The Samsung UE 40 B 7090 TV is an LCD TV with a 40-inch (102-centimeter) screen diagonal. This model from South Korean manufacturer Samsung has been on the market since March 2009; its UK cousin, the UE 40 B 7000, is available to buy online from around 1,240 GBP (as of May 2009).

Florian Friedrich, tested on May 15, 2009

• Legendary flat design - just three centimeters deep.
• Glossy front panel (glare type).
• Low power consumption.
• Very bright when necessary.
• Excellent motion clarity in movies.
• Multimedia extras galore (USB & network media players; Yahoo widgets, including YouTube).
• Comprehensive settings allow picture-optimization.
• High dynamic contrast.
• Authentic 24p playback of movies, even for 60-Hertz signals.

• Thin sound.
• No headphone socket, no analog audio output.
• The LAN connection is hard to reach.
• Awkward channel navigation.
• Motion stutters occasionally with TV signals.
• Light cyan tint in the factory setup.

Extremely elegant, eco-friendly, 40-inch LCD TV with LED backlighting, excellent picture quality, and a rich list of features. Weaknesses plague the sound and user-friendliness during TV viewing.

The most important connections:

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Test results in brief

Is Samsung's ultra-flat UE 40 B 7090 your personal dream TV? Read here whether its capabilities will meet your requirements and whether you'll be able to live with its weaker points.

Bursting with multimedia:
If you can't get enough of the wonderful world of multimedia, the Samsung is a strong candidate for your living room. Almost no other TV offers such a wealth of practical extras. The Samsung has two USB inputs and a network connection, accesses your PC's hard disk (compatible with Microsoft DLNA), and plays back videos, photos, and music files in superb quality. The integrated 800-megabyte memory even allows you to save your favorite photos and music on the TV for quick access.

As you'd expect, the TV can access the Internet over a network (LAN) connection, and informs the user about world goings-on via on-screen displays (widgets). The widgets currently include Yahoo feeds for weather, finance, and news tickers, and the photo-exchange service Flickr. YouTube videos will be available shortly. Integrated multimedia extras offer diversion - these include cooking recipes, gymnastics exercises, and two games, right through to fun content to help children learn to read.

In short: Almost no other TV has its finger on the pulse as much as the Samsung - if needs be, Sony's current 5500 series could be an alternative.

Gorgeous, ultra-flat design:
The Samsung's design is another plus point: Thanks to its new backlight construction, the TV is just three centimeters thick, making it one of the flattest TVs of all time. The screen, frame, and pedestal share the same black, high-gloss finish and look like a single piece. Flat competitors? The newly developed "NEO-PDP" plasma displays from Panasonic's Z series are a further half-centimeter thinner, and the LG 42 LH 7000, a four-centimeter-thick LCD, is at least playing in the same league.

Shining brightly in your living room:
Football on Saturday, Grand Prix on Sunday, tennis Grand Slam on Wednesday: Sport is often on in the afternoon, when many flat-panel TVs stumble because their screens simply can't compete with bright daylight.

The Samsung is different. Powerful yet energy-efficient LEDs serve up an extremely bright picture (maximum 360 cd/m2), so you'll have no problem enjoying Formula 1 with your friends, even in the middle of the day.

Movies even look great in afternoon daylight. Only very gloomy titles - à la "Panic Room" - make it hard for the Samsung to tease out darker details. This is because the TV reduces its backlight output during such movies in order to achieve - successfully, we might add - rich blacks and low power consumption.

Less than ideal: Home-theater performance:
Let's make sure we don't give the wrong idea: Most people will be delighted with this Samsung, which delivers convincing colors and crisp images, and displays TV programs in excellent quality. What's more, the Samsung handles 24p playback of Blu-ray movies correctly - in other words, movies judder just as they do in the movie theater. For real movie fans, it doesn't get better than this.

