Customer Reviews

Samsung PN63A650 63-Inch 1080p Plasma HDTV with Red Touch of Color

5 star:		(27)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The picture and viewing angle are amazing. I almost bought the PN58A650 (the 58" screen) and decided to spend the extra money on the 63". I'm glad I did because I did not want to be staring at the 58" for the next few years always wondering what the 63" would look like. If you're hesitant about buying it online, I went to Consumer Reports and buyers are just as happy buying online verses a store. The delivery was great. I got a tracking # and the white glove service was nice. They brought it in, took it out of the box and set it on the furniture and I hooked up the HDMI cable and they turned it on to verify that the picture was ok and off they went. The touch of color is pretty subtle and looks nice. I was concerned about the glare/reflections on the glass but the anti-glare technology they have is fine. I have two windows behind me and I was able to see them with my old 61" projection but I can't see them on this.

Amazing is the only way to describe it. For the longest time I thought LCD was the way to go. But decided to take a serious look at plasma tvs, primarily because of inherent motion lag and color reproduction issues with lcd. Fancy technology such as 120 Hz still does not mask the problem to a semi-trained eye. Once I decided to go with Plasma, I did a comparison between Panasonic, Pioneer & Samsung. Did a side by side comparison at Best Buy & found the Samsung to have the overall best picture quality. To be totally honest, Pioneer has a slight edge in some aspects but it is priced 30-40% more than comparable Samsung Plasma.

Icing on the cake: The latest street price is $3000.

I bought this tv three weeks ago, CEVA delivered within 7 days of ordering, great delivery, they delivered within 24 hours of scanning the item into my local CEVA hub. They brounght the TV in, took it out of the box, set it on my stand and made sure it worked. I signed for it and they were off within 25 minutes.

The TV is truly amazing. I can honestly say that I have never seen a better picture. No issues whatsoever with this set so far. HD sports are unbelievable and even SD cable is very nice. TV gets a little warm to the touch but certainly not hot. The remote wheel takes a little getting use to but is not bad IMO. The sound on the set is surprisingly better than I expected. I will be hooking up 7.1 but haven't purchased the receiver yet.

If you are in the market for a TV this one will not let you down. I was a little disappointed that as of Sept 1 Amazon will no longer give you the price reduction when they mark something down from the time you order to the time it's delivered. Two days after ordering the set dropped $250 and has now dropped another $400. I would gladly have spent the savings right back with Amazon on a receiver but I may now go to a big box that will give me at least a 60 day price match windoq on any reductions.

However for $4081, this set should be a no brainer. Buy and enjoy, I certainly am!

This Plasma 63 Inch Has To Be The Best Tv I Have Ever Owned Or Even Came Across. The Picture On high Def Input Blows Away Any Other Tv I Have Looked At And I did Quite A Bit Of Research Before Dropping Down 3000.00 On A TV. I Am An Electronic Engineer And Nothing Gets Me Excited But This Set Blew Me Away With Its Picture and quality. Samsung has really Out Done Themselves. it Takes 3 Large Men To Mount This Set On A Wall Bracket. It Weigh Over 200 LBS Out Of The Box. The delivery Was Perfect . You Must Leave The Set On For About 2 Weeks Just To Get The Plasma Working Great. It Must Be Burned In For A While. If You Have The Money To Spend even If you don't This Set Will Knock Your Socks Off. But You Must Have A High Def source. It still Looks great On Reg TV But It Will Blow you Away On High def. The Picture And The Colors it Produces Are almost Perfect in Everyway. I can't Say Enough about This Set its PERFECT. Except for its Weight. make sure Your Bracket Is Mounted Into 2 By 4 Wood Studs or The tv will Fall off The wall. It comes With A Floor Stand That Is Perfect but i chose to mount it On The wall And angled it Down Around 20 Degrees. This set Works Excellent I Have Left it On For Over 1 Month Now With Not One Problem. The Picture Keeps Getting Better And better. Lcds Have No Comparison to The Picture Quality Of This Set. Like I said I dont Get Excited Over Anything Anymore I have seen just About Everything But This Tv Will make you Take notice and Watch Alot More tv Than i used To before. I have 8 Computers At my house which i Built All of Them Myself I Find I Am not Playing With The Computers as Much Since I Got This set. If You can afford This Or not It Is well worth The money. No shipping and NO Sales tax. What A Bargian. The Red Colored Trim Is Outstanding This is A Monster TV. Enjoy It For anybody That Buys One You will Truly Be Amazed At The quality And picture it has. I have A Blu Ray And That Totally Will Blow You Away. My Audio System Has 8 Subwoofer Speakers with Seperate 200 watt Amps for Each And Klipsch towers For The Front End and Klipsh for The Rears And Center Whan A Bomb goes Off You Get Blown Out Of Your Seat. My subs Have There Own Graphic Eq. It Makes A Movie Theater Sound Like Crap. My wife Jumped Out Of her Seat When A Person Fell from A Stairwell In A Movie And hit The floor with A Thump That Sounded so real I Almost Jumped Out Of My Chair. I Like Loud Audio Clean And Full Of Bottom End. All The China in The house Has almost been Broken after watching A movie That has Bombs detonating. Make Sure You have The audio System To back Up The Picture It is A Whole Lot different When Your sound Equals The Picture You Are watching. BUY THIS SET IF YOU CAN!!!!!!!!! You will Not Be disatified One BIT!!!!

