Samsung A Series vs B Series
Samsung has a certain method of naming every model in their product line, as any manufacturer would, in order to provide people with a quick idea of the capability of the product just by knowing the model number. With respect to the HDTV sets from Samsung, they have different series number for different groups of TVs that share the same feature set. But within the same series you are bound to find a model that have the A designation like the LN37A530 and a B designation like the LN37B530. Although both are series 5 TV sets, the A series TVs were released in 2008 and the B series TV sets are the modified versions that were released the year after, in 2009.
The distinction needs to be made as the later versions, or the B series, has had some modifications that separate them from the A series sets but are not really that significant to warrant a new Series. Since the B models are newer by a year, you would expect that it would be better than the one that preceded it. Although this might be true, it is still pretty much dependent on the exact model or series as they do vary greatly and there is no specific change that applies for all A or B models.
In the series 5 sets for example, the picture in picture ability was present in the A model but was taken out of the B model, along with headphone jacks and the S-video input. But contrast on the B models have been improved greatly, at a factor of twice that of the A models. For series 6 TV sets, modifications were made to the connectivity features of the TV set, allowing for richer online experience and streaming of videos. More codec support was also added to enable the B model to play the more popular codecs that are being used by the videos that are being stored online.
The A and B designation are not meant to imply specific changes to the hardware but are simply meant to indicate one from the other so that buyers would not be mistaken in buying the specific model that they want.
Summary:
1. The A designation is assigned to sets that were released in 2008 while the B designation is assigned to sets that were released in 2009
2. B sets are expected to be the superior between two models of the same class but changes on the different lines of TV sets are not really uniform