Customer Reviews

Samsung HP-S4253 42-Inch Plasma HDTV

5 star:		(78)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(12)

 

 

I was an early adopter of Plasma technology and have owned a Pioneer 50" Plasma as my main display for a few years now. I love Plasma in general, so decided, now that prices are coming down from the stratosphere, to get a second plasma set for a bedroom TV. All I can say is things have really come a long way! Early plasmas had problems displaying detail in dark scenes, but new models such as this Samsung have come much closer to solving this problem.

I auditioned dozens of sets at multiple dealerships and did a lot of side-by-side comparisons and adjustments, and determined that these newest Samsung sets represent the best blend of performance, quality, and cost. My requirements were to have at least 2 HDMI slots, since this is the future for high-definition connectivity, be 37" or 42" in size, and have the best quality picture I could afford.

A lot of on-line advice pointed to the Panasonic as the one to get so I went into this fully expecting to end up with a Panny, but after much side-by-side between the Samsung 4253 and the newest Panasonics, there was no contest - the Samsung has more natural looking color gradiations, the Panasonic looked odd and banded in appearance. I verified this at multiple vendors and side-by-side.

Be careful however not to get re-directed to the previous generation Samsung models, many of which are still on the market and sold as new. Samsung seems to be replacing their lined up with these newer sets in a graudal manner. At least two other 42" models ending in "2" instead of "3" can be found at various retailers. To me, these older sets did not measure up to the visual fidelity in the "3" series. Over time I'm sure Samsung will make "3" versions of their other sets, so if you need one with a CableCard tuner or something, I'd wait a while. Also I wish this set had more stretch options for dealing with 4:3 inputs. The only options for HD signals are 16:9 or 4:3 with bars, neither of which helps deal with HD signals that are letterboxed AND 4:3 (common for cable boxes that up-convert letterbox SDTV material). I'm not sure which sets do have these stretch modes, but I beleive some do.

Also, Plasmas are moving very fast right now, with Pioneer due to release new models any day, among others. Waiting a bit longer if you're in no hurry may turn up a set even better than this at the same price. But as of Spring 2006, I am very confident this is the best 42" plasma in the ~$2k range.

After spending 6 months researching HDTVs I got this Tv over Memorial Day weekend from Amazon for a great deal, $1899.99. No shipping and no tax can't beat the price for one of the better plasmas on the market.
But there are a couple of issues with this tv. Don't buy it over the panasonic because of its PIP option. The PIP can only be used when a HDMI tv feed is on or another hookup besides componenet for television viewing. This leads to the other problem.
There is a glitch with the HDMI. So if you are utilizing the AV ports for a playstation or DVD player the tv can't understand which source to pick. So if you are watching tv, But then want to watch a DVD you can change the source to the DVD player (the AV input) but when the movie is done you can't switch back to the HDMI input. The tv no longer recognizes the connection. This was a great pain for me. I purchased a HDMI/DVI wire for my cable box. And the first time a changed the source to the AV for my playstation and I was able to play it but when I was done the HDMI feed was no longer an option. So I spent the next day and a half going through my connections and calling the cable company which told me to contact my tv manufacturer. Samsung said that the tv has a glitch and the tv must be reset (there is no mention of how to reset the tv in the owner manual). So now everytime a change the source to the av port I must reset the tv whcih consists of unplugging the tv waiting 30 seconds, hitting the power button on the tv itself 10 times, plugging the tv back in, turning the tv on and switching the source.
This problem doesn't occur if your cable is hooked up via component and the picture is basically as good as the HDMI feed(I will proably switch it back to component once a get over that a spent $100 on a Monster DVI to HDMI cable and won't use it.
Other than that te tv is great. It has a much better appearance over the panasonic. HDTV is awesome. SD is ok; comes in better for some some stations than oters. Speakers are above average. Overall this is a very impressive tv if you can get beyond the glitch. Sports are amazing feels like you are there, nature shows are extremely impressive. The TV has great colors and true blacks.

