The Samsung LN32A450 is a 32-inch HDTV that’s priced as low as $600, making it a good choice for those looking to get into the HDTV game on a budget. The Samsung LN32A450 has a simple design with a glossy bezel that presents an attractive facade.

As a budget HDTV  runs at  720p resolution (1366 x 768 pixels); significantly lower than more expensive 1080p HDTVs. It also lacks some of the higher-end features found on more expensive models, such as the connectivity features like a memory card reader and USB port. It does have a good selection of more standard ports, however, including 3 HDMI inputs and a digital audio output.

The Samsung LN32A450’s remote is well rounded, fits comfortably in your hand and has good balance. The menu system is relatively simple, but we did find some small inconsistencies in the navigation, such as multiple methods for moving amongst menus that don’t always work. We were pleased with the audio quality from the Samsung LN32A450’s built-in stereo speakers, although if you want surround sound you should shell out for a real surround sound speaker setup. The built-in simulated surround sound was not impressive.

Performance (Read the full lab performance results at Televisioninfo.com)

We were quite happy with the Samsung LN32A450’s black and white performance. Blacks are relatively deep for an LCD HDTV, and the whites were plenty bright. We were also very happy about how well the blacks and whites held up, in particular we noted that the whites were very stable; there was very little color shift as the whites became paler, which we do often see happening on HDTVs.

We were also happy with the Samsung LN32A450’s color performance, with Red, Greens and Blues having smooth curves that mean that there is little or no color banding or the peaking that causes you to lose detail with bright colors. We did find that the color gamut was a bit inaccurate, however, with particular inaccuracies in the reds and blues, which may make some bright colors look slightly different than the way the director intended.

One place where the Samsung LN32A450’s performance was not impressive was with motion. We noticed some significant blurring and ghosting in our tests, although we didn’t notice any major problems with action sequences in actual movies problems might crop up depending on what you’re actually watching. We also found the viewing angle to be sub par. We test viewing angle slightly differently than the manufacturers, but we found that the contrast ratio dropped to fifty percent of maximum at about 39 degrees; significantly less than many other TVs.

Conclusion

Despite some drawbacks we found the Samsung LN32A450 provided very good performance for a budget HDTV. These drawbacks include problems with fast motion on the display and a weak viewing angle; motion will not look as good as a bigger more expensive set, and it won’t work well for large groups of people. For someone who is looking for a budget HDTV, however, these drawbacks are off-set by the very good blacks and whites and solid color performance. The truth is you’re going to have to compromise with a $600 HDTV, and the Samsung LN32A450 makes fewer compromises than other similarly priced televisions we’ve seen. If you’ve got a relatively small budget for an HDTV the Samsung LN32A450 is a solid choice.