After nearly four years with my Sony 34 inch HDTV Tube TV set, I finally decided an upgrade was in store.. but what would I upgrade to? HDTV sets have come such a long way over the last few years with prices dropping substantially and displays with 1080p resolutions becoming much more prominent. After some careful research, I decided to purchase the Samsung LN-S4695D 46 inch 1080p LCD display and wow.. I was floored. I was honestly hesitant in purchasing a new LCD or plasma display – especially after seeing prices plummet for the last year or so. However since we decided to move to a new place a few months back, I thought.. well.. why not? So here I am, reviewing the Samsung LN-S4695D display. Now I’ll be honest with you – I’m not a pro at reviewing television sets at all nor do I have all the cool color equipment to see what color accuracy is like on this display. What you’ll see in this review are the specs to the display, my take on what “I’ve” seen thus far, and my final commentary. If you want a more detailed review, I’m sure you’ll be able to find one online somewhere. So let’s have at it!

Specifications

Let’s quickly go over the specifications of the LN-S4695D. Here’s the rundown:

• 46 inch 16:9 widescreen display
• 1920 x 1080 resolution
• 6000:1 contrast ratio
• S-PVA panel
• 10 bit processor with 12.8 billion colors
• SRS TruSurround XT sound
• 178 degree horizontal and vertical viewing angle
• Samsung Digital Natural Image engine
• CCFL Cold Cathode Fluorescent Lamp (92% NTSC color gamut)
• Game mode enhances dark areas, sharpens picture, speeds up image processing response and enhances sounds for games
• Integrated ATSC digital tuner for over-the-air (OTA) HD signals
• 8 ms response time
• Swivel stand
• Picture in Picture support
• On/off clock timer
• V-Chip system for parental control of television content
• Speaker system on the bottom
• 10W x 2 watts per channel

Here are the measurements of the LN-S4695D display:

• 44.5 x 31 x 12.8 inches with the stand in place
• 44.4 x 28.8 x 4.2 inches without the stand

The LN-S4695D weighs 77.2 lbs with the stand in place. When moving this display – make sure you have at least two people carrying the display. While 75+ lbs doesn’t seem much, the size of the display makes it a bit overwhelming to handle for a single person.

Packaging pictures

The LN-S4695D comes with the following in the packaging:

• Remote control and 2 AAA batteries
• Power cord
• Cleaning cloth
• Cover for the bottom
• Instruction manual
• Warranty card

Input/Output ports

Here is a summary of ports on the back of the display

• 2 – Component video/audio inputs
• 2 – HDMI ports
• 1 – S-Video/Composite video/audio input
• 1 – VGA input for PC
• 1 – Composite video/audio output
• Two antenna connections – one for over the air and one for cable

The LN-S4695D also has a set of side panel jacks which includes the following:

• S-Video/Composite video/audio input
• Headphone jack for private listening

Here’s a picture of the side panel jacks which are located on the left hand side of the display.

Quick Physical Overview

Let’s do a quick run around the television set. Here’s the front of the set:

The surrounding chassis utilizes a smooth gloss finish which I honestly wasn’t sure about initially. I was worried about the possibility of having too much glare from external light sources such as sunlight coming through the window or light sources in front of the display. However, strangely enough, I wasn’t at all distracted by any glare that might occur. If I look hard enough, I might still get annoyed by some glare that occurs here and there but overall, it wasn’t anywhere near as bad as I thought it would be. What can be annoying with the gloss finish is the ease in which fingerprints and minor scuffs can get onto the chassis. Make sure to use the included cloth to wipe down the display – you don’t want to scratch this beautiful chassis!

Below the screen is the Samsung logo and the power button. When the display is off, the power button shines a cool blue LED light. When you turn on the display, the blue LED light turns off.

Note – OK.. maybe I’m a bit of an old schooler or what not but I’m not a fan of the LED light coming on when the device is supposed to be off. Granted this might indicate the display is in a sleep mode but still.. turn it off! Ok. that’s a pet peeve.

The speaker system is hidden below the front gloss finish. Nice touch designed for those who don’t like television sets that show an unsightly speaker system.

The left side of the display has the side panel jacks – useful for external devices like camcorders and digital cameras.

The right side has controls for basic television settings. Here are the buttons top down.

• Input source selector – toggle between the different video sources
• Menu button to bring up the on screen display
• Volume control
• Channel control

The Samsung LN-S4695D comes with a adequate remote control which is also capable of controlling other devices. If you have a simple home theater system, the included remote might be good enough for your needs (I chose to work with the Logitech 890 instead).