So, what's the problem? As is so often the case, the devil is in the detail. To the dismay of picture-perfectionists, the colors aren't 100-percent correct. You can correct this with a colorimeter, test discs, and a little effort, but the TV also needs high contrast and deep blacks in order to create a truly impressive, stirring movie atmosphere - only then does the "Enterprise" boldly go where no man has gone before, instead of trundling flatly across the screen.

The Samsung's native contrast ratio of 1,700:1 is a decent value, but by no means an overwhelming one. Sony's KDL-40 W 5500, for example, beats the Samsung hands down with a ratio of 3,000:1, giving vivid, convincing pictures. The purist home-theater-fan that enjoys movies mainly in the dark will be better off with a current plasma TV, such as the Panasonic TX-P 42 GW 10, which dishes out contrast aplenty.

Poor sound:
It could have been a real audio fest; after all, the Samsung receives digital radio, houses a built-in MP3 player, and can access the music collection stored on your computer. But this TV's sound just isn't up to scratch. The tiny built-in speakers are sufficient for speech, but the lack of bass means it's not even worth trying to listen to music.

"OK," you might think, "I'll just connect the TV up to my HiFi. I prefer to do it that way anyway". After all, this is what you'd expect for such a super-flat display - there's just not space for decent speakers.

Well, that's what we thought too. Until we discovered that the Samsung has neither a headphone socket nor an analog stereo output, meaning it's a bit more challenging to relay the TV sound. There's an optical digital output, but your audio setup must have the corresponding input, and you'll need the corresponding cable.

Samsung supplies an optional sound bar (the HT-WS 1 G), whose design matches that of the TV. This connects to the optical output and dramatically improves the sound - but it costs extra about 250 GBP.

So if you're not overly concerned with rainbow color accuracy and Oreo-cookie contrast, then the Samsung UE 40 B 7090 delivers tremendous brightness, realistic movie playback, and positively smothers you with media gadgetry, all in a 3cm deep frame that makes a supermodel look bovine in nature.

Design

Good design shouldn't just be about sleek looks. Practical operation and connectivity, simple mounting, and high-quality manufacturing are all essential to a TV's success. This chapter looks at how the UE 40 B 7090 performs in these respects.

Unpacking:

We were pleasantly surprised: The Samsung clocks in at just 15 kilograms. Even your kids will be able to help you lift it, if you decide that's a good idea. The sides of the box come off to allow easy access - a very user-friendly idea.

A full set of accessories: Alongside the usual props - user manual, remote control - the TV also comes with a microfiber cleaning cloth, a second remote control for operating basic functions, various cables, and a CD-ROM that contains the software "PC Share Manager 2.0".

The swivel pedestal is made of relatively scratch-resistant Perspex, with the emphasis on "relatively" - don't let the cat use it as a scratching post. A slender, transparent tube connects the base and display.

Assembly:

Grab your screwdriver: The pedestal doesn't come pre-mounted, so you'll have a chance to demonstrate your talent for handicraft. Since assembly involves just five Phillips-head screws, however, the less handy among us will get by just fine. Samsung doesn't supply the necessary Phillips screwdriver, but even the most poorly equipped toolbox is sure to contain such a basic bit of kit.

To screw on the pedestal, lay the Samsung down flat on a soft surface that won't damage the display. Make absolutely sure while you're tightening the screws that you don't put them in at an angle or turn them too tightly.

Even though the Samsung weighs just 15 kilos, and is just three centimeters thick, you should still get some help when setting it up. Assembling the TV alone increases the danger of dropping it. The ultra-thin TV is perfect for wall-mounting. The corresponding WMN 1000 BXXC bracket is available for about 110 GBP in the UK.

Generously proportioned rubber pads on the underside of the pedestal guarantee foot-sure positioning, whether on a wood, metal, or glass surface, and the TV resists toppling well. With our test model, the pedestal turned a little sluggishly.

The display and swivel pedestal complement each other in design.

