Customer Reviews

Samsung PN42B400 42-Inch 720p Plasma HDTV

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

 

 

I purchased this TV to replace a 26" Samsung LCD. This TV hasn't failed to impress yet. I've put it through it's paces on several inputs, including multiple genres of video games through a Playstation 3, both Blu-ray and DVD movies, and digital cable programming through a hi-def box. In each instance, connections were made with an HDMI cable.

Honestly, I didn't have to alter anything. I toyed with tweaking the various display options, but in the end (for the vast majority of the settings) I ended up going back to factory defaults. The picture is consistently sharp, clear, and vibrant. As far as picture quality goes, I can only come up with one negative. It lacks full 1080p. Personally, I would rather put the cash towards a larger 1080i/780p set than a smaller 1080p.

The lack of a fifth star is a combination of three things. One, lack of 1080p. Two, the remote feels slightly cheap. It's not horrible, but i feel like with the build quality of the TV, and the coolness of the touch screen buttons used on the TV itself, the remote could have been better. No problems if you have a good universal though. The last of the three, is that I cannot vouch for the sound quality. My audio is routed through a separate receiver, so it would've been exceedingly impractical to re-rig everything to test out speakers (especially since I'll never use them personally)

I got this TV during the Black Friday sale and I must say, I am overwhelmingly impressed with what Samsung has to offer. Free shipping by Amazon via Pilot was icing on the cake and the shipping was quick and efficient (they even delivered it all the way to my living room of my condo apartment!).

Size:
As a first time HDTV owner, I wanted to buy a HDTV that is larger than my current one (Sony WEGA 22") but smaller than a 46 inch. After testing out several units at Best Buy and Walmart stores, my final TV size was 42" - not too large, but not too small. It was just the right size for an HDTV. It was also the right size for a 720p resolution, as I soon found out firsthand.

Resolution (720p vs. 1080p):
After going through many reviews from several electronic websites, I have come to the conclusion that at 42 inch, the human eye cannot really tell the difference between 720p and 1080p unless you sit within 1 foot away from the TV. 720p simply means a resolution of 1024x768 pixels, whereas 1080p has 1920x1080 pixels. The 'p' stands for progressive scan, which means all pixel rows are lit each time, displaying smoother moving images. Nowadays, cable companies offer HD channels that only broadcast at 720p, so there's really no need to spend the extra money on a 1080p TV.

Plasma vs. LCD (Contrast and Brightness):
The popular demand nowadays is LCD since prices have gone down, but nevertheless the argument still rages on as to which type of display dominates. From what I saw, plasma TVs have a really quick response time (.001ms) as opposed to LCDs, have richer colors, deep blacks and great contrast for movies and sports viewing, whereas LCDs are brighter, but are relatively weaker in terms of displaying a rich, warm color.

This Samsung plasma looks absolutely gorgeous when viewed with an HDMI cable. The images are very rich in contrast, especially with the 2,000,000 to 1 mega contrast ratio. PS3 graphics are also rich in color when used with a HDMI cable.

Anti-burn in Technology:
While it is true that plasmas do suffer from burn-ins, keep in mind that LCDs have their woes as well - suffering from dead pixels. Samsung has did a great job from previous plasma models of reducing burn-ins with 2 features that include pixel shift and pixel scrolling, which moves the pixels at a designated interval (recommended for this TV is 2 horizontal, 2 vertical, every 2 min).

Value:
At $550, this is a really good price for a quality Samsung plasma. If you need more HDMi ports and connections, capability to use Anynet technology for universal remotes, and a headphone jack, you can get all that with a Samsung PN42B450 model for $74 more (currently $624 at Amazon as of this review).

Differences between PN42B400 and PN42B450:
The only difference I've noticed with my Samsung plasma is that there's no PC D-sub port but instead has a HDMI/DVI port for computer connections (where you use a mini-DVI/DVI to HDMI adapter), so that's a plus. Another thing is that PN42B400 does not have a headphone jack, no anti-glare filterbright technology, has no silver decor at the bottom of the SAMSUNG logo, and the volume (+/-) and power buttons are touch sensitive and are in the front of the unit, similar to that of the PN42B450. Compared to the PN42B450 model, this model only has 2 HDMI ports.