I purchased this plasma via Amazon after extensive research in store and by reading many reviews on-line. The purchase and delivery process went smooth. That's where my good comments stop and the problems began. The TV had a great picture, awesome in fact, but there was an audible buzzing sound as soon as the TV was hooked up. Time Warner came to my house 2x and gave their equipment a thumbs up. In fact they brought their own plasma, high def TV and hooked it up without a problem. This is when Samsung's "authorized" service people came into the picture. After 2 trips to my house, they took the tv away for service, brought it back 11 days later, and it still buzzed. I refused to accept delivery. The service people are now trying to blame the wiring in my house or the cable equipment(again). Samsung has to this point refused to give me an exchange or refund my money. Seven weeks after purchasing this product in good faith, all that I have to show for it are an increased cable bill (for high def) and a mounting plate on the wall where the tv should be. I make these comments about service, because when you buy a product like this, the service is an important component; just as important as the product itself.

I did a bunch of comparison shopping before I settled on this one. In this price range it was down to 3 plasmas, the Panasonic TH-42PX60U, Hitachi 42HDS69 and this Samsung HP-S4253. I did my research online, and there are plenty of people praising all the models, each with their own issues. Apparently the Panasonic has "clay-face", Hitachi has a green push, and this Samsung is a "buzzer". I went to best buy and circuit city to take a look for myself. Each store I went into I felt differently... because stores don't calibrate the monitors they get and I was seeing different results. Customers play around with the image settings, leave it looking crappy, and others judge the TV based on what they see without checking settings. Anyway, after I played around with the settings of the all the TV's... I did notice the Hitachi's green push which bothered me enough to take it off the list. Now the Panasonic does have a great picture but the case (matte silver with matte black frame) just makes it look a bit cheap and not as slick as the Samsung. The Samsung with its shiny black finish looks much richer in my point of view. Since picture quality is great on both monitors the only things that was worrying me is to get a "buzzer" which quite a few people complained on forums about. Its natural for all plasmas to buzz a little bit when your ear is 1-2 ft away. But some say they get buzzing sitting on the couch. I decided to take the chance and made sure when delivery came, I took it out and turned it on before I signed for it with the deliver guy. If it was going to buzz loudly I was planning on simply declining it, but luckily I got a good one.

Now I must say I don't know how SD quality picture compares between the Samsung and the Panasonic since I don't have them side by side and in store they were all showing HD pictures... but I have to say that SOME SD channels on my Samsung look crappy while majority of the others are perfectly fine, it really depends on the quality of the broadcast. I watch mostly HD and DVDs so i'm fine.

Regarding burn-ins... all plasmas suffer from this, so just try not to watch anything with black bars on the side for too long... and its also recommended that for the first 100 hours you "Break in" your TV by watching things with picture settings at no more then 50... which is a bit dull, but I'm willing to deal with it for a bit if it prolongs the life of the set in the long run.

Also if you want to calibrate the monitor yourself you can get the AVIA dvd calibration... or you can try the settings I got.

DNIE - Turn it off (it makes the blacks way too black and you loose shadow detail)
Contrast - 80
Brightness - 67
Sharpness - 20
Color - 50 (I don't have the color filters to properly adjust this, but it looks great to me so I left it at 50)
Color Temp - Cool 1 (the warmer temps make things a bit too orangey for me, just pay attention to whites when changing this)

The Samsung HP-S4253 42" Plasma HDTV is definately a step up in all areas from it's previous Samsung plasma TV models. It's able to produce a 536 Billion color gamut. This sounds like a big number, and it is, but just for comparison an LCD generally produces about a 6 million color gamut (some are higher and some are lower) yes that's million and not billion. A single chip DLP projection TV will produce even less then that. However, 536 billion is not a huge number when compared to other plasma TVs, infact it typical of most Plasma TVs (Another reason for Plasma over LCD). The 10000:1 contrast ratio is one reason this gamut is possible on a plasma.
The Samsung HP-S4253 42" Plasma HDTV features two High-Definition-Multimedia-Interface inputs which is ideal for your next generation DVD players, your HDTV source (satalite/cable), or your 7.1 surround sound system. 2 inputs are better than 1 epecially when it comes to HDMI, where an HDMI splitter retails for over $100.
The television also is equipped with a built in ATSC-tuner so you'll be ready for free over-the-air High definition or digital broadcasts.
The television looks brilliant from both a graphical stand point and also an aesthetic one. The HP-S4253 looks beautiful with a sleek piano black finish which can easily be mounted on a wall or set on any suitable surface. It has to be one of the most aesthetically pleasing plasma's on the market, as long as you keep it dust free as it seems that dust is more noticable on this television than others.

