Samsung LN32A450 LCD HDTV Review - Performance: Viewing Effects

The Samsung LN32A450's viewing angle was not very impressive, but we did like that major differences did not occur until you got out to ten degrees or so. The HDTV has a slightly reflective display, but it should not be a major issue unless you're shining a light right at it.

Viewing Angle (4.58)
We measured the Samsung LN32A450's viewing angle at 19.3 degrees from center, for a total viewing angle of 38.6 degrees. What we look for in our viewing angle test is the angle at which the contrast ratio falls below 50%. The Samsung LN32A450's performance in this test was unimpressive, worse than the JVC LT-32P679's 23.37 degree viewing angle and the Samsung LN46A750's very impressive viewing angle of 55 degrees. Below you can see the graph of the contrast ratio versus the viewing angle, with the red line indicating the point at which the contrast ratio falls below 50%

One interesting thing to note is that despite the rather poor overall viewing angle the Samsung LN32A450 did a very good job of holding the contrast ratio steady for the first five or ten degrees. This can be seen in the plateau at the top of the viewing angle graph. This plateau means that you will get a very good viewing experience from a decent range of angles directly in front of the HDTV. Another point in the Samsung LN32A450's favor is that colors held up very well across the range of viewing angles. So despite the rather poor overall viewing angle of the Samsung LN32A450 it did have some positive points. Basically if you're just watching the HDTV from a couch directly in front of the television you should be fine whether you sit in the middle, left or right side of the couch.

Reflectance (5.5)
The Samsung LN32A450's is reflective, you can easily make out items in the room reflected in it, especially when the screen is dark. That said it's not as bad as what we saw from the JVC LT-32P679. For example with the latter we were able to clearly make out individual LED lights when we shone an array of LED lights at the screen and there was almost no diffusion of the light. On the Samsung LN32A450 we were also able to make out individual lights, but the overall light was better diffused. More importantly the Samsung LN32A450 did a much better job with light coming in at angles, which is where most of the light in a room will likely be. Basically unless you're going to place a high powered light directly in front of the Samsung LN32A450 you probably won't notice too many problems except in very dark scenes.

Video Processing (1.0)
As with most HDTVs the Samsung LN32A450 offers several different video processing options that ostensibly help improve the picture. Most of the time these processing features are not very useful, and we found that this was the case with the Samsung LN32A450 as well. We did see some minor differences with Dynamic Contrast and Black Adjust, but we recommend leaving these options off and use proper calibrated settings instead.