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Whatever else you might think about Samsung, it’s certainly never shy about ‘having a go’. Be it cutting prices, delivering sumptuous new design concepts or pushing back the technology envelope, Samsung always seems in search of that something extra that might give its products an edge. Which is why we perhaps shouldn’t be surprised to find the Samsung name attached to the LE46M51: an LCD TV that actually delivers in all three of the key target areas we outlined a moment ago.

On the ‘technology envelope’ front, it hits the spot by being, at 46in, comfortably the largest LCD TV Trusted Reviews has seen to date. On the ‘cutting prices’ front, it delivers its mammoth screen size for only the same sort of money demanded by your average 40in LCD.

On the design front, finally, it wears its enormous screen in a body that’s truly to die for. The black finish of its screen frame is so glossy you could use it as a mirror, the styling is gorgeously minimalistic, and the only break from the couture blackness comes from an inspired back-angled metallic strip along the bottom edge.

This metallic strip isn’t just there to look good either, for it allows Samsung to hide the TV’s speakers under the ledge created by the strip’s backward tilt. After all, you don’t want ugly old speakers cluttering up the place when you’ve got a dream minimalistic design brief to meet, do you?!

The 46M51’s connections are acceptable rather than outstanding. On the downside, there’s only one HDMI input when we might have hoped for two, and only a pair of SCARTs where we might have expected three. On the upside, you get dedicated D-Sub PC connection and component video inputs.

There’s no sign of any digital tuner connectivity for one very good reason: unexpectedly the 46M51 doesn’t actually have a digital tuner! This seems odd given Samsung’s fondness for all things Freeview elsewhere in its range, but them’s the breaks, we guess.

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