Setting Up

The one thing I wasn’t looking forward to with an LCD display was the notion of having to set up the picture correctly. Luckily the Samsung LN-S4695D was extremely easy to set up. In fact the default picture and color settings on the display were pretty much on target straight out of the box. I did spend a few minutes tuning some settings but not anywhere near as long as I would have feared.

When you first turn on the LN-S4695D, you’ll go through what Samsung calls a “Plug & Play” setup. The P&P setup allows you to setup the menu language, channel settings, and the display time.

I set up the LN-S4695D in two different scenarios. The first set up occurred before we moved to our new home so I briefly hooked it up directly to my Xbox 360 and used the built in speakers. The second set up occurred after we moved so the display was connected to our new Onkyo HDMI switching receiver (which I will try and review later on).

Setup 1:

This was the most straight forward setup. The components to this setup included the Samsung LN-S4695D and an Xbox 360 console. I connected the console to the display using a VGA cable (which I had to purchase separately since it doesn’t come with the Xbox 360). Why use a VGA cable? Well before the Xbox 360 Elite came out, the only way you could get 1080p output from the 360 was via a VGA cable. The VGA cable also comes with left/right audio stereo connectors which I simply plugged into the rear of the display.

Once connected, I fired up both the display and the console and then tried out the Xbox 360 HD DVD player. Wow.. the picture quality was amazing!! The sound output from the LN-S4695D wasn’t too shabby either!

Setup 2:

Setup two is the setup I use today. Most of my video sources are connected to my new Onkyo HDMI switching receiver (model TX-SR804B) which then feeds video the LN-S4695D via a single HDMI connection to the display. The Xbox 360 is also connected directly to the display via the VGA cable (as I mentioned in setup 1). In this setup, I have one spare HDMI input connector on the LN-S4695D which I will eventually use for either the new Xbox 360 Elite (if I get one) or a standalone Blu-ray or HD DVD player. Here’s a breakdown of the components connected to my Samsung LN-S4695D.

Components connected to my Onkyo TX-SR804B

• Motorola DVR cable box (via HDMI)
• Self built Windows Media Center (via DVI->HDMI connector for video and coaxial for audio)
• Nintendo Wii (via Component for video and stereo for audio)
• Apple TV (only optical audio)
• Xbox 360 (only optical audio)

Components connected to LN-S4695D

• Onkyo TX-SR804B (via HDMI)
• Xbox 360 Console (via VGA)
• Apple TV (via Component only)

This setup ONLY works because I have the Logitech Harmony 890 remote control which allows me to control all of the devices using macro driven activities. The 890 turns on all of the relevant components and switches to the proper inputs depending upon the task at hand – but more on this in a later review.

Menus

Once the LN-S4695D is up and running, you can modify settings by pressing the “Menu” button on the display. I have to admit, I’m fairly impressed with the menu display on the LN-S4695D. You get colorful icons and a logically laid out infrastructure which is overlaid on top of the current picture. Here are the following options available when Menu is pressed:

Input

The input menu will display what the current input source is. You can also edit the different input source names if you’re not happy with the default names.

Picture

If you want to modify picture settings, this is the place you’ll be heading off to. From here you can select different modes (including Dynamic Standard, Movie, and Custom). Within each mode, you can go ahead and modify settings such as Contrast, Brightness, Sharpness, Color, Tint, and Color Tone. I’m currently running the display in Movie mode with some minor modifications.

Sound

The sound menu as you would imagine allows you to modify the sound settings for the LN-S4695D. I currently have the sound output disabled on the LN-S4695D since I use a 5.1 speaker system from Axiom Audio. However when the built in sound is enabled, you can control the integrated SRS TruSurround XT technology (which simulates surround sound using the integrated speakers). All told, the sound output isn’t too bad from the LN-S4695D but you won’t get the “oooohs” and “ahhhs” that you’d normally get from a full fledged 5.1/6.1/7.1 surround sound system.

Channel

The Channel menu item allows you to program the channel lineup on the LN-S4695D. Here you can utilize the integrated tuners found on the LN-S4695D by connecting an OTA HDTV antenna or connecting your cable line to the display directly. I’m not utilizing this feature currently.