Overall, this is a great buy at an affordable price.

UPDATE: 7/17/10
It's been nearly 8 months since I've bought this TV and so far I can't find any flaws/complaints for it. No burn-in is detected even though I use the TV on avg of 3+ hours a day. The picture quality and contrast are still crisp and vivid. On a side note, there has been 2 times since I bought this TV where it just turned on automatically in the middle of the night for a few min before shutting off by itself. I've read that the TV is trying to auto-update and check for software updates, even though this Samsung TV version has no released updates (the PN42B450 model does have updates, though). So far, I have not found a solution, but that's alright since the TV hasn't turned on by itself lately.

We've had this TV for about a week and have no complaints so far. The image is very bright and vibrant along with deep blacks. The sound is great as far as built in speakers go.

We chose plasma because it has a great contrast ratio as well as fast refresh rate for a very affordable price. This is a quality plasma set. It has basically the same picture and sound as the more expensive PN42B450, which has gotten a ton of great reviews on Amazon. On the PN42B450's page check out the discussion "PN42B400 vs PN42B450" for some more info about the differences between these TV's.

Just bought this hours ago at Walmart for $591 taxes included. I bought it for my bedroom to replace a 720p 32" Polaroid LCD I bought 4 years ago. I have to say that so far I am quite impressed. I have another Polaroid 42" 1080p in my office that I use as my computer monitor, plus for limited movie watching. This Samsung blows that Polaroid out of the box for regular cable tv watching, however, for High Def material they are quite similiar. The one thing that I didn't expect was that the Samsung picks up digital channels flawlessly and without an antenna. The Polaroids I have don't and I have had to buy an antenna and they still have trouble picking up the signal. So far no problems with HD signals on the Samsung and I don't use an antenna. That means more than 20 more free HI Def channels for me. Nice! Yesterday I bought a Sony Blu Ray player (BDP-S360)for $125 and I hooked that up to my new Samsung TV. The picture is flawless. Don't really see the difference between 720p and 1080p.

The only downside I can think of now is the lack of HDMI inputs. No big deal though, I have a reciever that I run everything thru. Like the other reviewer mentioned, not much set up to do, I am using the factory settings for now, although I may tweek them later. Overall, nice addition to my bedroom. I may even switch it out with my Polariod and use it as my computer monitor, I do more TV watching in there anyways.

Just purchased on Amazon for $549 w/tax+shipping. Fantastic price, good delivery.

I have a 58" Panasonic 1080p plasma and this was for a bedroom. The picture is great -- no complaints. One note is that Amazon's product pictures aren't completely accurate. The inputs on the back are actually on the reverse side of where the picture shows (looking at the TV from the front, they are behind the left side, not the right) -- not a big deal but I had the wires up the wrong side of the wall. Oh well.

Love the picture, the remote is fine (who uses the TV remote these days anyways?), and the TV itself looks much more expensive than it is. Having both a 1080p Plasma and this which is "just" 720p -- seriously, there's no reason to spend extra money to buy a spec that no one but you will ever know about. You just simply can't tell the difference at this size. Stop worrying about it if you're concerned.

Why 4* and not 5*? The sound is as bad as everyone says. My wife made fun of me for playing with the different sound controls (like SRS fake surround) which are pointless when the speakers sound so tinny and cheap. They're tolerable and will have to do for me.

Some may take issue with the number of inputs in the back but I only needed the two HDMI cables (one for the U-Verse box and one for a future DVD player). That combined with the poor speakers might be good motivation to take the money you save on this and get a good receiver for video switching and some decent speakers -- next Christmas, for me.

All in all, it's a steal at Amazon's price when it becomes available again.

Interesting that here on Amazon the list price is shown as $549 (with a line through the numbers) but the vendor is selling for $648! Go figure????

BTW, the price yesterday (12/15/2009) at Walmart (perhaps not your favorite store?) is only $548, plus Calif sales tax. So save $100 on the price plus another $100+ shipping and go to Walmart.

