Today in the BFR labs we have a brand new display from Samsung's latest 81 series of LCD HDTV's. The specific model we have is the LN-T4081F, a 40" 1080p LCD display. The 81 series displays are unique because they feature Samsung's LED SmartLighting technology.

Instead of having a conventional bar-style fluorescent backlight, hundreds of LEDs are used as backlighting. This allows for the LEDs and backlighting to be controlled locally meaning that areas of the screen that should be dark can have it's LEDs turned off producing a much truer black than previously available with fluorescent backlight. We will be testing out this functionality later on in the review to see how good the contrast ratios really are. Samsung has this display spec'd out as having a 500,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio. Yes, that's 500,000 as in 50x greater than the average HDTV contrast ratio of 10,000.

This display comes with a lot of other neat features that we will cover in the next page. For now let's take a look at the full specs of the LN-T4081F.

Specifications

Viewable screen size: 40" Diagonal
Aspect Ratio: 16:9
Native Resolution:1,920 x 1,080
Inputs:
- Side: HDMI, Composite video, S-Video, Headphone
- Back: 2 x HDMI, Composite video, S-Video, PC Input (Analog), 2 x Component
Modes:
- NTSC: 480i
- HDTV: 480p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p
Dynamic Contrast Ratio: 500,000:1
Viewing Angle: 178° Horizontal/178° Vertical
Response Time: 8ms
Speakers: 2 x 10W speakers
Sound Effect System: SRS TruSurroundXT
Dimensions:
43.7'' x 26.6'' x 11.4'' (with Base)
48.9 lbs (with Base)
43.7" x 23.9" x 4.0" (w/o Base)
47.6'' x 31.3'' x 14.6'' (carton dimensions)
32.4 lbs (carton weight)