Customer Reviews

Samsung LN-R268W 26-Inch HD-Ready Widescreen Flat-Panel LCD TV

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I spent several weeks researching monitors, both online and by viewing them in local stores. A few things became quickly apparant:

* Most stores demo monitors nowadays in HD mode. This is great if you've already switched to HD, but makes it difficult to judge a monitor's performance on an SVHS signal.
* The offbrand monitors really don't look as good as the name brands. Side by side it was clear that the Sony, Panasonic, Toshiba, Sharp, Samsung looked better than the less familiar brands. This mostly in terms of contrast and color. The name brand monitors looked pretty much identical.</li>
* Many of the high end TV's (Sony, Toshiba) don't have PC input - a critical factor in my choice.
* Many of the high end monitors (such as Viewsonic), don't have the best quality or support on TV signals.

I decided to try the Samsung based on a number of key features:

* Speakers under the monitor saves space (I needed to fit into the space of a 27" TV)
* Seemed to emphasize TV features and quality.
* Consumer Reports for other Samsung LCD TV's indicated average standard TV performance (none of the sets they checked rated excellent, only a few above average).
* PC input

Hookup and setup were simple. Like most LCD monitors, it had a slight red bias out of the box, but it was easily adjusted. Samsung's DNIE enhancement is not a gimmick. They have a demo mode that shows you the corrected and uncorrected image. What's most interesting is not that the corrected image is better (you'd expect that) but that the uncorrected image is so familiar - it looks just like the display I saw on the off-brand monitors.

I don't yet have an HD signal, but was able to check a high resolution image using a PC and it looked excellent (as one would expect).

The really pleasant surprise is how good it looked on SVHS input (coming in from a DirectTV box). When using Zoom mode to watch a letterboxed movie, the quality of the image at normal viewing distance is stunning. You have to get up close (within 3-4 feet or so) to begin to see the digital scaling artifacts.

Another pleasant surprise was the effectiveness of the dynamic contrast system. I used the home THX adjustment system included on newer DVD's (like The Incredibles). On my plasma set, it took quite a bit of adjustment to get the brightness and contrast right. On this set, it was dead on right out of the box.

Component video off a DVD player looked as good as my plasma set. The four video modes (wide, panoramic [a smart stretch], zoom and 4:3) worked as expected. I don't have a standard cable connection, but tried out the tuner using a rabbit ear antenna and it looked like what you'd expect from a standard TV - great on strong signals, lousy on weak ones.

One of the results I was hoping for most was delivered in spades - the location of this set has very poor lighting and the TV it is replacing had horrific glare and reflection issues. I no longer notice any obvious glare or reflections (except off the shiny black bezel, which doesn't interfere with my viewing).

In terms of flaws, I haven't found anything significant yet. My only small gripe is that the picture mode setting is not on the main set of buttons on the remote but hidden under a plastic slide. That's a control you use all the time and it should be more prominent.

I also did a fair amount of research on where to purchase the set. There are lower cost places online, but be careful - many of them have terrible customer reviews. Others charge inflated shipping rates - one store wanted $140 to ship the set. At about $25, Amazon was the lowest cost shipper I found. Also, the extended warranty available from Amazon is much less expensive than that available from other vendors. But the final factor that led me to get it through Amazon was the return policy. Almost none of other vendors allow returns of this set. Amazon, if I read their policy correctly, allows return of sets below 27 inches, and this is a 26 inch set. Fortunately, this one's a keeper.

I'd had my eye on the Samsung LN-R**8W series for quite some time after starting to see them in various places used as monitors for PCs and as televisions hooked up to XBox 360s. Every time I saw one of these sets (the demo models were invariably the 23" version), I had to stop and stare. Usually the game playing was "Call of Duty 2", but it looked positively stunning. Finally I watched some high-def programming at a store on the 26" model and I was sold. Having read not a single on-line review and without doing any research whatsoever, I was sold by my eyes alone. The only 'research' I did was comparing this set to other brands, and this was the clear winner.

The 3000:1 contrast ratio is misleading. They used 'dynamic' contrast ratio to come up with that figure. I've since learned the actual contrast ratio as used by most other manufacturers is around 800:1, which is still among the best of the current crop. The next generation will undoubtedly beat this figure. But for my purposes, this set is just fantastic. The blacks are black, and all shades of gray seem to come through as intended. To judge this, I'm replaying "Deus Ex", a PC game from back in 2000 (which runs fine in WinXP and supports 1360 x 768). This game takes place entirely at night, so there are a lot of dark areas along with many shades of gray. This game looks amazing, as does FarCry (2004) with its beautiful vivid tropical colors and water. Those are the only two games I've tried thus far. And I imagine games that natively support 1360 x 768 will naturally fare better on this set. For instance, a game that only supports 1024 x 768 will probably look kinda crappy because of scaling problems, a problem all LCD monitors share when not running in their native resolution.

