Samsung UN40F6300 Review (UN40F6300AF)

Weaknesses

Neutral

The UN40F6300 LED TV is the second smallest of the series. The main differences between this one and the 40 inch entry from the F6400 series is the lack of active 3D playback and the micro dimming led lighting. Losing two those features alone drops the price by about $100. It is equipped with the full Smart Hub that has been redesigned to be a little more intuitive and user friendly. As far as loaded 40 inch TVs go, this is going to be one of the best values for what you get. Most of the competition this TV will see comes from LG's 42LA6200 and Panasonic's TC-L42E60.

The F6300 gives a good sense of depth in this shot, even without 3D like the F6400 has. The contrast in this shot leads to some elements being washed out in the background

Picture Quality Rating: 9/10

The picture quality on the UN40F6300 will be very similar to the F6400 except for the micro dimming. It's missing that extra boost in conrtast and black levels, but they are still a strong point regardless. Since it is an LED TV, keeping the backlight in control is one of the most important parts of getting the best picture quality. Backlight controls are located in the picture settings menu. Side viewing angles are somewhat compromised by degrading contrast and fading colors from extreme side angles. This is inherently a problem with LED backlighting. Keeping the backlight reasonable also helps this. However, the black bars appearing when watching 16:9 content appear rich and inky. The 40F6300 is loaded with tons of extra picture adjustment options, most of which we recommend just leaving off. This TV also features a full 10-point white balance adjustment option out of the box that makes getting colors accurate a breeze.

Auto Motion Plus

We recommend no matter what picture mode you watch, that you go into this setting in the Advanced Picture menu, tune the feature to Custom then turn the Blur Reduction to 10, and the Judder Reduction to 0. Or you can just set it to off. The judder reduction part of this feature does too much to distort the picture including eliminating too much natural background blur, actually accentuating judder/jerky motion effects when the camera pans slowly, and creating motion artifacts.

This shot is a good example for color rendition on the F6300. Colors are bright without being over saturated. Also a fair amount of detail comes through in light and dark areas, although we have seen better performance out of LCD/LED TVs

Gaming - Very Responsive Game Mode

Getting to the Game Mode
Go to the Systems menu near the bottom of the main menu. Scroll down to the General settings and open that menu. Game Mode is located here. It seems like a pain to dig into the menus like this to turn it on or off.

Okami HD really brought out the colors of the 40F6300. Game mode is perfect for an action game like this one

Turning on the Game Mode is the best way to go for gaming on the UN40F6400. The picture mode in Game Mode has its own settings, and initially look pretty bad. Standard is the only available picture mode while Game Mode is on. Take the time to turn the sharpness down to 10 or less, the Color Space to Auto, Dynamic Contrast to Off, Color Tone to Warm1, and the Screen Size to Screen Fit. Adjust the Backlight and Brightness to your personal preference. This will provide a decent picture quality as well as a cut down on input lag. This made Okami HD and Crysis for the PS3 look fantastic and the input lag was negligible at a decent 30ms.

This input lag test shows how important the game mode is for reducing input lag on this LED TV. First person shooters are going to see some of the best results of this low input lag

Features Rating: 8.6/10

Smart Hub with Dual Core Processor

The Smart Hub has received a redesign this year, and we see it as a positive thing. Samsung has really streamlined the design and navigation. These are two aspects that have always seemed a little clunky in smart TV suites across the board. Samsung has made 5 main pages that are home to all of the different reasons for accessing smart TV in general. The Social page hosts all of the facebook and twitter feeds you want. The Apps page is where all the apps like Netflix, the web browser, and tons of games will find their home. The On TV page is basically a pretty TV guide that shows what is on TV now and what will be soon. The Movies & TV Shows gathers all the online digital content you'll ever need for rent or purchase. The Photo & Video page is last, this is where all of your personal content can be found connected through a USB device or through the network. This is a great way to organize the entire thing in a meaningful way.

See our full article about Samsung's Smart TV 2013 here.

The 40F6300 is a multitasker's delight with a dual core processor. This makes viewing content and searching around the Smart Hub speedy, an area of criticism in the previous model ES6100. The F6300 missed out even faster quad-core processors seen in models higher up in the lineup.

Wifi and Web Browser Included

The Web Browser on the 40F6300 defaults to a Bing search bar. The browser is slow to use with the 5-way controller on the remote but loads content quickly and the Wifi connectivity is also improved over last years model.

Design and Appearance

Here you see the frame that measures in at half an inch as well as the qudrapod stand design that is familiar to Samsung's mid level TVs

The UN40F6300 is not going to win best-looking but it's attractive nonetheless with a bit more understated design than the top end almost frame less LED TVs. The thin charcoal black half inch framing bezel has an acrylic clear edge and the panel is around 2 inches in depth. Some may not care for the “quadrapod” 4-legged stand, but it's not bad and at least its not chrome for this model. It does conveniently swivel 15 to 20 degrees.

Value - Bang for the Buck Rating: 8/10

The UN40F6300 40” LED is attractively priced at around $799. By eliminating 3D, micro dimming and the slick touch-pad remote, and sticking with some of the features that matter most, this is a tough model to beat in the mid-level LED TV category. Competition is from the LG 42LA6200, and the Panasonic TC-L42E60. There is really not much quality out there in the 40 inch size range so snap this one up. It has the right feature set for this size TV.

Overall Rating: 8.5/10