Introduction
As the TV market leans towards ever-bigger screens, the relatively small 32-inch market is undergoing a process of ever-increasing commoditisation.
By which I mean that more and more screens are focussing on cutting costs ahead of providing loads of features and high performance standards. Happily, though, Samsung's UE32H6200 is an exception to this rule – even if, ironically, this opens it up to price competition from some larger rivals.
Design
Its exterior doesn't give much of a hint about the quality of its innards, mind you. It's a rather plasticky affair by Samsung's usually high build quality standards, and nor does it do much to differentiate itself from the masses with its combination of a metallic silver cross-shaped stand and plain black bezel.
Its connections provide more of a hint that the UE32H6200 has ambitions beyond the norm, though – particularly its provision of four HDMIs, three USBs, smart device screen mirroring support and LAN/integrated Wi-Fi options for streaming multimedia of almost any sort from DLNA-enabled devices or heading online with Samsung's new smart TV content platform.
This platform is also a significant attraction of the UE32H6200, predominantly because it manages to provide all four of the UK's main terrestrial broadcaster catch-up TV services (BBC IPlayer, ITV Player, 4OD and Demand 5) – a feat that currently only Panasonic can match with its new Freetime TVs.
Smart TV attractions
This sort of catch-up TV flexibility is especially useful, we've always felt, on relatively small screen TVs like the UE32H6200 that could well find themselves doing second-room duties in bedrooms, studies, kitchens and conservatories.
Other highlight services on the UE32H6200's Smart TV service include Netflix, Amazon Prime/instant, Blinkbox, Wuaki.tv and the British Film Institute's new movies-on-demand service.
Further notable attractions of Samsung's latest smart engine include a new hub screen devoted to games and apps, Samsung's impressively sophisticated recommendations engine (based on an on-going analysis of your viewing history), and an improved attempt to equalise different kinds of content in the content-finding process.
There remain some issues with the new Smart TV interface, as I'll discuss further in the usability section. But for the most part the UE32H6200's smart features are a considerable attraction at this level of the market – especially as they zip along thanks to the TV's quad-core processor.
Top-spec pictures
The UE32H6200's pictures are unusually well specified for a 32-inch TV. There are an extremely comprehensive set of picture adjustments including white balance, gamma and colour management controls. The full HD panel also boasts a 200Hz-like motion handling system (unusual for such a small TV) and an active 3D playback system that can deliver full HD 3D pictures from 3D Blu-rays.
Unusually for Samsung the UE32H6200 doesn't ship with any free 3D glasses, making me question in all seriousness whether it truly deserves to call itself a 3D TV given that watching 3D without any such glasses is impossible.
Picture Quality
As I'd hoped given its fairly high £500 price, the UE32H6200 is a cut above your average 32-inch TV in the picture quality department.
Particularly pleasing is how well Samsung's miniature hero handles dark scenes. For a start, while black levels don't hit the same exceptional depths as those of many of Samsung's bigger TVs, they're still very strong by typical small-screen TV standards.
They suffer less of the grey misting effect associated with low contrast panels than many rivals, and also generally avoid the backlight clouding woes still seen all too commonly with edge LED screens. If you want to see the best black level results make sure you turn down the TV's backlight setting to below 50% when watching films in dark rooms.
Shadow detailing
There's an impressive amount of shadow detail on show during dark scenes, which shows that the UE32H6200's contrast superiority is a result of a strong native contrast performance from Samsung's panel rather than just a result of clever light output manipulation by the set's dynamic contrast system.
Underlining this fact is the way you can still get a very credible contrast performance from Samsung's screen even if you don't use the dynamic contrast system option.
If you do use it, you can do so on its lowest power setting without having to worry much about the sort of distracting brightness shifts that characterise many less effective dynamic contrast systems – especially those that have to work much harder to get the panels they're working with to deliver a convincing black colour.
Detail resolution
The UE32H6200 also shows the majority of the 32-inch competition a clean and beautifully defined pair of heels with its sharpness. HD footage looks emphatically detailed at all times, thanks to the screen's potent combination of sharpness and texture resolution.
In fact the sharpness can be a bit excessive using Samsung's out-of-the-box picture presets, tipping over into noise and grittiness. But it only takes a nudge down of the sharpness setting to get things back on the right side of the noise line.
There is a little reduction in the image's extreme clarity when the picture contains a lot of motion. But the impact of this isn't nearly as pronounced as it is on many rival small-screen sets, and certainly isn't accompanied by smearing and lag.
