Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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155 of 156 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Samsung's Fabulous B630 Non-glare LCD HDTV, May 11, 2009
Being the first to review the 2009 Samsung LN40B630 on Amazon was purely an accident in that I actually bought the new Sony KDL-40V5100 on April 2nd. At that time, the Samsung B650 had just come out, but its high gloss panel would not have performed well in my brightly lit room. My high definition projection TV had kicked the bucket after 8-years, but I rarely enjoyed watching HD because the daylight glare would wash out the picture. The Sony's non-glare screen performed well except when the picture would black out during dark movie scenes. I discovered that many of the V5100 series have had this glitch and Sony had no fix for it at that time. To Best Buy's credit, they cheerfully exchanged the Sony under their 30-day return policy and delivered the Samsung B630 model which has a non-glare screen and is similar to the popular B650.
My expectations of the new Samsung were that it would perform much like the Sony. I could not have been more wrong. The B630 was like viewing another huge leap in a television experience, while the Sony seemed to be of past technology. The depth and breadth of Samsung's visual color tones are astounding and mesmerizing. A perfect example of that came from viewing scenes of the Caribbean Sea. The Sony could not match the Samsung's Wide Color Enhancer 3 processor with its three dimensional qualities and vibrant tones of turquoise, sea green, cobalt blue, coral pink and white sand clearly seen under the sea. It literally was like being there.
The Samsung's dynamic contrast of 80,000-1 was visibly superior to the Sony's 50,000-1 and convinced me that Samsung's contrast rating was more than a marketing numbers game. The viewing angle of the Sony was horrific when moving away from center by seeing flesh tones morph into green. Samsung's viewing angle was far better by maintaining the proper color tones, but it did lose contrast and brightness. Of course, a slight turn of its swivel base helped to alleviate Samsung's viewing angle issue.
The downside to Samsung's advanced technology was that every movie appeared as video and lost its magical cinema quality. Sony was superior in dealing with this issue. To address that problem, the backlight and contrast settings have to be toned down to soften the picture and to preserve a film's attributes. Most importantly, an adjustment to the 120 Hz Motion Plus feature must be done in order to keep movies from appearing surreal. While some recommend turning the 120 Hz off, I found video blurring far too annoying and placed the Auto Motion Plus to a custom setting of 6 for blur and judder reduction. That seemed like a good compromise without losing much of the film's realistic movement. Experiment with every adjustment to find your best settings and calibration instructions are easily found on [...]. It all came together beautifully for me and hopefully this information can be helpful to you.
One bad design feature was the power and channel functions on the TV itself. You cannot see where they are unless you have light shining directly on them. As long as you use only the remote control, it may be a non-issue. By-the-way, in case you were wondering how effective the non-glare screen was on the Samsung B630; it was perfect. I experienced crystal clear high definition TV -- Day or Night.
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43 of 46 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An excellent LCD HDTV at any price!, June 2, 2009
I recently purchased this item locally but am so impressed by the TV that I felt I should post my impression for others trying to decide where to spend their hard earned money, especially these days.
First, I would recommend that you to your local electronics store and look around and see which sets grab your attention as what is best to my eyes may not work for you. In my case I was somewhat limited in selection since the TV must fit into a TV cabinet that we own, so 40" was my absolute max. This criteria limited me to Sony, Samsung, and Vizio (in order of price point). A local warehouse club had the Vizio and a comparable Samsung (ln40b610 vs. ln40b630) for side by side comparison, and simply put there was no comparison what-so-ever. The Samsung wins hands down in terms of picture clarity, overall brightness, and contrast. The 80,000:1 contrast on this TV really shines. The Samsung to Sony comparison was a bit tighter as both units offered incredible picture quality and features but again the contrast ratio on the Samsung just made everything appear more pleasing to my eye. Given this, we purchased the Samsung and haven't looked back. Every time my wife and I watch a Blu-ray movie we are even more impressed with the picture quality! Seriously, this is a great TV at any price. The only TV I looked at that had better contrast was the Samsung LED (3,000,000:1) model but the price difference was just too much to justify.
I do have to agree with other reviewers regarding the "Auto Motion" settings producing images that are almost surreal. I have found that setting this on the middle setting produces the best results for me, but I have not played much with the custom adjustment mode yet, so I will hold off on a final review until I have had more time to tweak.
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21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Amazing picture with tons of options for tweaking, July 6, 2009
My old RCA 27" tube finally died, so it was time to enter into the world of HDTV's. After a ton of research and price hunting, I settled in on this 40" model for the full 1080, 120hZ experience (plus a smokin' deal from Amazon helped seal the deal).
