Customer Reviews

Samsung SPR4232 42-Inch Flat Panel EDTV Plasma TV

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

 

 

I have this TV and it is amazing...amazing enough for neighbors and friends to stop over just to see what I am watching! If you have a conventional TV right now you don't know what you are missing! There is no comparison, DVD's look surreal...just pop in anything...trust me! Reviews like this must focus on the important issues: Picture quality...if I pause a dvd I can count nose hairs on an actress if I wanted to, without zoom!I can read normally indecipherable details in movies, roadsigns, writing, etc. The picture quality of my TV is way way better than the best movie theatres...nuff said.

NO BRAINERS BELOW:

The speakers on the TV do suck...but why spend $2000 on a TV and not spring for a nice stereo setup? Recievers are dirt cheap now, getting a 5.1 setup cost $299 complete...C'mon!

Plasma TVs will burn-in IF...you do not enable "pixel shift" a feature of this model or if you leave a static image onscreen for hours...how often will I fall asleep with my TV on pause or on PC mode, never if I enable the sleep timer...another feature of this model.

Contrast Ratio...it is just a number. Compare features of comparable models. The EDTV Panasonic costs the same and has a slightly, very slightly sharper picture...but I have a cable card, no ugly cable box! I have a PC port. I have a 2 year warranty, from Samsung. I have a modern looking design, and built in burn-in protection! None of those features are on the Panny! The Sony WEGA EDTV 42" costs $3500! Nearly double what my TV costs with no difference in picture quality.

Lets be fair and compare apples to apples. I love this TV, compare feature to feature and then picture to picture and the Samsung wins!

After standing in front of Panasonic TH-42PD50U and Samsung SPR4232 at local BestBuy for several hours, I have purchased the Samsung. Having been a royal Panasonic consumer for past 10 yrs, it almost came down to a coin toss.
Here are my two cents:

The Good:
1. Design -- Though purely subjective, I have found three design elements to be both functionally and esthetically satisfying: a) Black bezel to make the screen seem smaller and
smoother transition from picture to surrounding wall (although I wish the trim was matte, not glossy), b) Round pedestal that integrates with the TV better and makes side-to-side "tilting" possible without its "feet" sticking out over the TV console (the TV itself does NOT tilt; you have to move it), c) Round power button with surrounding illumination (minor design accent but it makes overall TV look a little less boxy).
2. Picture Quality -- Although this was not a deciding factor against the Panasonic, the Samsung does exhibit sharper contrast from a distance. However, from close proximity, the combination of DNIe and deeper black color makes the characters bit less 'natural.' At the end, I knew I'll have at least 8~10 ft distance from the TV so I weighed the "distant picture" more.
3. Sound Quality -- I'm not saying here that the sound quality is fabulous. But, compared to my Sharp LCD TV, this one is acceptable. With Sharp, the sound is actually louder behind the TV, not in front. At least, I don't have that issue with the Samsung -- it projects sounds [conversation between characters] pretty well.

The Bad:
1. Design -- The TV is too "rectangular" with rather sharp edges. If it wasn't for some round elements (see my comments earlier), the TV might come across as a cheap imitation.
2. "Ghost image" -- Well, this issue is not limited to Samsung but I had a scare. During the first few days, I went through some old movies on VHS, and with these 3:4 aspect ratio seemed more natural so I changed to the 3:4 ratio and watched movies for 4~5 days. And I went back to 16:9, I was surprised to find TWO "ghost" vertical lines where the edges of two side "black" bars were to make the screen 3:4. It went away after viewing a movie at 16:9, but made me wonder why bother offering 3:4 ratio if the TV cannot handle it. Later I have found out that Panoramic ratio handles old 3:4 ratio much better than 16:9 or, sometimes, 3:4 ratio itself (it keeps the distortions at minimum around the center, and slightly stretch at the end of both sides.
3. Inputs -- The TV offers one composite input, which is a minor nuisance, but expected at least two (like Panasonic).

The Ugly:
1. Remote Control -- This is a remote control from hell, unless you have ALL Samsung products (such as Samsung DVD, Samsung VCR, etc.). The Remote from my DishNetwork has more functionality.


Overall, I'm satisfied with the purchase at the price I have paid. If I have to pick one reason for picking this TV, it was ovall design. The black bezel does make a difference, and that's why high-end Panasonic actually offer them. Otherwise, you can go either and be pretty happy.

Happy Hunting.

I've had this TV for about 2 months now and I'm very satisfied.

I'm not an audiophile, so the sound/speakers make little difference to me. Regardless, to my ears, shows that are broadcast in HD/stereo sound very good when the volume is raised.