If you are reading these reviews you are probably considering buying a Samsung HP-S4253 from Amazon. Three weeks before I purchased this set I read all of these reviews as well as reviews from other sites. While the majority of all reviews were positive there were enough negative comments to make me pause. I have always suspected that many "consumer reviews" are written by the representatives of both the manufacturer and the competition, so I take all reviews with a grain of salt. The following is a synopsis of my experience.

Even though I have purchased many expensive items from Amazon, I still had some hesitation in ordering an HDTV on-line, but a $400 savings over any "Big Box Store" gave me the courage to give it a try. I chose Standard Delivery a.k.a. free shipping. The set arrived 10 days after I placed my order. It was delivered by two men from the freight company who carried it up my stairs and set it up on my stand and removed the boxes from my house. I always tip these guys as they go beyond what's required.

The cable company was coming the next day to hookup a high definition set top box, but I wanted to see how it looked with just digital cable, so I hooked it up with the plain A/V cable. The setup was easy, mostly automatic. The picture and sound were truly magnificent.

The cable guy, sorry I couldn't resist, came the next day and installed an Atlanta Scientific Explorer 8000 set top box, a DVR with 80 hours of record time and HDMI connections. As I wanted a better DVD to go with my new TV, I also order a Samsung DVD-VR335 form Amazon. This unit is a combination DVD player/recorder plus VCR which has the ability to upscale DVD's when hooked up with a HDMI cable. HDMI cables are the best and easiest way to hookup any HDTV. They simply plug in and carry both the audio and video signals. Because a digital signal is either on or off, I believe you don't have to have the most expensive HDMI cables for great results. So I have a HDMI hookup from the set top box to HDMI #1 on the TV and a HDMI hookup from the DVD player to HDMI #2 on the TV. These connections work flawlessly and couldn't be easier to install.

This TV looks great right out of the box, the color is the best I've seen, the definition is superb and the sound is excellent for any stand alone system. If you see this set in any store where the picture doesn't seem better than others in this price range, keep in mind that the store can detune the Samsung if they wish to push another brand. Other negative review comments such as buzzing are probably due to improper cable hookups. The issue of watching standard television on a wide screen high definition television is a compromise. The Samsung HP-S4253 handles this compromise better than most as it gives you four options, Standard (faces become a tad stretched), zoom1 ( great picture but cuts off the bottom and top), zoom2 (also good but I prefer zoom1), or 3:4 ( shows the same picture that you are use to in a letterbox - be careful of burn in during the 1st 100 hours). A click of the remote button allows you to cycle though all formats. Believe me you will enjoy watching standard TV on this set as the picture is so much clearer and the color is more natural.

My conclusion is that this is a great set at an outstanding price and you can't go wrong with it. My only minor complaint is that I am back to having to use three remotes to take advantage of all the options I now have. Normally I just use the set top box remote for most of my viewing.

I bought the Sam's Club Version (S4233) Manufactured August 2006, same as this TV in every way Except mine has a cool looking stand. The legs "swing and lock" into place in the Sam's version. I didnt like the dome shape stand on the retail version (S4253).

Anyway, let's get down to the performance. I install Plasmas all the time. I install the Mitsubishi Diamond, and Medallion series plasmas (1080P), I have also installed the High end JVC 1080P LCD's too. And all kinds of in between brands. After coming home and looking at my $200 sear's APEX CRT tv, I thought it was time to take the plunge into HDTV. EXCEPT I am not going to pay $5000+ for a TV. Not even $4000. SO I started the tedious process of looking for a HDTV.

If you are reading this then you are probably on the hunt for an HDTV. Let me tell you right up front, you have probably seen the best Plasma TV locally (or at a friends) already and no amount of homework, forum trolling is going to make the decision easier. If you buy a Plasma made in 2006, they are all virtually equal in comparison. I am talking of major brand names, not generic off-name brands like visio, Ilo, etc etc.

I cannot tell a difference between this Tv and the $5750 50" Mitsubishi Plasma I just installed last week. Here is an important note: It all comes down to signal quality. Get yourself a good Updated cable set top box with HDMI out. Now get yourself the OPPO DVD player (here at Amazon of course) and you have yourself an HDTV experience waiting for you!!

