Samsung UE32EH5000 review: basically brilliant pictures

The Samsung UE32EH5000 appears to have been designed for one purpose, and one purpose only: to deliver good picture quality as cheaply as humanly possible.

Let’s look at the evidence – kicking off with its genuinely remarkable price. It’s full recommended retail price is £429.99 (around US$646/AU$634), but at the time of writing it’s available online for the frankly extraordinary sum of £270 (around US$406/AU$398). That’s cheaper than many of the 32-inch TVs from self-consciously budget brands such as Finlux and Kogan – yet there the 32EH5000 sits, smugly brandishing its Samsung logo for all the world to see.

Next, let’s consider the television’s features. Or rather its lack of features. Because remarkably for the brand that introduced gesture and voice controls and arguably the world’s most advanced smart TV online service this year, the Samsung UE32EH5000 doesn’t carry any support for online features.

Nor does it permit streaming from networked PCs. Hell, it doesn’t even have a D-Sub PC port. This leaves the set’s single USB port as your only avenue for playing back photo, music or movie multimedia files.

Which brings us to the TV’s apparent focus on picture quality. This is first suggested by Samsung’s decision to retain a Freeview HD tuner in the UE32EH5000, despite its cheapness. And it’s reinforced by the discovery within the set’s on-screen menus of a surprisingly varied and subtle selection of picture adjustments.

Surely this many tools wouldn’t have been provided if Samsung thought the 32EH5000’s pictures were rubbish?

The Samsung UE32EH5000 has a bigger brother in the same range, the 40-inch Samsung UE40EH5000, which has a recommended full price of £549.99 (around US$827/AU$811).

Potential rivals for the Samsung UE32EH5000 are few and far between, given how cheap it is, though we’ll look at a cluster of cheap 32-inch TVs from Finlux, HannSpree and Kogan in the next few weeks. In terms of models we’ve already seen, the only potential close rivals would beToshiba’s 32RL958 and the Technika 32-270.

In terms of other models in Samsung’s own range, you might want to consider, if you step up to the 32ES5500 – for the best part of £300 more – you will get both Samsung’s smart TV online service and an ultra-slim design.

This article by  John Archer appeared on Techradar.com, a Burn Media publishing partner