This is not a TV on which to watch analog programming, and even digital cable doesn't do the HD capability of the set justice. The only way to judge the picture quality of this set is with an HD signal. Sports look the best, most notably football and basketball, and baseball (ultimate fighting and boxing are decent too). Nature shows also look great -- especially red rock mountains or grassy plains. Lakes and underwater scenes tend to get some banding around the edges, but some tinkering with the contrast can help. TV shows (like sitcoms and crime dramas) broadcast in HD are usually decent, but skin tones are often flat. However, I've learned that some such issues seem occur more often when a scene was filmed using low lighting, odd camera angles, or extreme close-ups.

This TV is also good for viewing movies, and since most DVD players currenlty only output 480 lines of resolution, nothing is lost since that's all this set displays.

There are a few presets on the remote control for color and sound and a bit of tinkering on each often yields better results depending on what you're watching. The onscreen menus are easy to navigate for the most part, but the color adjustment submenu is clumsy and painful: whether using the "easy" mode or the advanced mode, you only get a static picture to look at when adjusting the color -- the normal show that you are watching goes away when you are adjusting the color.

The PIP feature is there, but cannot be initiated in the normal TV or antenna mode -- it must be initiated from another mode such as DVD. And though the remote control provides a "shortcut" button underneath a sliding panel (on the remote) it only turns on PIP and does not move it around or swap it with the main picture. To do that you have to go through 3 menu levels!

I opted to get a cable card from my cable provider, so it's nice not to have a set top box. There are a couple of problems with the cable card integration, though. When my cable provider resets the cable card (and I'm not sure why or how often this is done) my channel list is reset and those channels that I have manually removed through the menu "reappear". Since this amounts to several hundred channels being "put back" on the list, I've only taken the time to do this twice -- I couldn't spare the 45 minutes to remove those channels a third time. Also, when using the cable card, you cannot rename the channels as you can do in antenna or normal cable mode.

There are some other issues that I cannot remember at the moment, but are mostly minor. And overall, most of the issues that I detailed about this TV are indeed minor. The thing to take away from this review is that, overall, this is a very good TV at a very good price. It's a pleasure and a dream to watch, especially programs that are broadcast in HD. If you're going to sit close enough to a TV to see the pixels, neither this nor any large screen will make you happy. If will be sitting a reasonable distance away from the set, say at least 8 to 10 feet, then this is a fine choice. In fact, even though it's ED, not HD, I doubt I'll ever know the difference.

i just bought this same tv recently along with the 800watt dvd system from samsung with 5dvd carousel & i'll tell you what it blows away my last system which was a sony but instead of plasma i had a 32"sony wega(flatscreen).this system is the best i've had so far!!!

My husband purchased this TV and at first I thought it was too large for our standard size living room. After a couple of days, however, I wonder how we ever watched a small 27 inch TV.
After considerabel comparison shopping, Amazon was the best value for the 42 inch flat screen TV.

this is my first major "unnecessary" purchase(22 years old college student/part time worker). i was really scared in spending hard earned $1700 (plus tax) on something i would regret but i have been so satisfied with the samsung spr4232 only after a few minor tweaks. after i took this unit home, i plugged in my old dvd player (using component cables) and was unimpressed. few days later(after more research), i purchased the samsung dvd-hd850($89.99 brand new). the dvd player came with a HDMI cable INCLUDED!!! if anyone knows how much regular HDMI cables cost($80-120!), they would know this is a bargain. these two units(combined) left me stunned. the showroom quality of the tv was finally reached. HDMI cables are the only way to go with this unit. now i can enjoy my hard earned money exactly the way i've always dreamed of: a big ass plasma tv in a tiny, crowded, and a neat freak's worse nightmare of a room.

Picture is very good quality and set up is mostly user friendly. Advertising did not indicate that the pricy side mount speakers were not included. Without these the sound quality is very poor and tinny.

This is a great TV, but I permenately burned the screen when I accidently fell asleep with my PC on. Luckly I was able to return it to the brick and mortar store where I bought it and they didn't spot it. I loved this unit, but am a bit hesitant now that I have learned how easy it is to burn an image into plasmas. It took less then 12 hours to kill it.

Don't get me wrong. The TV is nice and all. BUT the advertised 10000:1 ratio is more like 3000 or 4000:1 ratio of Panasonic. The quality is about the same as Panansonic or Pioneer. Don't pay extra $$$ for 10000:1 ratio crap!

This Samsung TV has nothing special compared to Sony or Panasonic. As someone else mentioned below, 10000:1 ratio is overstatement. There is no difference at all.
The brigtness is a bit dimmer compared to other brands. But worst of all, the speakers. The speakers sounded as if Samsung just put them on for decoration. 5.1 Home Theater speaker system is a must for this pathetic TV. You will be disappointed, and you will long for Panasonic.

I see that the TV has mixed reviews. But why does Amazon keep changing the price? It started around $1700 then $1800, now it's at $2000. It went down a bit before, but came back up again. What's going on? Amazon used to be a reliable internet store, but nowadays, it's just another store with bunch of crooks.