Just my candid opinion without embelishment

It has a great picture no matter what you watch; movies, sports, etc. It is very heavy, 165lbs uncrated so you need 2 strong people or professionals to wall mount it. The sound is marginal. It sounds a bit muffled (the sound is projected downward from the TV not directly at you). If you're hearing is crisp, or if you will use a seperate surround system, no issues but don't expect too much here. The touch of color thing... I'd have preferred it just gloss black but it is not something I spend any time thinking about. I paid 3K all- in...price will drop and I'll be sorry but if you keep a set for many years a few hundred bucks doesn't matter all that much. You won't be sorry you bought this TV. I chose plasma because I wanted larger than 52" and I didn't want to deal with any lag effect in action movies and sports. LCD's @120Hz are better than before, but you know the game: next year it will be 240Hz, then 480hz the year after that...etc. With Plasma, it doesn't matter...no lag. In case it matters to you, with the lights off, it's big enough for you to feel like you have a legitimate theater in your home.

If you want a "BIG" TV with a great picture, you should check this out. I got it through Amazon a month ago. Before buying it, I had been comparing flat screens in my local electronics stores and had been very impressed with Samsung, although the biggest Samsung my local stores carried was the the 58" version. I also spent a lot of time surfing the web and reading reviews. Samsung generally gets rave reviews for its products so I pulled the trigger and ordered this 63" giant. It was delivered by two strong guys who had to work pretty hard to carry it. They put it in my family room and I waited about 10 hours before turning it on (to bring it to room temperature).

When I first turned on the TV, the colors were not as good as the colors on my 50" Panasonic, so I was initially disappointed. I spent a couple sessions adjusting the display and was ready to hire someone to calibrate it, but I was told that the TV should have at least 100 hours of use before a calibration can be performed properly. Hearing that, I decided to wait until I got to that level of usage. In the meantime, I reset the settings to factory and WOW, it was great. Apparently in the first few hours, the display "settled in." I've been watching it with a critical eye since then, fearing that the display may continue to shift, but it's remained true. I'm sure I've got over 100 hours of use on it now and I no longer feel the need to calibrate it.

When I first got the TV, I installed the stand -- even the stand is heavy, you'll need help doing this -- and set it on a cabinet without a surround sound system. The sound quality is as good as you can hope for from built-in speakers and will go plenty loud without buzzing or distortion. Since getting the TV, I've hooked up a surround sound system and mounted the TV on the wall. If you're thinking of mounting it on a wall, get a mount that will hold the weight and make sure you install it correctly. Then you'll need at least two people for lifting and one person to tend the cables. Right now I've got the surround sound disconnected because I am in the process of replacing my old receiver with an HDMI receiver. While in the midst of that project I am back to using the built-in speakers and have to admit that even after using surround sound for awhile, the built-in speakers acquit themselves quite well.

I've tried to watch as many different types of programming that I can. I watch DVDs and BDs through a Samsung BD player. The colors and the black levels are fantastic. Regular HD programming is awesome. Regular broadcasts are, well, regular broadcasts. But I don't know that you can realistically expect anything great from a standard broadcast signal.