The price is 25% less than what I paid now at Amazon, so add it to your cart. DO not let the price make you think there is something wrong with this TV Just because it doesnt cost $2000-$5000. There is a real price war going on, and Samsung is going to come out on top.

This TV has all the hookups you need: 2HDMI, 3Component, plenty plenty. The Tv makes no buzzing sound. It has no hangups at all. The DNIE feature is cool, it makes the image even better. And now a word about standard definition: I kept hearing about standard def tv not looking good on some HDTV's. This one is amazing on SDTV!! The kids were amzed at Spongebob, and my wife loves to watch her Lifetime channel in SD now. I wish I could have saved the money, but thats how it goes. Any TV you buy is going to drop in price Very SOON after you plug it in, so go ahead and get over it now.

ESPN in High definition is awesome!!! Oh by the way, get a decent Over the air antenna and you will be surprised at the amount of free tv stations that are passing right over your house!!!I would buy this TV again in a heartbeat.

I bought this tv 2 weeks ago and I dont regret it. There are plenty of jacks for anybody who has a lot of components to plug into their tvs. Picture is georgeous. I am using my xbox360 on it i am blown away every time i turn it on. As mentioned in previous reviews this and every other plasma tv is prone to "burn in." Turn the contrast down on the tv for the first 100-200 hours of use to help prevent it and dont leave static images on the screen for more than 2 hours. Use the built in screen burn protection features as they get rid of every burn in issue i have had with the tv so far. I recommend this tv to anyone looking into HDTV as this is my second HDTV. Never going to back to standard tv.

I purchased this TV on black friday from BestBuy. I was originally planning on purchasing the Panasonic 42 inch plasma( I have many Panasonic products and they have all been incredible, TV's, DVD player, receivers, etc)
However after waiting in line from 4am I was one of the many unlucky people that couldn't get one.
I starting talking to the manager and he said that this BestBuy only is selling the Samsung 42 today only for $1,199. Originally $1700+

This TV is replacing the 26in HD Samsung tube TV in my living room. I have brought home at 5 tv's previous to this one before my wife said that picture looks good.

1-Winbook LCD- Junk
2-HP LCD-Junk
3-Syntax or something- waste of time
4-Polaroid-Stick with making cameras
5- Samsung DLP- Pixels galore with standard cable.

So finally I set this up, tune in HD and it looks great!! Now the true test. I changed the station to a regular cable channel in standard definition and it looked good. I got the stamp of approval finally.

Sorry for the long details, but it took a long time to finally get a new tv for the living room. Here are some additional comments:

-I was told and also read that for the first month or two watch the plasma in either movie mode or standard-NEVER Dynamic mode. Reason why you are training the tv with bright colors off the bat, you should work it in slowly. Standard is nicer than movie mode in my opinion.

HD broadcast looks great- Don't worry about burn it(dont go crazy) Samsung as a built in pixel mover that adjust the pixels every 2 minutes. This is seamless to the person watching. Also they have some built in tools that in the case that you do get "image retention" you can run these utilities and they can correct them.

SD broadcast is nice- much better than some tv's I have seen. I recommend being at least 7 feet away from this tv for optimal quality. Honestly, even from 2 feet I didnt see an pixelation.

Gaming- There is a game mode that you can turn on for the input you use for games. They look great regardless of the input.

DVD- Awesome through component inputs and S video.

Audio- You can customize these setting. If you turn on the special sound T-something, it echos sometimes. I have adjusted mine and it is perfect. I have a home theater in the basement so I only use the tv speakers for this Samsung.

Overall- The design is beautiful, it's a technical piece of furniture. The tv is about 90 pounds so it is heavier than some LCDs. If you are looking for a Plasma TV in the $1200-$1700, this is the best overall bet.

When I ordered this Samsung HDTV, I had no idea what to expect simply because I had never seen a true HD picture. Boy was I blown away when I turned on the Yankee game and saw the pores on the players' faces and each blade of grass. The set is beautiful and the inputs are numerous. I don't know why Cnet and Consumer Reports didn't like this set very much but I am here to tell you that this set is amazing! The only thing is: Be careful with burn-in. Don't watch it a lot with black bars on the left and right. If you get this plasma, make sure you have HD programming because it is as good as any HD picture out there!