I'm using it primarily as a huge monitor for my PC. I had to think hard about this, because using this set as a PC monitor, your screen resolution will max out at 1360 x 768, which is great for television, but hardly cutting-edge for a computer monitor. However, to find a PC monitor this BIG with ultra-high resolution would have set me back about double the dollars. And since my rig (An Athlon 2600+ with an NVidia 6600GT video card) isn't capable of playing games at ultra-high res anyway, I'm happy with this. Also, I've since learned that this series of sets is the easiest to configure for computer use. It's got a VGA port on the back, so just buy a VGA cable, hook it to your PC, and it's Plug-And-Play. Just remember before unhooking your old monitor to resize the screen in Windows to 1360 x 768 so it boots to the correct size after you hook this up.

Picture quality is excellent. The best I've ever seen in an LCD. They're all pretty decent these days, but this one stands out as brighter, sharper, crisper, clearer, at least to my eyes. Before buying anything this expensive though, I'd make sure you actually see various brands in action at various stores before you buy.

I don't have high-def service at home yet, so the only HD I've viewed on this has been at the store, but it looked awesome to me.

Picture-in-picture is really only useful if you're surfing the net and want to watch TV at the same time. For that, it's great, though you'll have to manually use the remote to activate sound in PIP each time. An annoyance. The speakers sound clear and crisp. Not huge, but nice-sounding.

And now, the only flaw I've found: Out of the box, the reds can be oversaturated when contrasted with black. I've only noticed this with text; graphics are fine. I might be able to adjust this in the set's menu, but haven't tried it yet, because otherwise it looks just absolutely perfect and I hate to mess with it.

When I decided that I wanted to get a high def LCD for my XBox 360, I did much research. It was a very difficult decision, especially given that, unlike most electronic products I've bought in the past, the price ranges from brand to brand, and screen size to screen size, vary widely. I asked some advice, and read as many reviews online as I can find, the majority of which came from right here on Amazon.com.

After some time, I finally narrowed it down to the Samsung, and the Phillips, which also had great reviews. As I had also decided to purchase a DVD/VCR Recorder, and had decided upon the Philips DVDR3320 DVD Recorder/vcr Combo, I had settled on buying a Phillips brand LCD as well.

But then I had the opportunity to go to a local store just before making my purchase. Fortunately, they had a couple of Samsung's (though not this particular model) plus several other brands, including Phillips, on display. I was sold as soon as I laid eyes on the Samsung. All the televisions were lined up in a single row, and the Samsung models all stood out head and shoulders above all the others except perhaps one other brand (Panasonic, if memory serves). The televisions were showing a football game at the time, and while the Samsungs looked as if they were a direct window looking down on a live game, the most of the other LCDs made the broadcast look as if it was on film. The crispness, brightness and high contrast of the Samsung far surpassed the others. Once I added that with the rave reviews I've seen on this tv, my choice was made.

I've only had television hooked up for 3 days now as I type this, and it doesn't disappoint. The picture is super bright and clear, so much so that it makes old video taped programs look extremely dull. But when you play DVDs or the XBox 360 through the component video connections, the display is beyond outstanding!

The sound is even better than I expected, and the picture and sound adjustments are extensive. For my taste, the auto brightness sensor tends to be a little too dark, and seems to also lessen the contrast, giving the screen a grayish tint. But one can easily disable this feature.

One tip. If you want to adjust the colors properly, find a clear channel during a live or live-on-tape broadcast, or if possible, do the adjustments while playing a DVD through one of the video connections. Broadcast and cable channels tend to vary greatly in picture brightness, sharpness, and color, making it virtually impossible to find one setting that will accomodate all channels. So just make your adjustments on the highest quality picture you can get.

As far as I'm concerned, the Samsung is the best television I've ever had. I'm looking forward to getting years of pleasure from this tv, and if you buy this tv, I believe that there is no doubt that you will as well.

I have had the TV for a month now, and it works great:

1)Very good sound package. Plenty enough for a living room
2)Remote and screen interface superb. Remote works with a tiny press on the buttons, great menus.
3)Color and image superb. As advertised. Good job Samsung.
4)Lots of input.

Be careful with:
A) The PC input has an HDTV full resolution format, 1368x768. *NOT* all graphic adapter can do this resolution. I had to buy an NVIDIA cheap card, because the NVIDIA graphic engine can do any resolution (not the case with my ATI chip on my laptop). If you card can't do 1368x760, then the next step down is 1024x768, a *big* step down. Samsung could have included a 1280x768 step as well, it would have been nice.

That's it for the cons.

Great TV!

The reason why I write a review is because Amazon reviews help me tremendously when selecting product, because they are the only ones that aren't biased (as opposed to editors reviews).

I agree with most of the positive reviews of this TV. But I do have two concerns.

First, I can definitely see some blurring when there is quick action, at least compared to what I get from a plasma TV. This is most obvious during sports action, but I can even see it in Jay Leno's striped ties when he moves around the stage! That surprised me. It's possible that this is related to the fact that I'm watching the TV when I'm on a treadmill, and I'm only a couple of feet away from it.

Second, because the treadmill can get noisy, I sometimes like to use closed captions. But it turns out that with this TV you can only get closed captions when using the over-the-air or VCR connections. Most people, including me, are going to use the HDMI or component connections for input from cable boxes, PVRs, and DVD players, and Samsung has confirmed that for these inputs closed captions are not available!

