Samsung UNB6000 series photos

Whether you're dating a supermodel or shopping for a new HDTV, thin doesn't come cheap. The least expensive member of Samsung's 2009 family of ultrathin LED-backlit LCD TVs is the UNB6000 series, but that doesn't mean it's a bargain. If you can stomach the extra charge, however, your reward will be an extremely sleek-looking TV, a very good-looking picture and that sweet sense of self-satisfaction of knowing you're consuming minimal electricity. We're not the biggest fans of the UNB6000's fluctuating backlight, and we'd like to see a more-uniform picture for this much scratch, but otherwise its image quality leaves little to be desired. That said, numerous other HDTVs offer equal or better picture quality for less money, which makes high style and higher technology the main selling points of the UNB6000 series.

Here's what 1.2 inches thin looks like from edge-on.

A transparent stalk on the stand allows the panel to swing from side to side in style. And no, colors aside from red are not an option.

The remote control is basically the same as last year, aside from a new protrusion on the rear that keeps the clicker stable on a flat surface, and we're definitely fans--especially since Samsung ditched the rotating scroll wheel. The buttons are big, backlit, and easily differentiated by size and shape, and we liked the dedicated "Tools" key that offers quick access to the E-manual (see below), picture and sound modes, the sleep timer, and the picture-in-picture controls. We didn't like the remote's glossy black finish, however, which picked up more than its share of dulling fingerprints after a few minutes.

Plenty of digital jacks are onboard, including four HDMI and two USB along the back/side panel.

The minimal analog input complement includes just a single component-video input that can be converted to accept composite video instead, along with an analog PC input and an antenna jack. As the warning indicates, fat cables won't fit on this thin TV.

The well-laid-out main menu system is tinted red to match the TV's exterior.

The B6000 models lack Yahoo widgets, although they do feature Samsung's InfoLink service. InfoLink is a much more basic portal to Internet-updated information than Yahoo Widgets, and can only display news, custom stocks and local weather information. Here's the weather screen.

Infolink also shows news headlines, complete with a photo.

In addition to the three preset strengths of its Auto Motion Plus dejudder processing, called Clear, Standard, and Smooth, Samsung added a Custom mode this year, and its adjustability makes it the best implementation of a dejudder we've seen so far. Custom offers two sliders, one called Blur reduction that affects video-based sources and one called Judder reduction that affects only film-based sources.

A custom color temperature control lets you fine-tune the grayscale.

The included E-manual saves trees and gives you an onscreen user guide.

The test photo can help diagnose problems before you have to call customer support.

If you do have to make that call, it's handy to have the information available onscreen.

Samsung's UNB6000 showed very good picture quality overall, with relatively deep black levels; accurate color; and excellent, adjustable video processing. We weren't fans of the way the backlight would fluctuate, and screen uniformity is disappointing for such an expensive TV.