Samsung UN55ES6500F

The Samsung UN46ES6500F ($1,729.99 list) is a smart-looking 46-inch HDTV with 3D capabilities, loads of interactive web services, and built-in Wi-Fi. It delivers very accurate colors and a crisp, clean HD picture, but the LED backlit panel could be brighter. You won't get dark inky blacks with this model either, and it only has three HDMI ports. However, it does offers some neat features, including two sets of active shutter 3D glasses and Samsung's Smart Hub menu system that makes it easy to launch apps, play multimedia files and movies, surf the web, and connect to other devices.

Style-wise, the UN46ES6500F is easy on the eyes. The panel, which actually measures 45.9 inches, is framed by an ultra-slim (0.5-inch) matte black bezel and sits in a slender 1.25 inch cabinet (the bottom juts out to 1.9 inches to accommodate the down-firing speakers). The bezels are decorated with beveled clear trim, giving the set a pleasing angular look. A shiny Samsung badge protrudes downward from the center of the bottom bezel. The sturdy four-legged stand is piano black and can swivel smoothly.

Two USB ports and one HDMI port are vertically positioned at the rear of the cabinet and facing right. Two additional HDMI ports and one more USB port are flush mounted along with digital audio in and out connections, an optical audio output, shared component and composite AV jacks, a TV cable/antenna jack, a LAN port, and an EX-Link (serial) port. While most HDTVs this size offer four HDMI ports, the UN46ES6500F only gives you three, which can be a problem if you have a set top box, a Blu-ray player, and more than one gaming console.

There are no function buttons on the UN46ES6500F. Instead, there's a small joystick control mounted on the lower right side of the back panel that lets you access and navigate the various menu pages. It's easier to use the remote to adjust settings and launch apps. The 9-inch wand is backlit and has all the usual player, volume, and channel controls. The number buttons are a tad small and the backlighting is slightly dim, but the remote is lightweight and fits comfortably in the hand. In the center of the remote is a colorful Smart Hub key.

Samsung's Smart Hub provides a single point of access for launching Web apps, streaming content from the Web and compatible DLNA devices over an Ethernet connection or the UN46ES6500F's built-in Wi-Fi, playing movies, and accessing USB based content. The icon-driven menu is colorful and easy to navigate. It includes the cloud-based Family Story app, which lets families share photos and videos and schedule events, an interactive Fitness app for body sculpting, fat burning, and weight monitoring, and a Kids portal featuring several Canimals episodes, WordWorld, and other kid oriented apps.

The UN46ES6500F provides plenty of picture settings to help you get the best possible picture for your lighting environment. There are four picture modes (Standard, Dynamic, Movie, and Natural) with optimized settings for their respective function. Movie mode offers the best all-around picture, especially if you're in a dimly lit room. You get all the basic settings, including backlight, brightness, contrast, sharpness, color, and tint controls, as well as a handful of advanced settings such as 10-point white balance, gamma, flesh tone, black tone, and dynamic contrast ratio. Picture options include AutoMotion Plus with judder and blur reduction for eliminating motion artifacts, film mode (for content shot at 24 fps), and LED Motion Plus, which uses backlight strobe to help reduce motion blur.