Samsung UN46D6500 3D LED LCD HDTV Review

Audio Quality

The audio quality of the Samsung UN46D6500 is adequate. It's definitely better than the cheaper Samsungs we've reviewed this year, but nothing compared to what you'd get from a real surround sound system. The bass response – the trickiest thing for small, built-in speakers to produce – is present, but wan.

There are plenty of options in the menu that allow you to tweak the audio performance. The Samsung UN46D6500 has five preset modes, as well as a five-channel equalizer. You'll also find a surround sound emulator called SRS TruSurround HD that does a half-way decent job of faking it. There's also a dialog enhancing feature.

Menu Interface

The Samsung UN46D6500 has a new menu system, and possibly the best we've ever seen on a TV. There's nothing drastically different about the arrangement of information (thankfully). Everything is laid out as plainly as possible in a vertical list of menus, submenus, and settings. But there's real care taken in the legibility. Our favorite feature by far, though, is that every feature gets a little explanation immediately to the right. And when you hover over a submenu, all the feature contained within appear in a small box. You can see what's inside at a glance, without having to open it.

Well done, Samsung.

Instruction Manual

How did they manage this? Samsung designed one of the best menus we've ever seen and simultaneously produce the worst possible instruction manual. Labeled an "e-Manual," this hot mess tells you all the features in the TV, but nothing about the TV itself. There's no reference photos of the ports, no details about the remote control or the adapters, and no specs. It seems they wanted to save money by making a manual that only detailed the software, then cut and paste versions of it for each series, completely generic.