Customer Reviews

Samsung HL72A650 72-Inch 1080p Slim DLP HDTV

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

I purchased the HL72A650 after spending 3 weeks with a 73735 Mitsubishi DLP. I purchased the Mits from Best Buy and like all Mits DLPs the color was way off out of the box. I paid Best Buy to do an ISF calibration on the 73735. I quizzed them and they assured me before hand it would be a full calibration. The Best Buy calibration was $250 and so I agreed. The calibration Best Buy did helped immensely, but in fact, despite the claims, Best Buy does not really do a full true calibration. Of course I did not know that at the time. They set brightness, contrast, and sharpness levels, then the set the grayscale but they did not calibrate the primary and secondary colors to spec. The Mits needs the Full Monty calibration it is a mess with out doing that. From what I understand they can look spectacular afterward it a real pro does the full deal and does it right. Mine calibrated by Best Buy not so much. That left me in the position where I would have had to pay an independent to calibrate the set all over again to do the job right it so I returned the 73735 to Best Buy.

I then bought the Samsung through Amazon and that experience was excellent with the white glove delivery process. The Sammy has very good color out of the box and it is also quite sharp out of the box. It is strong in the areas where the Mitsubishi is weak. Unfortunately the Samsung uses the Texas Instrument Dark Chip 3. The Mits uses the Dark Chip 4 which has better blacks and significantly better shadow detail resulting in much better overall contrast.

The use of the Dark Chip 3 is not really the whole problem by itself. The problem is that at some point Samsung decided to remove the iris from their lamp DLPs light engines. An irus is used on DLPs to deepen blacks on the fly as the screen changes. Perhaps this deletion was done to make the LED DLPs more competitive against the lamp set. The net result is a TV that is very good in most every way except it has poor contrast and black levels for a TV at this price point. Excellent black levels and contrast are typically a given for DLPs.

I am keeping the Samsung but I am more than a bit disappointed with it. I also own a 3 year old HP 65" DLP which has an iris and mkes much better blacks. If you can get by with a 67" set, the Samsung LED DLP, HL67A750 will give you the Samsung color accuracy and great blacks with top notch shadow detail. If you need the 72" or larger size, get one of the Mitsubishis but be prepared to spend $300 plus on an ISF calibrator who really knows what he is doing. The Dark Chip 4 has 40 percent better contrast than the Dark Chip 3 so even the lesser priced Mitsubishi DLPs which also lack an iris make deep, almost plasma like blacks.

If the blacks were at the level of current Mitsubihis DLPs or even the Sammy bulb sets of a few years ago that included an iris, the HL72A650 with its accurate color and excellent resolution would deserve 5 stars plus. As it is, I can only give it 3 stars. If you mostly watch movies, than 3 stars might be a stretch.

You might be very happy with the Samsung DLP for the first two years, but it is about at that time that white dots begin to appear and they multiply until the entire picture is blank. I googled this problem and found many other irate Samsung DLP owners with the same issue. And, it seems that Samsung is in denial of a recurring issue. They should be recalling these TV's. What seemed like such a great Cyber Monday deal two years ago has turned into the most costly, worst-made product I have ever purchased. Buyer beware!

It's BIG, it's Crystal Clear, it's a GREAT VALUE at the AMAZON prices! I couldn't be happier. And, it was "WHITE GLOVE" Delivery at a FABULOUS cost for shipping, beating all other deals I saw by as much as $400.00 for shipping and the "white glove" option to have it delivered into your home and unboxed an placed into your room and hooked up for trial of the item to determine if any damage was incurred during the shipping process. I highly recommend AMAZON and the Vendor, 6Ave Electronics!!

I just upgraded from a 1 year old 65 lamp projection HD set from Hitachi (which was great for a lamp projection) and was blown away! HD DVDs and Blu-Ray takes on a whole new world with this set - and was a STEAL for the price! Takes up much less space and along with the stand (I purchased this also) fits perfect with tons of space for the players and more.

I just purchased the Samsung HL-72A650. What an amazing picture for the size of this TV. With the cost of a LCD or Plazma at 65 inches, it was a pleasent surprise that I can get a quality TV for under $2500 with an additional 7 inches. If you are not mounting a TV on the wall and need a large TV do to the size of the room, I would definetly go with the Samsung HL-72A650. Samsung HL72A650 72-Inch 1080p Slim DLP HDTV

Bought the Samsung HL72A650 and the matching stand. When the TV came out of the box, my wife and I just had to laugh - seeing it sitting in a warehouse like Costco is one thing, but sitting in our family room was something else entirely. Even though we have a big room, it still took us by surprise.

