Being a part of the 2010 series, the C6000 series LED telly is one of the budget TVs from Samsung. With this series the manufacturer is looking to bring in some touch of premium style into the mid rage television market. It also proves that it has more to it than just a pretty face packing in LED edge lights, DLNA, 100/120 Hz along with some very interesting media streaming capabilities. Keep reading to discover more about this stunning LED television series.
Design:
Yet another beauty from Samsung:
Samsung has been blessed with something like what Midas was blessed with when it comes to designing stunning looking models, and the C6000 is not an exception and stresses the fact that the manufacturer has still got what it takes. It has a piano black finishing with some really translucent edge around its frame. It is this classy inch wide black frame with translucent trim that sets this model apart aesthetically from the crowd. There are some luxurious touch sensitive controls that are hidden below the fascia of the chassis which look every bit classy, thanks to the base’s brushed aluminium effect pedestal finishing that gives a completion to this contemporary look. The C6000 has models of screen sizes 32”, 37”, 40”, 46” and 55”.
Remote Control:
The remote control is not the most logically laid out but at least it feels nice and there’s no annoying lag between pressing a button and the execution of a command.
Slots and connectivity:
Samsung has not chosen to be skimpy with the connectivity options of the C6000 series and just a glance around its back will make you realise how well it has been specified. You will find four of the all important HDMI ports, that is mounted in a row in the left hand side of the display. It also offers a set of component inputs, a mini RGB input to be used with the SCART adaptor that comes with the package and a VGA connector too. You have the option of feeding audio from the on-board Freeview HD tuner to an external audio system using the optical digital optical audio port. For the sake of media playback, Samsung has equipped the C6000 with a couple of USB ports, an Ethernet socket and a headphone jack too, which is often regarded as a bit of luxury now a days.
Set up and Interface:
Setting up of the C6000 LED Television is no big deal and is pretty straightforward. It is a breeze to tune in all of the channels including the high definition services from BBC, ITV and Channel 4 too. The reception is sound and rest assured that you will not experience any signal drop outs. The Electronic Programme Guide of Samsung is one of the best in the market and it obviously knocks spots off Panasonic. It is all bright, breezy and colourful and we love the video thumbnail that is displayed in the top left corner. This layout displays quite a decent amount of programming information at once and makes it a breeze to browse between different programmes and channels.
The menu system of the television too looks very welcoming too, complemented by its colourful icons, although some of the menus do run quite deep. And, as a result, it can take quite a few clicks to get to the more deep advanced picture settings.
Features:
The UE-C6000 range of 2D Full HD LED Panels is not the most affordable model in the market right now. You will get a 32” model of the UE C6000 model for around 800 pounds, and for such money, you can expect more than just a pretty frame, and as with any work of art, it is what is going on inside that really counts. And on that note, Samsung has tried its best to squeeze quite a substantial amount of cutting edge functionality on to the C6000. The main feature of course, is the Freeview HD tuner, closely followed by a wide range of picture and sound enhancement technologies along with some very handy multimedia capabilities. This list stops short of Samsung’s famous Internet TV portal that can be found on the step up series of C6600. Except for Internet and 3D capabilities, the C6000 LED TV is one of the highly specified HD TVs in the consumer market.
Networking:
You will not find it too hard to get the networking features up and running and in case you opt the standard DHCP, all of it is configured automatically. And as soon as the networking system has been set up, you will be able to use the TV’s built in media streaming facilities in order to grab music, images or videos from a system or network attached storage drive. Along with the DivX and Xvid formats, the C6000 also seems to support the MKV files at resolutions of up to 1080p, which contributes superb quality video streaming.
Internet Features: NA
One particular feature in which the C6000 really lets you down big time, though, is when it comes to the Internet widgets. In fact, it turns out this telly does not support any sort of Internet services, whatsoever, in spite of having a dedicated Internet button on the remote control. And, this is absolutely disappointing for a LED TV in this price range. If you wish for the Internet features, you might have to shell out more cash for the Samsung C6600. However, the absence of Internet TV is not a cause of concern as it is not everybody’s cup of tea and in most cases these services are just a waste of space and much useful and better features can be found on the Blu-ray decks like Sony’s BDP-S370, rather than looking for them in TV sets.
Edge LEDs:
As you can expect at this price point, the TV has a 1080p panel which is illuminated through the edge mounted LED lights. Like most LED TVs in the current market, the C6000 offers some exceptionally vivid colours that are so in your face that they will end up practically punching out your eyeballs. The black levels are outstandingly deep for an LCD screen. Having said that, the C6000 tends to add too much of egg to the pudding a little bit, with the reds resulting in slightly orange skin tones. Although black levels are very deep, the C6000 sometimes seems to struggle to tease out shadow detail in darker scenes.
Picture enhancing options:
We were quite surprised to discover that, under the bonnet picture calibration is the name of the game with more picture tweaks than there are barrels of oil in the Gulf of Mexico. The basic picture options that you get comprise modes such as, Dynamic, which is the eye smearing bright default showroom setting, Standard, Natural mode that reduces strain to your eyes and the Movie mode for watching in a dark room. And of course, you also get the standard backlight, contrast, brightness, sharpness, colour, and tint controls along with some eco friendly solutions that offer the image with different levels of brightness to match with your environmental disposition.
The logo on the cover reads “Imagine The Possibilities”, and we think that this should actually be taken as a warning to the level of complexity that can be achieved when you lose yourself in the jungle of controls at your disposal. Inside the Advanced settings menu, you will be able to find three kinds of black level adjustment like black tone, dynamic contrast and shadow detail. Here itself, the colours can be altered in myriad ways through menus for Gamma, RGB Only mode, colour space, white balance, flesh tone, and 10 point white balance. Finally, you will also find ON and OFF controls for xvYCC, edge enhancement and LED Motion Plus. The latter feature is quite essential for removal of judder and is also often the cause of haloing on the LED displays. As if that is not satisfying, you also have the Picture Options that allows you to adjust the colour tone, picture size, digital noise filter, MPEG noise filter, HDMI black level, film mode and 100Hz Motion Plus. There are even two so-called Expert patterns, one black and white, one colour, to help you see the results of making each adjustment.
