites and accurate colors. No, its not the perfect HDTV, but it's a good bit better than some other HDTVs in its class that we've looked at. Could you do better? Sure, but be prepared to pay twice as much or more. For $600 you're getting a lot of pluses and not too many negatives with the Samsung LN32A450.

Meet the tester

Alfredo Padilla

Alfredo Padilla

Editor

Alfredo Padilla is a valued contributor to the Reviewed.com family of sites.

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