Colour
When it comes to colour handling the UE32H6200's exhibits a range, naturalism and subtlety of tone that's streets ahead of the rather cartoonish, roughly-blended, subtlety-free, often PC-biassed colours found on many of today's small-screen TVs.
This helps underline the sense of detail you get with HD sources, but if anything it's even more invaluable with standard definition, as you experience less of a colour performance reduction with non-HD fare than usual.
With a strong brightness output by small-screen standards helping to ram home the advantages described thus far, the only issue I have with the UE32H6200's pictures beyond the small points alluded to previously is the way the backlight clumsily switches off completely during really dark scenes, so that you clearly and distractingly see the light flick back on as soon as some brightness enters proceedings again.
Turning to the UE32H6200's efforts with 3D, the first thing I feel duty bound to say is that I seriously question 3D's worth on a screen as small as 32 inches. Unless you're sat really close to the screen 3D at 32 inches feels like you're looking at a hole in your living room rather than a truly immersive 3D experience.
3D, for better or for worse
If you still think you might want to avail yourself of the UE32H6200's three-dimensional talents, though, it's certainly no 3D slouch. Particularly admirable is how relatively little the screen suffers with double ghosting crosstalk noise – an especially good achievement considering that its 3D images are engagingly bright.
Traditionally, active 3D LCD TVs have tended to need to sacrifice quite a lot of brightness to keep a rein on crosstalk, but Samsung seems to have found a way round this problem.
Not having to see much crosstalk helps the UE32H6200's 3D pictures look reasonably sharp (though not as sharp as its 2D images), as well as helping to deliver a better defined sense of depth and 3D space. Colours remain bold and believable too, and while there's an increase in motion judder it's dealt with passably well by the 'low' setting of Samsung's motion processing system.
Usability, sound and value
The UE32H6200's operating system is hit and miss. Presentation levels are high, especially with the Smart TV content, and while the remote control you get with the set isn't, sadly, one of Samsung's new Smart designs, it's more effective than it looks.
The structure of the picture adjustment menus is decent aside from the way the game preset is hidden away in a systems menu, and the provision of two separate 'advanced' picture menus when one would have done.
The main barriers to your enjoyment of the UE32H6200 are its lack of really effective picture presets (meaning you'll need to brave the picture set up menus if you want to get the best out of the TV) and some rather inscrutable aspects to the smart menus. The sheer sophistication of the Smart features on offer can appear daunting at first, too.
Samsung has provided some nice onscreen instructions and illustrations this year, as well as a few tutorial videos. But I still feel more could be done to make using Samsung's Smart TVs feel more intuitive.
Sound
The UE32H6200 sounds more powerful and dynamic than most 32-inch TVs, with more natural sounding voices and an engagingly wide soundstage. A lack of bass balance can leave action scenes sounding a bit thin and harsh, but this shortcoming is nothing like it normally would be with small flat-screen TVs.
Value
We're a bit torn on this one. On the one hand we're pleased to see a brand willing to try and inject some quality into a small-screen market that's increasingly value rather than quality focussed. However, there's also no getting away from the fact that you can get decent 40-inch TVs for the UE32H6200's £500 price.
Verdict
The UE32H6200 is a rare thing these days: a small-screen (32-inch) TV that wants to inject some real quality into your AV life rather than following the lead of most of its peers and just focussing on saving you money.
Among its many charms are a quad-core processing engine driving a startlingly feature and content-rich smart TV engine, complete with all the key UK broadcaster catch-up TV platforms and a sophisticated learning/recommendations system.
The heavy duty processing also benefits the UE32H6200's pictures, helping them deliver excellent sharpness, colour resolution and contrast for the small-screen market.
Some aspects of the UE32H6200's operating system are a little inscrutable and the set is, perhaps inevitably, quite expensive by the 32-inch TV market generally. But if you're flush enough to put quality first even on a small-screen TV, the UE32H6200 is a great option.
We liked
Picture and sound quality are both impressive by today's small-screen standards, and the set's smart TV features are extensive and prettily presented.
We disliked
It's not cheap for a 32-inch TV, some aspects of its operating system don't feel especially intuitive, and we can't help but wonder if it's really worth paying to have 3D on such a small TV.
Verdict
If 32 inches is really as big a screen as you're looking for and you're more interested in picture quality than saving money, then you'd be crazy not to add the UE32H6200 to your audition list. Especially given how few small-screen TVs there are these days with a serious interest in AV quality.
Just bear in mind, though, that you could get a significantly bigger but still decent TV for £500 these days, and that you could save money elsewhere in the 32-inch world by being willing to do without 3D (something we'd argue doesn't really work anyway on such a small screen).
James Potter