Setup

The Setup menu controls various display settings such as the display language, clock, timer, game mode (for those times you’re playing on the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3), V-Chip, Caption, Menu Transparency, Blue Screen, Color Weakness, PC, Blue Eye, Energy Saving, Function Help

PIP

The Picture in Picture menu option allows you to view a secondary video source on the display. This menu allows you to specify the size and position of the secondary video. The secondary video can come from either the antenna connection or a cable connection. You then select the channel that you’ll want displayed.

Menu Map

The final menu option allows you to find your menu options faster by display a text only view of the entire menu infrastructure.

Usage

As I mentioned in the beginning, I’m not exactly a pro at reviewing television sets but I’ll do my best here! I’ll break things down into the pros and cons of the display.

Pros:

I still remember my first experience in using the LN-S4695D. I turned on the Xbox 360 and saw the 360 opening splash screen and let me just tell you – I was WOW’d by the immense picture. Now you have to understand something – I’m coming from a 34 inch display and moving up to a 46 inch display so the transition was pretty large for me. Not only was I wow’d by the picture size but richness in color and detail was immediately apparent when navigating through the menus.

Once all of my components were connected, I had an immediate appreciation for the overall quality of the Samsung LN-S4695D. First off – HD video signals look wonderful on the display. Whether they’re 720p/1080i signals or pure 1080p signals from my HD DVD player, the quality and resolution was top notch. Colors were accurate reproduced on the LN-S4695D. Heck even the dark colors were surprisingly good. What really surprised me was how good the display looked in all sorts of lighting conditions – from brightly sunlit rooms to dark environments, the display was easy on the eyes. If you turn on energy savings, you can allow the display to lower the overall brightness to conserve power.

Here are some snapshots of Batman Begins on HD DVD:

But let’s go back to the colors for a second. I’ve had a Sony Direct View Tube TV for several years now and I’ve always been impressed with it’s ability to reproduce colors on HD signals. However, the LN-S4695D REALLY impressed me with it’s color reproduction. I was reminded of this recently when I was watching the Discovery Channel’s Planet Earth series. If you haven’t seen the series, you HAVE to watch it on HD – watch it in HD DVD too – don’t bother with DVD if you have an HD DVD player.

But what about standard definition signals you ask? Let me tell ya – you won’t be disappointed with the way the LN-S4695D handles SD video input. If you’re sitting up close, you might notice pixelation from the lower resolution of the signal but if you’re sitting at a normal distance back from the display, then the picture quality is more than acceptable. Of course HD video sources are the way to good but it’s good to know that the Samsung LN-S4695D can handle SD signals well too.

Cons:

I’ll be honest – I had a hard time coming up with a list of cons for the LN-S4695D. The most obvious con would be the limited number of HDMI inputs on the LN-S4695D. There are only two HDMI inputs on this display which is a bit limited with many more devices supporting HDMI output. (note though – the latest generation of 1080p LCD displays from Samsung include three connectors).

As I mentioned earlier, the chassis utilizes a high gloss finish which does seem to scratch or blemish fairly easily. Keep that in mind when you’re moving the display around or if you’re wiping the chassis with a cloth (it’s best to use the included cloth).

While I didn’t really have a problem with black color levels on the LN-S4695D, it’s not necessarily perfect as I’ve seen slightly better black reproduction on higher end plasma displays. Keep in mind though – it’s only slightly better!

Finally, keep in mind that the display includes integrated sound below the display. Sound output is OK but you’ll quickly find yourself wanting a real surround sound system with a display like this.

Summary

I love this display. I absolutely love this display. My wife could tell you how glued I was to the television set after the system was all setup. Connect an HD source to the display,sit back, and watch.. and prepare to be amazed. It’s hard to really knock this display folks. It has 1080p resolutions, supports a wide variety of connectors, accurately reproduces colors, and even makes standard definition video signals look good.

There is one thing to keep in mind – this isn’t the top of the line display from Samsung anymore. They recently refreshed their LCD and plasma lineup which also means the LN-S4695D can be found for quite a good deal. You can easily get the LN-S4695D for around $2200 or less now. That’s a great deal for a 46 inch 1080p display if you ask me.

Let’s summarize the pros and cons here:

Pros:

• Beautiful design
• Integrated ATSC tuner
• Beautiful colors, brightness, and picture quality
• Easy to setup
• Solid menu design

Cons:

• Black color reproduction could be a tad bit better but this is a common problem on LCDs
• Only 2 HDMI ports

Finally, I thought I’d throw in a little note about where I got the TV from. After careful research, I purchased the Samsung LN-S4695D from OneCall.com. Why?

• Great competitive price
• Great shipping
• Great customer service

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