On the floor (literally, it was sitting on a wooden flat on the floor) at the store - note that the store environment is NOT a home theatre environment - lots of light from multiple sources - and the picture looked great (playing a Blu-Ray DVD movie). I can't imagine that Walmart would pay a highly qualified technician to spend any time to tweak the picture - they just unpack it and plug it in. The DVD player was a Magnavox NB500MG1F which they sell for $78.

I've heard so much hype, especially around this time of year, about all this great television technology - 720p, 1080i, 1080p, LCD, LED, Plasma, 600hz, Wi-Fi... I saw a TV that had a dock for my iPhone! Well, that is all well and good, but in the store, to your average television watcher, the pictures on these flat panel TVs all pretty much look the same. SO my basic factors when looking to purchase a television is SIZE and PRICE.

In comes the Samsung PN42B400 42-Inch 720p Plasma HDTV. This baby just got delivered today... FOR FREE. This TV was on sale last week for $549 with free shipping. I live in Los Angeles and sales tax is 9.75%, so if I would have hung out around Best Buy or Wal-Mart last week for a deal, I still would have been hit with that merciless tax. So, NO WAITING IN LINE and NO TAX! PLUS, I had about $0.66 left over from an old Amazon.com gift certificate, so that was a bonus! POINT. CLICK. TV DELIVERED in 6 days (it was actually brought into my apartment, unpacked, and set-up on the TV stand that I had waiting - I WASN'T EVEN HOME!!) Easiest. Process. Ever.

The TV's picture is great, right now I just have it hooked up on Component HD cables to an HD cable box. I had a Olevia 32" 720p LCD that is 2 years old that I paid about $700 for, and the picture on the Samsung is noticeably better - and much bigger! I have yet to hook up my Xbox 360 because of the one downside to this TV, it only has 3 inputs - 2 HDMI and 1 Component/Composite shared input. Also the coaxial jack. It would be nice to double that amount for the future, but I'll have all I need once I get a new HDMI cable (My 32" LCD was hooked up via DVI). I'm not hosting any movie premiers in my apartment, so I don't think anyone is going to notice that the resolution on this Samsung is a bit less than that of a similiar TV that sells for $1549 - I'd rather have the $1000. The TV is about 3" deep, so I could definitely put it on the wall if I ever got so motivated - though no time soon I can imagine.

All in all I am quite pleased with this TV is mostly the great deal I feel that I got with it - I guess that is what Black Friday mania is all about, though I actually bought this on November 23rd. So if you want a good TV at a great price - this will do that for you. Make sure you get FREE SHIPPING!!!

- Matt

My husband and I decided this would be our christmas gift to each other since it was such a great deal. We used base included with it since we have concrete walls and didn't want to lag into them to hang it up. It assembled easily with two of us and looks absolutely beautiful. We got everything hooked up and bought a basic amplified antenna (since we don't have cable) and the picture is fantastic! The colors are unbelievable and the sound is really good too for just the built in speakers (although the acoustics in our house may be better than most given the solid concrete walls). We also purchased a Samsung 1080p upconverting dvd player on Amazon and it matches the tv perfectly. It is the perfect size for our bedroom and for $550 a great bargain. We love the tv and it was very easy to set up and start enjoying. I would definitely recommend it.

Thought i would like to show you something. I am not a guru by any means but i purchased an emerson tv model
emerson pl-p42w-10a

It is the same thing as this tv. totally in all aspects, down the manual too. i believe emerson outsourced to samsung for this. Great TV aND I paid well under 500 for it. Assuming it is the same tv, you cant go wrong!

just wanted to share for the bargain hunters.

I bought this set to replace a 3 year old Samsung 720P 32in LCD. Purchased this TV at a local department store because the salesman raved about the "deep blacks of plasma, better contrast, and faster refresh rate for sports etc.." Got it home and adjusted picture settings for hours and could never get the picture to look quite right. Image quality was more reminiscent of an old Zenith CRT television I had back in college. I returned it and got a Samsung LN40B500 1080P 60 HZ LCD, sweet deal, sweet TV. No motion blur problems at all (even with sports) at least to my untrained eyes. Anyway, I know alot of people still swear by plasma but to me this set just didn't look all that great, I guess it might be suffering by comparison to the Samsung LCD's I have.