Audio wise, the UE C6000 does not seem to be any better equipped to deliver a decent listening experience than any other thin TV with the ubiquitous 2 x 10W speakers, however it is quite pleasing to see SRS TheaterSound is on board. This offers standard, music, movie, clear voice and amplifies modes, plus there is also an equaliser and SRS TruDialog and TruSurround HD virtual 5.1 over headphones. You can simply plug in a USB flash drive or hard drive to access multi-media files or connect to a home network by using a CAT5 cable or invest in an optional wireless link.
No 3D: Not Yet
While it is true that 3D capability is highly likely to become a standard feature on the large screen tellys, it is quite unlikely to feature on sub 37 inch models for longer than you anticipate as the 200Hz processing requirements cannot be met and however, an immersive 3D experience will be rather lost in the smaller displays anyway. So, no 3D, no big deal.
Performance:
Edge-lit LED screens need an awful lot of processing to deliver images that can compete with the best CCFL-lit LCD and plasmas and Samsung has certainly got a lot of things right.
Video Performance:
HD:
The Samsung UE C6000 is capable of coping up with pretty much any type of picture source from avi and mkv files to 1080/24p Blu-ray. The best part about the C6000 is that, the high definition pictures look razor sharp regardless of whether they are being delivered through the Freeview HD tuner or a Blu-ray disc. The screen does a great job with the HD Sources and the built-in Freeview HD tuner serves some incredible pictures so that the day time shows like the Ellen sparkles with real astounding detail and clarity. Also quite impressive, although not unexpectedly, are the excellent black levels this screen is capable of throwing up. The ink black darkness that the C6000 produces is simply not achievable on an ordinary LED television. The Blu-ray reproduction is on par with the broadcast HD with generally excellent pictures.
SD:
The standard definition performance of the Samsung C6000 is also quite impressive, it does a stellar job of tarting up some of the low quality Freeview channels. The 100Hz motion processing keeps a check on most judder and motion artefacts, but it is actually best left turned off while watching movies, as it tends to make films look rather flat. Using the TV’s basic standard picture mode, the standard def broadcasts and DVDs are fed with as much detail and definition as could be expected but they do sometimes suffer with, shimmering around fast moving figures, which can be really distracting. Yet another glitch is that, despite the innumerable picture tweaks available the colour palette cannot deliver really accurate reds like a good plasma screen can. Another problem of edge-lit screens is that detail is lost in shadowy scenes and it is particularly bad here so that dark objects appear as an amorphous mass. Messing around with the settings does not seem to resolve the problem.
It is pleasing to report that the screen is no slouch when running a JPEG slideshow and is adept at playing multi-media files although AVCHD is not supported. Viewing angles are also excellent with no drop-off in brightness as you move to the side of the screen.
Audio Performance:
With such a slimline chassis of only 30mm thick, and speakers rated at a lowly 10W each, we were actually not expecting the Samsung UE C6000 to produce much in the way of sonic fireworks. Not of course anything like as clear or full as using a separate system but certainly perfectly acceptable for everyday use and superior to many larger screens. The various SRS modes like music, movie, clear voice and TruDialog, and Equalizer settings are well worth experimenting with to find the best soundfield for whatever genre you are listening too. Its audio performance is not half bad, though. The speakers are loud enough to fill a mid-size lounge and there are some very usable effects on-board. ‘Clear Voice’ helps dialogue stand out from background sound and the ‘SRS TheaterSound’ mode does a great decent job of spreading out the stereo image to make audio from the set seem more expansive.
Warranty:
Samsung offers its C6000 (32?, 37?, 40?, 46?, 55?) LED TVs, one year warranty for parts and labour.
Verdict:
The Samsung series C6000 is obviously, a very attractive-looking TV; something like a design statement. Putting the Minor glitches aside, it is quite capable of delivering crispy and dynamic pictures from both standard definition and high definition sources. The blacklevels and colours are excellent too. The standard definition pictures are generally good, especially the higher bandwidth channels on the Freeview tuner and the sound reproduction too is quite decent for an LED TV. The connectivity is quite generous, covering all your AV needs.
However, on the cons side it has the lack of detail in the very dark areas and 100Hz artefacts, even though the latter is not profoundly noticeable on larger displays. Considering the relatively small amount of screen real estate on offer and the lack of Internet features, however, we cannot help feeling its price is slightly on the high end. If you are in search for some LCD or Plasma alternatives, you can look for the really impressive 40” Sony KDL-40EX503 and Panasonic’s TX-P42G20. Yet another option is Panasonic’s TX-L32D28BP which is slightly pricier, but it brings in VieraCast Internet TV to the party.
Samsung UE-C6000 (32?, 37?, 40?, 46?, 55?) LED TV – Technical Specifications
For 32” model: 799 x 521 x 30 mmSRS TruSurround HD & Dolby Digital plus4 x HDMI2 x USB
1 x Digital Audio (Optical)
1 x PC input (D-sub)
1 x PC Audio Input (Mini Jack)
DVI Audio Input: Common Use for PC Audio Input
1 x Component (Y/Pb/Pr)
1 x composite (AV)
1 x RF input
CI Slot
1 x mini ScartPower Cable
Vesa Wall Mount
Slim Gender Cable Scart / Component / AV IN
Instruction Book
Batteries
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