There's one "but" about the whole construction:

While most other manufacturers fit solid metal bars deep into the casing to support the display, only five dainty screws secure the Samsung to its pedestal. If you push the unit backward, it gives way a little and distorts around the screws. Of course, no one would do this on purpose, but slip-ups happen in the home more often than we think, especially where pets or children are involved.

Shape:

The UE 40 B 7090 is a beautiful piece of work - the designers have really been busy with the new 7000-series models, but then we expect nothing less from the South Korean manufacturer. Samsung is the teacher's pet when it comes to clever use of design, and is famous worldwide for it.

"Samsung is the poster child for using design to increase brand value and market share" is how Patrick Whitney - dean of the "Institute of Design" at Chicago's IIT - puts it in the online business magazine "businessweek.com".

The design of the UE 40 B 7090 is all about clear shapes. On first glance, you notice the gleaming, black surfaces. If you look closer, you see that the outer frame of the casing and pedestal are transparent, as is the vertical tube holding the TV. It's a clever effect that makes the TV appear weightless and helps the unit integrate into every living room - it'll go just as well with angular, wooden cupboards as it will with cute bamboo sofas.

At just three centimeters deep, the Samsung is one of the most slender LCDs ever.

To make the most of its flat design, the corresponding wall bracket is just 15 millimeters deep - traditional mountings often leave a distance of ten or more centimeters between the TV and the wall.

The UE 40 B 7090 is an LCD TV. Samsung refers to it as an "LED TV", but this isn't entirely correct from a technical point of view: "LED" refers only to the light-emitting diodes (LEDs) that the liquid-crystal display uses as a backlight.

Traditional backlights are found, unsurprisingly, at the "back" of the screen. Here, instead, the LEDs sit around the edges of the Samsung's LCD panel - experts refer to it as "edge-lit", and it's this technology that allows the extra-flat construction.

While the pedestal resists attack by even the most sharply filed fingernails, the display's plastic frame is more sensitive. Here, fingernails leave behind hair-line scratches that the supplied cleaning cloth can't completely magic away. Fingerprints leave their mark but come off in no time.

For cleaning, use only clean, high-quality, microfiber cloths. Samsung supplies one with the TV, and you can restock from your supermarket or local optician. Moisten the cloth slightly - but really only slightly! This stops tiny dust particles from rubbing the surface like sandpaper.

Never - under any circumstances - use cleaning products that contain solvents or acid; these kinds of chemicals will attack the plastic's surface. Use water and a drop of dishwashing liquid to remove any grime that builds up over time.

Remote Control:

The remote control's manufacturing makes a good impression. The high-gloss surface conveys a sense of quality, but shows up fingerprints very clearly in certain lights. The design itself is smart and attractive - still, we think a flat, slender remote would have suited this ultra-flat TV better. Of course, you can't have everything...

Handling:

Pain is beauty: The power-dieter's motto also applies to ultra-slim TVs. This beautiful Samsung TV has chosen looks over connectivity - there's not even space for a conventional connections panel. There's no headphone output, and conventional analog audio and video connections connect via a special plug; at least the corresponding adapter cable comes supplied with the TV.

The required adaption from cinch to mini-jack is less than ideal: The plug pops out of the socket even with a light tug, and the bandwidth seems to be too low for progressive signals - the finest picture details are lost.

The network input (LAN) sits so close to the casing that you have to use some force to attach thicker plugs. This is a clear foul by the Samsung.

We were happy to see a decent number of the all-important HDMI connections. And because these sockets adorn the side of the unit, they're still easy to access if you wall-mount the TV.

The casing's neat assembly made a good impression. It's essential that you never open the casing yourself - leave it to authorized dealers ("service partners"). If you do open the unit, you lose your guarantee and, to cap it all, you risk getting a serious electric shock.

Apart from the surface's sensitivity to scratching, the build-quality raises no eyebrows. All materials feel high-grade, and the edges are smartly rounded - useful if there are accident-prone children around.