Samsung LN32A450

Ease of Use (6.0)
The Samsung LN32A450's menu system is relatively straightforward. Its a simple tabbed interface with five main sections listed on the left: Picture, Sound, Channel, Setup and Input. Sub-menus are kept to a minimum and the on-screen information and instructions are relatively clear. There are a couple of interface inconsistencies that did annoy us. For example many menu items have an arrow next to them. This arrow indicates that you can use the Right button the directional pad to either open a pop-up menu or open a whole new sub-menu. Related is the fact that Left on the directional pad will often take you to the previous level in a menu, but sometimes does not. These are relatively minor issues, however, and for the most part we found the Samsung LN32A450's menu system easy to use. Picture Controls (7.0)
The Samsung LN32A450 offers an impressive array of picture controls, more than we've seen on other entry-level HDTVs. In addition to the standard controls like Backlight, Contrast, Brightness, etc. In addition to these there are two sub-menus with more advanced features.

First up is the Detailed Settings menu where you can adjust Gamma, make adjustments to Color Space and White Balance and turn options like Dynamic Contrast and Edge Enhancement on or off.

The Picture Options menu offers a few additional options such as Color Tone, Digital NR, Film Mode and Blue Only Mode. The last is a useful feature for calibrating the HDTV.

Overall we were quite pleased with the array of options available on the Samsung LN32A450. They are far more comprehensive than those we found on the JVC LT-32P679.

Audio Controls (6.0)
The Sound menu on the Samsung LN32A450 is fairly straightforward. At the top of the menu you can choose between various presets including Standard, Music, Movie, Speech and Custom. The second options allows you to make custom adjustments to the equalizer, a nice feature we like to see. You can also turn the simulated surround sound feature on/off here as well as turn the TV speakers on/off. Other Controls (6.0)
In addition to the Picture and Audio controls the Samsung LN32A450's menu systems offers a Channel menu, where you can manage your cable or over the air channels. There's also a Setup menu where you can access various items like Language, Time and V-Chip options.

Finally there's an Input menu where you can re-label input names and manage Samsung's Anynet+ feature.

Manual (4.0)
The Samsung LN32A450's manual is a rather large magazine sized booklet that incorporates both the English and Spanish instructions. There's a good table of contents, but there's no index. We found the instructions relatively clear, but the text is small, even the header text, and the screen shots are also small. This may be a problem for those with poor eyesight. We've seen much better manuals from manufacturers like Vizio.