We quickly got used to the size, and absolutely love this set. The picture is fantastic, and HD and Blu-Ray are simply stunning. I also bought an upconverting Onkyo AV receiver, and even SD looks great. If you have the room and aren't worried about wall mounting, DLP is an incredible value.

One word of caution - Amazon sells this set through several 3rd party vendors, and shipping method is not always the same. For example, buying from Amazon.com comes with "white glove" shipping, but buying through 6ave (which I did) does not, something that was not very clear on the website. 6ave came with "bring through first threshold" shipping, which for me meant "bring in the front door and leave it." Not sure about you, but a 72-inch TV in the foyer of my house was a pretty big obstacle. I'd recommend calling the vendor before you buy to see what their method of shipping includes.

Update 12/14/09 - Had the set a little over a year, and the lamp died. I knew that the lamps have a limited life span, but I expected it to last longer that that.

I fell in love with the appearance and the expected features of this television. the first TV I ever bought for myself. I worked so hard and sacrificed a lot to make this purchase come true. When the TV came the box was so big it took two days just to tear apart.I was Sooooo happy. Now, less than two years later my Samsung 72 inch DLP 3D television sits alone and the repair will cost over 1000.00. One day I was happily watching it, then poof it never turned back on. I cant afford to fix it and could barely afford to buy it. i saved for six months to get that TV and in 18 months it was gone. So now it just sits in my living room collecting dust. Samsung you guys should be ashamed of how you do business. I trusted you.

Having researched High Definition TV I picked the Samsung HL72A650 72-Inch 1080p Slim DLP HDTV based on its features, knowing full well that it doesn't have two of the features I am interested in; a NIC (network interface card) and very flat. Network connectivity I readily achieved with a PC or notebook. Even after connecting all "boxes" there were still free HDMI connectors open for my HP notebook, allowing me to suck down video, sound, and images from other PCs on the home LAN. Because of the set's relative thickness/bulkiness I used a stand that simultaneously holds the other HI-FI and video/TV components.

Sound in the set is good enough but I never use it, having a top-of-the-line Pioneer Elite receiver cum top-of-the-line Canton speaker system.

Picture, is flawless. Didn't do any measuring, but the Samsung HL72A650 72-Inch 1080p Slim DLP HDTV worked fine right out of the box. While I do understand the technology of color TV and am quite finicky about picture and sound, we found the out-of-the-box settings good enough.

Since I knew beforehand that the viewing angle in all the new technologies is much less than that of the old CRTs, I am not complaining. Guess it is good enough when you sit right in front of the set--any flat screen set. Because of the large screen size, the viewing angle changes relatively little when one moves around in front of the set. After all, my LCD screens on the notebook and desktop are no better and with their much smaller size the limited viewing angle is much worse because you have to tilt the screen when you stand up and when you look at it with someone else you can't see much unless you stand right behind the other user.

In summary, I haven't done any testing but the set works so good, I just didn't feel the need to test or adjust the picture.

I realize this product isn't available any more (through amazon at least)...but wanted to add my $0.02. We paid $2400 2 years ago in September 2008. At about 18 months, we started having problems with the power shutting off after a while of viewing. It happened a few times but would come right back on. Just after 2 years though, the power started shutting off after 15 minutes of viewing time, and would not turn back on. We thought our new game room was hot, so we had a fan running on the back of the TV at all times....This worked for about 1 month. Then, one day in November 2010, it shut off after the 15 minutes and has never come back.

now we have a huge piece of junk in our game room, and a smaller TV sitting in front of it that we use. So disgusted....I wish we had not bought this.....and it's too expensive to repair.

Won't buy a Samsung again!

Before buying any Samsung products, Google for Samsung DLP or LCD TV problems. You will be shocked. I have exact same problem, power-off after 3years' usage and paying $3,300 on 61" DLP TV. What did I do? Through Google help, I installed the power conditioner ($300.00) and little fan ($7.00) with my finger crossing. So far so good.

But, my friend bought 56" same model as mine about the same time. He spent $600 to repair power-off problem replacing some board whatever because my ad-hoc repair didn't work for him.

Don't be suckers for Samsung.

PS. As a Korean-American, I feel shame with this terrible Korean company.