Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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108 of 116 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great TV - Great Service, October 27, 2006
Ordered this TV from Amazon on Sunday night October 22. It was delivered on Thursday, October 26. It came direct from Amazon and had free shipping. It's strange, sometimes Amazon has it, and sometimes it's available from a 3rd party. In any event, I paid $1,999 with free shipping. The delivery was prompt and arrived in excellent condition.
My son works with ESPN as a Technical Director and he helped me select the TV. He's a technical whiz at this stuff. We visited several stores and looked at various makes. He was trying to steer me to a DLP but I didn't like the narrow viewing angle and it would not have suited my room. I originally wanted a 42" plasma but discovered I had to stick to a 40" since my TV room is somewhat small. We finally narrowed it down to Toshiba, Sony, & Panasonic. Because I needed a 40", I had to go to an LCD or the Panny 37" plasma, which to me was too small.
Not sorry I went LCD. I has no screen glare or burn-in problems, although I understand the plasmas now have the burn-in under control. And, it seems I sacrificed nothing as far as the picture quality goes. We finally chose the Samsung. The Samsungs have it over the other TV's in the same price range both for features and picture quality. We were almost going to get the LN-S4092D, but then we saw this model which has 1080p capability. While not being used now, it is a feature for the future. Also, look for a unit with dual HDMI inputs. You may not need both now, but you will like it later.
When you go into a store, first thing is to tone down the TV's you're looking at. They have them cranked up to max contrast & brightness. Usually the sets will have a "movie" viewing mode. Change it to that. If they don't have that, cut the contrast and brightness to at least 60-75%, the sharpness to 10% or less, and the color temp to a "warm" setting. That will tone it down to a good level tha will allow you to see the TV's real capabilities. Then, have the salesman put a real SD signal through it. Not a pre-recorded looped signal that splits the screen HD/SD. On some of those they exagerate the SD bluriness to make the HD look better.
This Samsung has a great SD picture. Yes, it's not HD, but it's very acceptable and not much worse than my old CRT TV. The HD picture is fabulous. I am in NJ and we have Comcast Digital cable with a DVR. I was watching the World Series last night and when they had a close up of the pitcher, you could count his wiskers. The side-to-side viewing fades a little when you get too far, but it's not real noticable and who watches from that extreme angle anyway? The swivel stand helps.
The sound is good TV sound. It's not home-theater quality, but it's good. It has a built-in graphic equalizer so you can customize the sound you like. The other thing that I liked about this TV is the limited surround. It made the overall size a little smaller than the other 40" units which helped me out considerably as I mentioned earlier. And the gloss "piano black" gives it a classy look. Nicer than the silver. I didn't give it a 5 rating, because I just got it, and to me nothing is perfect. There is always room for improvement. But, I love it. A great choice.
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70 of 74 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Looks Great!, November 19, 2006
I've had this HDTV for about two weeks and I love it. I toured various retailers looking at many models before I decided on this unit. To me it looked better than any other model than perhaps one higher-priced (by +$600) top of the line Sony which looked marginally better.
HD programming looks absolutely fantastic especially since I also got a Comcast HD DVR hooked up as well. Broadcast TV looks very good although occasionally certain ads, programs or channels may have more noise (relative to either bandwidth set by digital cable company or original video source settings). Interestingly, the one or two noisy channels (I believe the fault lies with the cable company, not this TV) look better if I switch my input from HDMI to the pass-through coaxial input--this gives a slight fuzz to the image, but largely gets rid of the noise.
Having worked with/ dealt with/ numerous plasma screens over the last 4 years at work, I am wary of claims that they have overcome burn-in issues. The models we bought last year showed significant burn-in from 5 minute video loops (after about 50 hours of pre-conditioning play of non-repeating video) in just a couple of weeks. While video loops are way worse than any normal viewing, I do play games that will have a speedometer, etc. on the screen for hours, so . . . LCD was the way for me.
Coudn't be happier with the TV, my wife is wowed and my 6 year old said it was like we were sitting next to the helicopter pilot during a Discovery HD program.
The price has fallen about $300 since I purchased the unit--so it's a real deal now. I used Amazon for shipping and, other than it taking a few weeks to wind its way here (saved $$), it arrived on schedule, undamadged and was quickly unpacked and set in place by their delivery crew. I had already run my cables and removed the old TV so in literally 5 minutes after they arrived (and I did a quick pixel check, etc.) they were on their way, along with the packing materials.
I'm totally happy with this marvelous device so far, but two tiny things and these may be common to other units but they aren't things that show up on the showroom floor: switching video sources is fairly quick, but it takes a second or two to tune in the HDMI source (maybe it has to wind up signal processing?) and it takes about 5 seconds from when you turn the TV on until it actually comes on (I turned off the little chime that lets you know its doing something)--but I think the in-laws got confused and kept turning it on and off before it finished.
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34 of 35 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Stunning!, October 18, 2006
I purchased this TV via Amazon a week or so ago and the purchase was made through Electronics Expo. All dealings with the purchase and delivery went smoothly.
I was originally planning to purchase the 46", but believe me, these TV's look smaller in the stores than they will in your home. I'm wholeheartedly happy with the size of this TV and glad I made the choice to buy the 40".
You wouldn't believe the picture on this TV. It's just as beautiful as it looks in the stores.
If you're not a huge sports fan, watching football on this TV will convert you! Any kind of sports are unbelievable because the TV's picture is so striking.
I agree with the last reviewer that the lacquer finish is disappointing, not necessarily because of the bling-bling effect (I do live in Atlanta after all ;)), but because it dulls the blacks that the TV produces a bit. Strangely enough, I never noticed that while I was researching which TV to purchase.
Some reviewers have mentioned that this TV makes a clicking noise when it's searching for sources. Mine does in fact do that, but it only lasts for a couple of seconds where two or three clicks will occur. This does not bother me at all, because honestly, I can only hear it if the rest of the house is quiet and the TV volume is turned very low. I wouldn't let that stop you from making a purchase.
As with any other expensive TV, I'd recommend purchasing the right cables for the best picture quality and also investing in an up-convert DVD player if you're avoiding the Blu-Ray/HD-DVD debacle as I am. That way you can enjoy your new TV and movies until the prices on the true HD DVD players come down.
Bottom line: I recommend this TV 100% if you're looking to purchase an LCD TV rather than a plasma as I was. The TV interface is also very sleek and user-friendly. A great option for you if you're in the market for a 1080p LCD TV!
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