PERFORMANCE

Once I'd determined the optimal settings for all the various picture adjustments, I settled down to watch the Blu-ray Disc of Batman Begins. With plenty of dark scenes that show subtle gradations between gray and black, this movie let me really get a handle on the Samsung's ability to reproduce shadows. Right from the start, I noted that the letterbox bars were truly black; it was all but impossible to see where the screen met the frame in our light-controlled testing facility. And shadow details in dark images, such as those in the black ninja armor at the start of Chapter 11, showed greater definition than I have ever seen on an LCD.

The Samsung's color performance was also strong. For example, the opening scene at the prison camp in Batman Begins revealed a natural color palette on the TV that highlighted both the differing shades of blue in the prisoners' garb and the greenish-brown hues of the mud. I also caught an excellent high-def transfer of Airport on HDNet Movies, and was struck by the impressive array of early-'70s interior colors. (Goldenrod, anyone?) Again, the overall color palette looked totally natural, even if some of the matte shots of the cockpit seemed hideously dated.

The 120-Hz frame mode was especially effective at eliminating judder, though the differences between the low, medium, and high settings were hard to see clearly. The moving shot along the skyline at the start of Chapter 7 in Batman Begins looked amazingly sharp, without a hint of blurring, edge enhancement, or detail loss visible in the vertical and horizontal lines of the buildings.

Standard-def material from both DVD and cable TV was well served, with the Samsung's video processor doing a fine job of upscaling images. The DVD of Seabiscuit actually looked a bit sharper with the TV performing the upscaling instead of my Blu-ray player.

As with most LCDs, the 950's picture tends to wash out and lose contrast as you move well off-axis. But the problem is much less severe than it was with the Samsung LN-T5281F we used last year for our plasma-vs.-LCD face-off. This set does have the same kind of highly reflective glossy screen as that model, however.

BOTTOM LINE

While testing the LN55A950, I got the impression that Samsung wanted to prove once and for all that an LCD TV can effectively compete with plasma TVs. The 950 manages to overcome most of LCD technology's traditional weaknesses, even if Samsung has yet to perfect off-axis performance. And while undeniably expensive, it demonstrates that any traditional notions of what LCD can and can't deliver are now void.