First one arrived shattered, so that was a bit of a buzz kill. Fortunately the delivery includes set up & power up, so we immediately saw that the thing was destroyed. The delivery crew took it back with them and Amazon got another one out. The 2nd one arrived in perfect condition, and after getting DirecTV out to install the HD dish, I've been on HD for about a week now. I know this is not part of the product review, but Amazon's customer service was excellent in this matter.
All I can say is that the picture is more than I anticipated, having never owned an HDTV before. The clarity is unreal, the colors and images just pop off the screen.
Sports and movies are incredible to watch. I do see how some folks are a bit taken aback by how crisp movies appear (as if in 3d), and they have to get used to the look of cinema based stuff. It doesn't really bother me that much, as I know that's the byproduct of HD. It's crisp. It's clear. But I set the 120Hz option to standard, and I find that works well enough for my eyes. There are certain scenes in some movies that just look surreal, but not in a bad way (at least to me).
The amount of control that this TV gives you to adjust the picture is great -- you can stick with one of their built in "modes" (dynamic, standard, natural or movie) and then customize every aspect of the picture as much as you wish. I spent a couple of days just playing with the settings & calibrating. The dynamic mode is way too bright, and gives results that are just not natural. I've found that the "natural" mode works best for me, with additional adjustments in contrast & brightness to enhance the blacks as much as possible. The "standard" mode allows you to push the blacks even more deep, so I've been going back & forth between both that & "natural". If desired, you can adjust for gamma, white balance, flesh tones, so you can go pretty deep.
I do have to say that at this point, the 120Hz feature doesn't really appear to add that much. I did read in a number of reviews that it is not easy to discern the difference between 60 and 120Hz in most viewing situations. A fast millisecond response rate is where you want to be, and with this TV's 4ms response time, there's no issues. And for me, I don't mind having a little blur on fast moving scenes.
I have watched movies & sports on my dad's samsung 37" HDTV (LN37A450), which is a 60Hz model, and have to say that the picture looks just as incredible as on this 40". So if you're looking to save a couple hundred bucks, don't get too hung up on the 60Hz/120Hz issue. Go with the 60Hz, and you'll be plenty satisfied. But if you can get a deal for a 120Hz Samsung for under $1k, it's worth it. Always nice to have extra options, as long as you're not breaking the bank to do it. I just have not seen a major difference between the two. Having said that, I've not watched any blu-ray movies yet, but have watched a couple of HD movies from DirecTV. But most of the complaints about the 120Hz are with people who think it makes movies look weird -- so again, 60Hz won't kill you there. If you're a gamer, you may want to do some more research on it. I don't own an Xbox, Playstation or Wii, so I can't speak to that.
Many complain about the sound on this TV as well, but I found that with the surround turned on, the TV gives off a pretty decent output. I hooked up the stereo to the tv, so usually have the audio coming through the full stereo. But on it's own, the TV isn't too bad, especially for such a slim profile.
The touch of color is a really nice feature as well -- it does give the TV a very sophisticated look. I was concerned that the red may be distracting, but it's tastefully done and very subtle.
Overall, I don't regret purchasing this TV - I could've saved some $$$ by going with the B550 model and sticking with 60Hz, but for the price that Amazon had at the time($999), I felt that I'd just get the extra options.
For what it's worth, I believe that this TV is also an 'A' panel. I'm not even sure if there are 'S' panels being made anymore. If the last letter of the serial number is how this is determined, then I don't see 'S' panels on any of their models. But whatever type panel it has, it doesn't matter. It looks fantastic, and even more so after being adjusted/calibrated best to display in my living room. There is a review out there (hi Matt!!) that gave the tv one star because of this panel issue...but said little to nothing else on how the tv actually was performing. One of the complaints about 'A' panels was that the 'off angle' viewing was very poor. First of all, I don't know why you'd want to view these TV's from too severe of an "off angle" -- you want to be in front of it as much as possible -- maybe 45 degrees off...but I've also inspected it from severe angles (pushing 160-170 degrees) and the picture holds up just fine.
This model is fantastic. I still can't believe my eyes when watching some stuff...there was a show about the Grand Canyon on National Geographic channel this weekend. All I can say is, wow. Unbelievable. The epic Wimbledon final between Federer and Roddick was also fun to watch.
No regrets here at all. Great TV. Brilliant picture, with plenty of options to tweak to your preference.
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