Customer Reviews

Samsung PN50A400 50-Inch 720p Plasma HDTV

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

 

 

I bought this tv for $800 and couldn't be happier. Sure it's 720p and not 1080p, but for this cheap I couldn't be happier with 50 inches of HD television. You really don't give up that much resolution at 50 inches anyway.

Picture looks great, I have HD cable, Xbox 360, and Bluray player hooked up to it, and I love it. I have not seen any signs of the screen door effect.

What is bad about this tv? Well they skimped on the inputs. There are no front, or side panel inputs. On the back there are two HDMI inputs and two progressive inputs....ZERO RCA inputs. If you have RCA (like an old VCR or Tivo) then you use up one of the progressive inputs. Also there are ZERO optical audio inputs. There is an optical audio output so you can pass the HDMI sound to your surround sound receiver.

This tv has some feature to make the blacks darker, I think it does it by turning off the pixels all together. The only time you notice it is if the show you are watching fades to black, then it looks like the tv is completely turned off. At this point the tv would "freak out" and switch between the tv's black and off really dark black. I was able to get the tv to stop doing this when I calibrated my contrast and brightness settings. Would have been nice if Samsung offered a setting for the tv not to do this.

I have noticed some very slight image burn in after playing games, but it goes away quickly. After some research I found this is normal for Plasma's during the first 150-200 hours of use. I left my tv on for 24 hours on a cable channel, and already I've found that it's happening less frequently. I am a big gamer, and put in a few hours on the Xbox every night, the tv is brand new, and there are ZERO permanent burn ins, but I still wanted to mention it. Just don't leave a still image on for hours and hours during the first few months of use.

Overall I'm really happy with this tv. 50 inches is huge in my living room, and the color, contrast, and resolution is really nice. Doesn't have all the bells and whistles, doesn't have the 120hz, or contrast and picture you could get for another $1,000-$2,000 but at this price it's a great tv.

UPDATE: I've found a bad issue with this tv, that seems to be a problem with many tv's. If you send your signal to the tv through HDMI, and then out of the tv using the optical digital audio out, it will not pass 5.1 surround sound onto your receiver. From what I can gather it's a DRM issue. This is really lame, because the receiver I had did not have any HDMI inputs, to use as a pass through to the tv.

What you have to do then is have HDMI go to the tv, as well as optical audio from your Xbox/Bluray Player/Tivo HD go to your surround sound receiver. The other option if your receiver does have HDMI inputs is to run the HDMI from your Xbox/Bluray/Tivo to the receiver, then another HDMI from the receiver to the tv.

Again, the tv will not pass 5.1 surround sound to your receiver from HDMI inputs. It turns it into 2 channel stereo. It will pass 5.1 surround sound if you get your HD signal directly from over the air or cable.

This TV is amazing for the price. The picture is crystal clear, especially on HD. I bought it at Sears also for $799. The other comment about it not having an optical audio input is true, but I just ran my optical digital cable from my DVR cable box straight to my sound system and it works great. The picture is wonderful when playing DVDs as well, although I do not have a BluRay player.
The 720 isn't a big deal on this model. My parents have a 1080 Phillips and on HD, the picture is just as good on this Samsung. The 1080 is slightly better on SD channels, but they paid $1100 more. I did lots of research before buying, and you can not beat the picture quality and clarity for this price. The colors are amazing, the blacks are very black. We had to adjust the brightness and color a little, and the TV has many different settings such as sports and cinema which you can switch for better color on different types of shows.
I would highly recommend this model.

I bought mine at Sears for $799.00, and love it. If you are looking for a large plasma TV, and want to spend less than $1000.00-this is for you. I recently connected it to the HDTV box from the cable company, and the picture is great, especially sports. We have also played the wii and playstation on the TV without any difficulties. You can set the TV to move 2 to 4 pixels vertically and 2 to 4 pixels horizontally every 2 minutes so there will never be a burn on the screen, because the pixels are continuously moving. The remote control is very easy to use as well.

I bought this TV as a gift to our family. Sears priced it at $899 (although it was $799 there on Black Friday.)
Pick-up was a bit of a problem since I was told by the Sears salesperson that the TV must not be transported flat (horizontal) and the shipping carton is 36.9 inches tall. My Jeep Liberty and an a neighbor's Ford Expedition didn't have sufficient clearance to haul it upright so I used my 16' trailer to pick it up. A bit of overkill, but it got the job done.
The picture is terrific as noted in other reviews, and I would rate the set as Five Stars except for the lack of easy-access inputs. I understand that other Samsung plasmas have side inputs but this model doesn't.
However, it's a great TV for the price.

Basically I have no complain about this TV model, as far as picture quality, user interface, physical appearance are all rate high in my book. But it has intermittent problem with power supply, until it totally crap out just after one year warranty expire. then I search the net and found out thousands Samsung LCD/Plasma TV customers are having the same problem - could not turn on TV !!!

So I bought this TV black friday week of last year for $799 at BB and the TV is great!!! I have searched and searched to find the best calibration settings for this really nice TV right... NO WHERE TO BE FOUND!!!

No problem... I'll just call the guys who make the darn thing, right!?

They told me they didn't have that kind of information, so I sent them an email and got the same response; LAME.

The product itself is wonderful, first nice TV ever bought and I hope it lasts!!!!!!!!!!!

This television is perfect. We absolutely love it. The best part is we did not have to fight the crowds at Wal-mart on the day after Thanksgiving to get it. We paid the same price for it and it was delivered right to our door.