If those two problems don't bother you, it's a great set. But if you want closed captions, go elsewhere.

As a first venture into flat-panel, it's been a pretty good experience. The on-screen controls are simple and intuitive, and once you have mastered all the options, you get a superb picture. The sound quality is surpringly good for a 5w package. I only wish I cd find a way to remove the 'mute' window when I'm running sound through my stereo, other than by powering the sound right down.

Bought the LN-R268W last June and it has met all of my expectations. Great picture, good sound and great viewing angle.

For people considering a new LCD TV, I would advise looking at an actual picture, as the quality varies a surprising amount from brand to brand. There are 3 important things to consider, in my view: 1. Resolution (most sets are pretty similar now), 2. Contrast ratio (still some wide variations here) and 3. Viewing angle (also a lot of variation). In simple terms, resolution tells you how many pixels there are (how good the picture quality is), contrast ratio is the difference between the darkest and lightest image that the TV can show, and viewing angle is how far to the side you can be and still see the picture.

The Samsung is strong on resolution (although most branded LCDs are), but it was at the top of the pack for contrast ratio and viewing angle. I have not had any problems with deterioration of picture quality, but if this is a common flaw, it would be a big negative, in my view.

When I first saw this TV at a local store, I wanted it. When I bought it, I thought this was gonna change the way I watch TV. Indeed...once you go HDTV, you will not go back. I am watching all of my local channels in HD for free OTA. I love KOCE-HD. The travel programs are so life-like, I feel I'm actually on vacation. So get this TV just for HDTV....it's worth it for that reason alone.

Now I am also a video gamer. So I hooked up my PS2 to it. Was not impressed initially. Then I switched to using Component cable. Difference of night and day. NEVER use the PS2 factory AV cable...it sucks. This TV is PERFECT for video games. I'd buy this TV for video games only actually. That's money well spent.

But last but not least....DVDs! Oh my goodness....if you use HDMI or Component connect for DVDs, you're gonna stop going to the movie theaters. Picture is so perfect on this TV....what a pleasure just watching it. This is truly a video-phile's dream.

My only complaints....The hookups are on the back, so you wont be able to use mounts that hang the TV flush against the wall. You need a couple of inches clearance. Several other TVs have hookups on the side or bottom edge so you can hang tightly. Also, speakers are not real strong. Lastly, the shape of the TV itself reminds me of an oversized computer monitor. I wish it would be more streamlined to look like a hi-tech TV.

I must state that the image quality on my 26" LCD was, key word was impeccable for the first four months I then started experiencing what is known by Samsung as color banding. This is where blacks turn green and gradations become very harsh to the point where the image quality is so horrible it's unviewable.

I have been in contact with Samsung 14 times since May 27th 2005 in regards to repairing my LCD. My first contact generated a transaction number for which I then contacted Intech Labs, they service Samsung repairs, however after leaving 4 voice mail messages and no response I was then forced to call Samsung again. I was then given a third VOC #, I once again called Intech and as the pattern repeated, no response. We are now up to the last week in July, keep in mind this started in May. I called Samsung for the 6th time and finally heard from Intech on July 28th and had a repair scheduled for August 3rd, an
Intech technician came out to repair the LCD and a new board did not fix the problem. I was told by the technician that he would send a replacement request to Samsung. So after another week of no response I called Samsung for the 7th time, Samsung stated that the Intech technician closed the ticket and that's why they did not follow up. That was in the middle of August and still no replacement, now we are up to call number 11 and they finally state that the replacement request was approved. We are now at September 8th and no repair or replacement. Today I filled a complaint with the BBB and I hope that will resolve something. I starting to think they are pushing this out so that my warranty will expire and they won't have to replace it. Purchase from this company at your own risk, I will never ever own other Samsung product again after this hell, I'm stuck with a $1500.00 LCD that looks worse than my parents 1968 RCA.

I have to add a comment that after months of poor service Samsung finally replaced my LCD with a new model.

I recently moved to a new apartment a get surprised by the size of the bedroom, it was too small. So, once I recovered from the initial shock, I had the perfect excuse to buy me a brand new TV. I really did a lot of research and look for every possibility and brand. So I want you to know what was my reasoning behind this: I don't have high definition TV, so I was afraid that normal cable TV was not going to look OK. Also the size was something important. You can not have a big screen in your bedroom because then you will have a problem with your wife. You also don't want to have a small screen, because then there is no point of buying a flat panel TV, at least for me. So I decided to go for 26". Let me tell you that this was the best possible choice. The other thing was the audio. I read that the Audio in this model was not so great. Well, it sounds very good to me. I don't know how it will sound in a big TV room, but in my bedroom, I don't need more. I use it with the volume in 5, and it's enough. When we are all watching a movie, I use it in 10. Sound can go up to 30. Again, I don't need more. Sorry to write all this things, but I was looking for them when I was doing some research, I didn't find anything.

The TV is perfect for small apartments and bedrooms. Excellent picture quality and sound. Easy to install and use. The only thing I didn't like is the PIP function, which can only be used with a HDMI connection, which of course I don't have.