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Samsung 50″ series 6 LED 3D Smart TV

The Samsung 50″series 6 smart TV offers great picture quality with crisp clear full HD images. Great size for a small/average size lounge room. It has built in Wi-Fi, pre-loaded apps, web access, record TV capabilities, a swivel base and many more great features. However, there are a few drawbacks with this TV.

 

It has built in WIFI that allows you to connect to the internet for web browsing, watching youTube videos or use the SmartHub with its pre-loaded apps.

I like the SmartHub, there are preloaded apps that have a bunch of shows and movies you can watch for free and apps that you can watch the latest movies for a fee. There are also other apps you can install from the Samsung app store.

TV shows can be recorded onto an external hard disk connected to one of the USB ports. However, play back of the recorded shows can only be viewed on the TV as it formats the disk to a Samsung-specific file. Therefore, you can not view recorded shows on a desktop or laptop as it won’t recognise the Samsung specific file format.

However, if you have video files of shows or home videos you can watch them on the tv from a USB flash drive/device as it plays many file formats (eg. avi, mp4, mvk).

You get 2 remotes with this TV. One looks like your ordinary TV remote with the number, volume, power buttons and many other buttons that don’t get used much.

The smaller remote does the same thing but in a condensed simplified form with voice command and a touch pad. You can say the channel you want with the voice command feature or you can write the number of the channel you want to watch and the TV switches to that channel. Great novelty but much faster with the regular remote.

I don’t use the smaller remote much but it is handy when you can’t find the regular remote and want to change the channel!

Switching between channels is slow. I use to have a digital set top box attached to an analog TV and switching between channels was pretty quick, almost instant. With the Samsung it takes about 2-3 seconds to switch channels when you press the channel up/down button. It takes about 5-6 seconds to switch between channels when you press the channel number to switch to that channel. To see the TV guide takes a few seconds too. A few seconds may not sound so bad but when you are so use to switching channels and having it instantly appear, this delay is almost painful!

The speakers are at the back of the TV so if there is any other noise around the house, you have to put the volume up otherwise it’s hard to hear the TV. The sound effect to increase/decrease the volume is sometimes louder than actual volume of the show.

There is only 1 Composite In (AV) & Component In (Y/Pb/Pr) outlet (yellow, red, white connector) so my DVD player and Wii console can only be plugged in one at a time. Because the outlet is at the back of the TV, unplugging and plugging the different devices when needed is not a great option so I got an AV splitter. This is a must if you have more than one device that uses composite connectors.

If you plan to use the TV to browse the web alot you might want to get a Samsung wireless keyboard. Moving the cursor over the letters to spell things out gets really annoying in a short period of time. If you plan to Skype you will need to get a Samsung webcam as any web cam will not work with the Samsung TV.

Likes:

  • built in WIFI receiver
  • 3 USB slots
  • 4 HDMI slots
  • great picture quality full HD
  • swivel base
  • 2 remotes
  • SmartHub
  • Recording shows on the TV
  • Watching video files on the TV

Dislikes:

  • slow to switch between channels
  • too many buttons on the remote control
  • no user manual, e-manual can be viewed on the TV
  • cannot watch recorded show that were recorded on the TV on other devices
  • sound is not loud enough sometimes
  • only one AV outlet

 

Inch 50
Resolution 1920 x 1080
Dolby Dolby Digital Plus / Dolby Pulse
3D Sound Yes
Speaker Type Down Firing + Full Range
Sound Output (RMS) 10W x 2
Built in Camera No
Smart Hub(Apps&Service) Yes
Set Size without Stand (WxHxD) (mm) 1,135.6 x 659.6 x 49.4
Set Size with Stand (WxHxD) (mm) 1,135.6 x 743.7 x 306.9
Set Weight without Stand (kg) 13.9
Set Weight with Stand (kg)
15.5

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