You may or may not know but Onelargeprawn has been invited to participate in #MissionSamsung, an 8-month challenge that tasks bloggers to take select Samsung products for a spin. This is challenge 2 and we’ve got our eyes on the 40″ Series 6 Samsung LED Smart TV. In the coming weeks, we’ll be posting about our experiences with it right here.
To start off we wanted to get acquainted with LED TV technology so we tasked Gavin, a tech enthusiast over at Samsung, on a mission of his own. He needed to answer our questions, but keep it as easy to understand as possible and break that tech jargon for normal consumers such as ourselves.
Hit the jump to check out our LED Q&A with Gavin.
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OLP: We’re told that an LED TV is actually an LCD TV. What’s so special about LED?
GVN: Samsung LED TV technology has advanced to a level where picture quality is exceptional and the design is modern and stunning.
To take that back to basics — a TV whether a LCD TV or LED TV — is made up of 2 parts:
- An LCD panel
- and a backlight(CCFL or LED)
Older LCD TVs used a CCFL backlight, whereas as modern LED TVs use LED back lighting.
The advantages of Samsung’s LED TVs are a brighter picture, better contrast, a slimmer panel resulting in a super thin design, as well as a more energy efficient TV to save you electricity, and not least of all, great picture quality.
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OLP: Some people say plasma is way better than LED. Are they right? In what situations is LED better?
GVN: Samsung plasma TV definitely has its benefits, one of the most noticeable is the large screen/low-cost factor and it is great for sports viewing. However it is a slightly older technology when compared to LED. Samsung’s LED TV has a clearer, sharper image with increased brightness. The advancements of LED has also allowed for a much thinner TV design than plasma.
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OLP: Our gamer friends often talk about input lag. What is input lag and how does it affect LED TVs?
GVN: Input lag doesn’t affect every day watching but only when you play games on the TV that is connected to a PC. There may be a slight delay between the gamer’s input and the actual movement or interaction on the TV.
The lag can be greatly reduced by selecting the “Game Mode” in the TV’s picture settings. This minimizes the processing while keeping the picture quality as high as possible. That being said, I feel that most serious PC gamers will in any case go with a monitor designed for PC gaming as opposed to a TV.
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OLP: When choosing a size of LED TV, is bigger ALWAYS better?
GVN: This will probably come down to personal choice, as well as taking into consideration how big the viewing room is, and how far away you sit from your TV. Ideally, you should be a minimum of 2.0 to 2.5 metres away from your TV screen if it’s 40″ or larger. Of course, you can go as large as is comfortable for viewing in your TV area.
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OLP: We see the word “4K” being thrown around. It sounds expensive. What is it?
GVN: 4K or Ultra High Definition (UHD) is the next step in Samsung TV resolution. Samsung’s UHD TV has a higher picture quality than that of a normal full HD TV.
Think of a photo being taken by a 2MP camera, then that same photo being taken by an 8MP camera. The image quality from the 8MP camera will be much higher.
Samsung’s UHD TV (8 million pixels) has four times the number of pixels of a full HD TV(2 million pixels), resulting in four times the resolution and four times the picture quality of a full HD TV. This higher resolution, integrated with Samsung’s UHD TV technology gives you the clearest and sharpest image in your Samsung UHD TV.
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We’ll catch up with Gavin later as Mission Samsung continues. Our progress in the challenges will be updated here and you can always track #MissionSamsung on Twitter.