Review: Samsung's no-frills LCD a winner
With image quality every bit as good as many expensive LED models, the Samsung LND630 is a great choice for a no-frills LCD TV.
- Although still awaiting his Oscar for Best Picture Reviewer, David does hold certifications from the Imaging Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Standards and Technology on display calibration and evaluation.
One of the most common requests we hear at CNET is for a TV that has good picture quality "without all that extra crap" (or words to that effect). Said extras included on many TVs these days include Internet connectivity and 3D, as well as an LED backlight for LCD models.
Samsung's LND630 series comes pretty close to that no-frills ideal, delivering picture quality that's a match for many of the best LED TVs we've tested this year at a price that reflects its relative lack of extra features.
Yes, the LND630 does have a 120Hz refresh rate, but you can customize its processing to get the benefits of 1080p/24, film-based Blu-rays without smoothing (yay!). More importantly, the step-down 60Hz LND550 lacks this model's color accuracy. Slightly more-expensive sets like the LED-based Sony KDL-EX523 series offer built-in Internet streaming, but for the price difference you could add a network streaming box to this Samsung. The LND630 doesn't provide quite the bang-for-the-buck of Panasonic's ST30 series plasma, but among LCDs we've tested, LED or otherwise, it's the value champ.
