Group test: LED TVs pt2

Overview Price: £2,350 More info: Samsung Size (on stand): 1364(w) x 883(h) x 338(d)mm Weight (on stand): 41kg Resolution: 1920x1080 Native aspect ratio: 16:9 Claimed max contrast ratio: 2,000,000:1 Claimed max brightness: N/A Connections: Four v1.3 HDMI inputs, component video input, two Scarts (one RGB), composite video input, LAN connection, PC input, stereo audio inputs, tuner input, CAM slot, Optical digital audio output, Stereo audio output, S-Video input, headphone jack, USB 2.0 port

Samsung LE55A956
For sheer aesthetic impact you'll be hard-pressed to find anything to outgun Samsung's LE55A956. For a start, its screen is a huge 55in across, making it an instantly formidable presence. But what's really special about it is its gorgeous, high-gloss, charcoal-coloured bezel - complete with a subtle honeycomb inner effect. Hubba.

The LE55A956's extravagant looks are joined by an extensive feature count. Connections, for instance, include an impressive four HDMIs, a USB port and an Ethernet jack. What's more, the LE55A956's Ethernet jack goes a considerable step further than the one on the Philips set by allowing you to go online, downloading news, weather and finance information from a special Samsung/Yahoo server. You can even get an optional dongle for the USB port that allows the TV to connect to the internet wirelessly.

More innovation on the LE55A956 comes with its Content Library - a hefty selection of built-in content including everything from illustrated recipes to children's sing-along songs and photos/paintings you can place on screen when you're not watching it.

In terms of picture processing, the LE55A956 isn't as sophisticated as the Philips model. And this becomes evident when you look at its picture quality. For while in many ways LED technology again helps the LE55A956 deliver outstanding pictures, it does suffer some notable flaws.

LED definitely strikes again when it comes to the set's black levels. They're nearly as inky and deep as with the Philips model, and again sit side by side with really bright whites and extremely rich, subtly shaded colours - provided, at least, that you avoid the Native colour factory preset the TV ships with.

Although not quite as fluid as with the Philips set, the LE55A956 handles motion well too, presenting moving objects sharply and with less judder than you get with most standard LCD TVs. HD pictures looks really sharp and detailed too.

The biggest of the problems we mentioned earlier concerns the LE55A956's viewing angle. For you really don't have to watch from very far at all down the TV's side before bright parts of the picture suffer with a large, distracting 'halo' around them. This halo occasionally appears in much reduced form when you're looking straight at the picture, too.

There seems to be a fairly lengthy delay between pictures arriving into the TV and finally appearing on screen, too - which could obviously damage your console gaming credibility. Colours occasionally suffer from gentle striping where there should be totally smooth blends, too, and we spotted one or two slightly off-key colour tones.

Finally, the LE55A956's standard definition upscaling is only decent rather than great.

Overview Price: £3,600 More info: Sony Size (with stand): 1259(w) x 737(h) x 315(d)mm Weight: 38kg Resolution: 1920x1080 Native aspect ratio: 16:9 Claimed max contrast ratio: 1,000,000:1 Claimed max brightness: N/A Connections: Four v1.3 HDMIs; two component video jacks, digital audio output (optical), D-Sub PC input, PC audio input, 3.5mm headphone jack, S-Video input, PCMCIA slot, RCA audio output, composite video input, RF input, two Scarts (both RGB), USB 2.0 input, DLNA Ethernet port, Digital Media Port

Sony Bravia KDL-55X4500
The Sony KDL-55X4500 really is a brute of a TV. For as well as the prodigious 55in expanse of the screen, the set sticks out unusually far round the back, and the bezel extends a good three or four inches beyond the screen's edges. Still, while this might not suit the spatially challenged, it does allow Sony to include a signature see-through vertical strip to each side of the screen, within which sit striking vertical silver speakers (Obsidian Black and Ruby Red speaker options are available too).

To be honest we can't quite decide if this striking design is actually really attractive, or just a bit odd. But there's no such uncertainty over the 55X4500's specs. For as well as the all-important LED backlight technology, this monster Sony's connections include four HDMIs, two component video inputs, a USB port and an Ethernet jack that lets you access multimedia files on a PC, but not access the internet.

On the image processing front, the 55X4500 benefits from Sony's latest Bravia Engine 2 system which, like the Philips Perfect Pixel HD system, works on multiple elements of the picture. The 55X4500's menus also contain loads of image tweaks for you to play with; not as many as the Philips model, but easily enough to keep most 'ordinary' people happy.

Also guaranteed to keep people more than happy is the 55X4500's picture quality. In fact, it could well have people in audiovisual ecstasy. For it's so good that it's potentially better than anything we've seen from any other flat TV, including Pioneer's KURO plasmas.

Black levels continue the LED 'theme', for instance, by being both inkily black and superbly natural, in that they still contain enough brightness to reveal shadow details.

Colours are rich and perfectly toned and blended, too; video noise is almost completely absent; motion is fluid without looking unnatural; HD pictures are phenomenally sharp and textured; standard definition pictures are rescaled to the screen's full HD resolution with remarkable effectiveness; and the sheer dynamism of every picture, from the darkest of night-time scenes to the brightest of animated sequences, is a joy to behold.

For the most part, the 55X4500's extensive video processing generates scarcely any negative side effects, either - at least provided you set the TV's 'MotionFlow' processing option to its Clear mode.

If forced to find fault with the 55X4500, we'd say that there's some minor backlight seepage in the TV's corners unless you reduce the backlight setting to around six or less, and the picture loses contrast quite quickly if you watch from far down the sides.

But the real story of the 55X4500 is of a TV that both cements LED as the hottest TV technology in town right now, and finally introduces a contender for Pioneer at the head of the flat TV table.