This is the biggest TV I could afford. I wanted to get something that I wouldn't want to update right away. I got what I wanted. When we have friends over, the TV draws them like moths to a flame. Everyone, and I mean everyone, is impressed. I don't know what more I could ask from a TV except less weight.

I watched this plasma for 3 months as the price came down and finally pulled the trigger in time for Christmas delivery. I purposely waited until it was offered through Amazon to get the white glove delivery (the set weighs 200 lbs in the box). Since it was my first major purchase I elected to use the 1-888 number and talk to a real person at Amazon. She was helpful and was able to identify the delivery company that would be bringing the set (CEVA)and said it would likely show up on the 23rd or 24th. A couple days later and after about 15 min. of internet homework I located the CEVA distribution center, got a phone number, called them and confirmed that the set was sitting on the dock. Their local delivery chief even called me back personnally and we coordinated a delivery on the 23rd. They showed up within 5 minutes of when they said they would arrive. In 15 minutes they had it unpacked, brought in, placed in my entertainment center, hooked up and turned on. (Prior to that I had gone on Samsung's website and downloaded the user manual. It showed me that all connections except power were in the lower right hand quadrant of the set. So I was able to have all the HDMI, opticals, etc. premarked and prestrung before they came.) They took all the packing materials and left me to enjoy a fantastic picture. With Dolby 7.1 it really rocks. What really surprised me most was how the high resolution supports sitting much closer to the screen than I would have thought possible (when its showing HD). Bottom line: Great System, Great Delivery, Great Price.

First PN63A650 we received had a strange defect - It'd randomly start scanning for channels on its own. Samsung support was easy to reach and communicate with, but it wasn't anything the tech had previously heard of and we couldn't solve it on the phone, so a service call was scheduled. Since we'd just received the TV, I emailed Amazon that night just to see what my options were. Heard back from them early the next morning. No questions asked, they were sending a new TV. Talk about prompt service.

Ceva had delivered the first one and a few days later they were back with its replacement. Excellent service from this freight company. Painless.

After just over a month of ownership, we're really smitten with this TV. Beautiful picture quality, easy to navigate controls. If I were doing this all over again, I'd buy the same TV.

Thanks for the exemplary service, Amazon.

Update: 4/8/2010...
We're coming up on a year with this set and nothing's changed to diminish our satisfaction. It's been 100% trouble free and the picture's as beautiful as day one. In fact, we just bought another Samsung plasma for the bedroom. A 50" PN50C550, also from Amazon. It's every bit as nice as our 63" and the buying experience was every bit as pleasant.

This is the best Plasma I have had, a bit on the expensive side though. The price at Amazon was great. You do need about 3 strong people to mount it on the wall or actually to do any kind of moving. Default set-up was pretty good, but I also bought the Digital Video Essentials to make this TV colors even better. One thing I have to say about Amazon.com buying experience. I wanted to get the 12 month, nopayment, no interest deal from Amazon, so I applied on-line and got enough credit to make the purchase. I used the Amazon.com Store card, but it did not go through the first time. I called The Credit Card line for Amazon and they said to go to the site abnd buy it again, the same experience the second time. When I called again, the agent said that I needed to put in the security code that is on the back of the card, which I do not have, since I was approved that day. Amazon said that I could not use the credit card that I was approved for. I finally my DIscover card for the purchase. Amazon.com makes it very difficult to purchase items like this from them. Also, when my new TV arrived, and the delivery perople opened it up, I found that the TV, which was supposed to be brand new, was opened by somebody, because the body of the TV had scratches. I ad to wai another 7 days for the replacement to arrive.

I helped my dad set up this set last weekend. I had urged him to buy a Pioneer Kuro 60" because I have a Pioneer 60" and he loves the picture it has when he comes to visit. I was concerned when he decided to get the Samsung pn63a650, because of image retention issues I'd read about previous models of Samsung plasmas. I am very happy to report that none of the previous problems exist on this set. The black levels are very nice on this tv. The picture quality is excellent. The cable management and swivel base are well designed. I love everything about it. I was worried about Pioneer quitting the plasma business, but now that I have seen this set I'm not worried about that anymore. I played with it for 2 days during our visit, and I was impressed with the adjustment controls it has available. After much tweaking it has a picture every bit as nice as my Pioneer. The bad thing is, those 3 extra inches on the pn63a650 have made my Pio 60" look small... I'm ready to go visit mom and dad again. lol.