Review Product I Review TV I Samsung UE40ES5500 Review

Our kitchen was treated to a makeover last month and it was time to add the finishing touches, one being the Samsung 40” UE40ES5500 LED TV. We purchased this attractive little beast at John Lewis one weekend for just a tad under £500, it was on offer with a free wall hanging bracket and it seemed to be the perfect TV for our kitchen without being hugely overpriced. We were instantly surprised by how thin the LED TV’s are these days and this fact combined with the good specs of this TV sold it to us and we left the store smiling albeit £500 poorer!

~~~ About the Samsung UE40ES5500 ~~~

This TV from Samsung is a very slim and rather sexy looking TV set with a 40” screen with the latest HD LED technology. The TV offers a stunning picture quality with its full 1080P HD screen and LED backlighting to create darker blacks and brighter displayed colours. The TV is mainly black with a slightly translucent surround around the screen making it look very modern yet classic allowing the TV to settle in with most decors, it’s very slim being just under 2” thick, 93” Wide and 60” in height. The TV came supplied with a fancy looking stand that allows the TV to sit on any flat and level surface or it can be fastened to a wall with a bracket usually purchased separately for around £40, luckily ours came free. This TV has Samsung’s new ‘Smart TV’ software installed that basically turns the TV into a computer allowing the user to browse the internet, watch TV straight from the internet or use many of the applications available such as Facebook, Twitter etc. This is all done through the standard TV remote.

~~~ Setting the TV up and general use ~~~

The TV was very easy to set up, it was nicely packed inside the box however she slipped out with ease and it wasn’t long until our new set was up and running. Fitting the wall bracket was the hardest part resulting in lots of rude words being heard from the Father but that’s another story… Once the wall bracket was up - the setup was simple, we plugged the TV into a socket, plugged in the aerial connection and of course the Ethernet cable to use the Smart TV bits and bobs and we were good to go. A quick press of the on button lit the magical LED screen up and we were greeted with a setup menu to search for Freeview channels etc. The menus were easy to navigate and the setup was generally painless, very much easier than many other TV’s we’ve had in the past.
The screen quality on this TV is absolutely stunning; we use the built in Freeview and do not have a Sky or Virgin Media box connected to this TV so its quality picture is purely from the set itself. The built-in Freeview is apparently a HD tuner that allows you to watch normal TV channels in almost HD quality, I was slightly skeptical of this claim but I must admit that the quality is fantastic and I cannot fault it in any way. The frame rate of this is 100Hz which basically means a fast moving picture and motion blur is hardly noticeable making it a pleasure to watch without any annoying slow moving scenes. The 40” screen is nice and wide and it has a rather matt finish which helps with light reflection, our kitchen is rather light however direct sunlight doesn’t seem to affect the viewing of this TV much and the quality is good from all angles. The built in speakers are of a rather good quality and there are a few settings built into the TV’s menu to change the audio to the users liking. The sound is not tinny by any means but it is slightly lacking bass however we fully expected this from such a thin set and I cannot complain too much about the quality. The sound output is rated at 20 Watts which is pretty respectable from a TV of this size and it’s plenty of power for our kitchen.

~~~ Connectivity ~~~

The TV has plenty of connections on the rear to connect devices such as DVD players, games consoles etc. There is 1 x Scart connection, 3 x HDMI ports, 2 x fast USB ports, an Ethernet connection and some others that I’d probably never use and I’m not sure of what they do sorry! All connections are of a good quality but some are hard to reach at the rear of the set, there are no connections around the edge of the TV so once it’s on the wall it’s on the wall…… Obviously it can be removed from the wall but not without difficulty or the smashing of a delightful TV.

~~~ Smart TV? ~~~

This TV offers the Samsung Smart Hub technology which allows many different applications to be used along with full internet browsing and streaming videos from the internet. The Smart menu is accessed by pressing the colourful button on the remote control which opens up and on-screen world of Samsung entertainment, in this on screen world you find many shortcuts for applications such as;

• Facebook
• Twitter
• You Tube
• Skype
• Internet Browsing
  And many others, there is plenty to do in this menu and I can confirm that everything works perfectly in this area, I’ve used it loads since buying this set and I must admit that I’m rather impressed!

~~~ Cleaning, maintenance etc. ~~~

To clean this set you simply need a slightly damp anti-static cloth and hopefully no elbow grease unless there’s something sticky on it. There is very little, if any maintenance needed on this set apart from occasionally changing the 2 x AA batteries in the remote control every once in a while. The TV comes with a 1 year warranty from Samsung or if purchased from John Lewis like ours it’ll come with a very respectable 5 year warranty… hopefully that shall not be required.

~~~ Overall opinion ~~~

We are all extremely pleased with this TV and it’s been used every day without any complaints. The picture quality is superb, the sound is acceptable and the Smart TV software is very handy and quick to use. The TV set looks superb and although it’s modern, it fits in with our old styled kitchen well and we are very pleased with the little beast. Everything about the TV speaks quality and the set is generally solid and looks exceptionally well built, the remote control is of a similar high quality with its large buttons being easy to press and it’s very responsive. I highly recommend this TV!
Thanks for reading,
©nickbrown60

Advantages:
Stunning screen quality, very stylish, easy to use 

Disadvantages:
Speakers are not the best but good enough ! 

Source : http://www.ciao.co.uk/Samsung_UE40ES5500__Review_6066565