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For instance, features include Samsung's Digital Natural Image engine with its focus on improving fine detail levels, colour tones, contrast levels, motion handling and noise reduction.

Then there's Movie Plus, which draws up extra image frames and inserts them between the ‘real' frames coming in from your source in a bid to make motion look sharper and smoother.

The 37R87BD also retains a feature designed to accompany Samsung's original tie-up with the launch of the Xbox 360 console, namely a Game mode reckoned to cut the screen's response time so that your gaming skills aren't damaged by screen lag.

The screen at the 37R87BD's heart is HD Ready in nature rather than sporting a full HD pixel count of 1,920 x 1,080. But this is as we'd expect given the set's lowly price. And in respect of another key specification - claimed contrast ratio - the 37R87BD actually considerably outperforms our expectations by promising a very healthy 8,000:1.

Although regular readers may be getting fed up with hearing this, though, I do have to remind you that this figure is only achieved by sacrificing a little brightness during dark scenes, reducing the backlight in order to make blacks less cloudy.

Still, it turns out during a run through of the perpetually dark Blade Runner on Blu-ray that the 37R87BD's ‘dynamic backlight' system actually works rather well by the standards of such an affordable TV, producing reasonably deep, grey-free black levels while also retaining a fair amount of background shadow detailing.
Obviously for this money I'm not talking about the same sort of black level prowess witnessed on higher-end Samsung models like its M series, or especially its premium LED backlight range. But it's certainly a cut above the same-price competition.

Black levels as proficient as these are usually accompanied by some decent colours, and here again the 37R87BD doesn't disappoint. Bright parts of the image, such as Blade Runner's vivid neon advertising boards, look radiantly vibrant and dynamic, with rich colours that also, with the exception of one or two particularly tricky low-lit skin tones, enjoy pretty natural hues.

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