71 of 72 people found the following review helpful:
STUNNING. Period.
I'm happy to be the first to rate this wonderful LCD. I'll be short and to the point, and maybe come back and supplement this review after a few more weeks of use.
Aesthetically, the TV is clean and elegant. Love the touch of red. Love the crystal base. Love the fact that it swivels. It's a beautiful piece of equipment, and looks a good bit more modern than...
34 of 35 people found the following review helpful:
Very nice picture...BUT
I purchased this TV because of the GREAT reviews here at Amazon & other websites. Only 1 thing, and a warning to everyone considering this TV. After owning this for less than 10 months, it started powering on & off after being on for 3-4 hours. I spoke to Samsung Customer Service, was told to reset the TV, unplug it from the surge protector I was protecing it with & plug...
I'm happy to be the first to rate this wonderful LCD. I'll be short and to the point, and maybe come back and supplement this review after a few more weeks of use.
Aesthetically, the TV is clean and elegant. Love the touch of red. Love the crystal base. Love the fact that it swivels. It's a beautiful piece of equipment, and looks a good bit more modern than the more curvilinear A model. I'm very happy I waited for this one.
Set up was a snap. Took me about 2 minutes to connect the base. It took longer to remove the stickers. The manual is on a little USB drive that plugs in the side of the TV, but I haven't bothered with it yet.
The picture is stunning, right out of the box. Absolutely beautiful. Only adjustment I made was to turn the brightness down slightly, as I have a very dark TV room.
The on-screen graphics and menus are both intuitive and elegantly designed. I hate when the industrial design is carefully considered, and the on-screen UI is forgotten. That didn't happen here. Both are wonderful.
I somewhat skeptically connected my camera card reader to one of the USB plugs on the side, and inserted a memory card from my father's camera. He'd hoped to show us pictures, but didn't have a plan for how. Perfect timing, as the TV had arrived that day. The TV recognized the card, and very quickly we were watching pictures and video in high res on our new TV. Fantastic.
Less than perfect: the sound. Actually, it's a bit of joke. But, that doesn't effect my rating because I don't feel that the internal speakers are really meant to be used w/ a TV like this. I'm using a 5 channel surround system, but before I hooked it up, I heard the speakers. It makes sense that they wouldn't sound good since you can't even see them.
Also less than perfect was the delivery process via this company, CEVA/Eagle. Note that they claimed to have contacted me via email to set up delivery, but I never rec'd anything. They didn't call. So, I had to google them and call them. Plan for this! Stay on top of them. The driver called me no less than 4 times during the day, each time making up some goofy excuse for being even later. I think he was watching the NCAA tournament at a bar somewhere. But, in the end, it arrived 1 day late, and in perfect condition. So, I don't care. And, I can't take away a star from the TV due to the delivery service. I just think Amazon needs to communicate the process better with it's customers and make sure that CEVA does a better job too.
Anyway, Amazon's price is great, the TV is fabulous. Enjoy!
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I returned the 40A630 that I bought last month because of one dead pixel, and I replaced it with this spanking new model (date first available at Amazon on March 9th). This LCD TV is really beautiful - the "Red Touch of Color" is not quite subtle but I'm sure you'll like it as much as I do (it will match whatever furniture you have). The picture quality of this model (100,000:1 contrast ratio) is quite stunning compared to the 40A630 (40,000:1) that I returned.
This TV offers the newly introduced Internet@TV. Currently, only Samsung B series has this feature, other manufacturers will incorporate this feature in their future models. This feature is better than the first generation Infolink (RSS feed) that's offered by the A series. You can actually add all sorts of TV widgets, which in the next couple of months will include some of the big online content providers (NY Times, Netflix, eBay, Twitter, Google, etc). Currenly, only Yahoo widgets are available (news, weather, Flickr, finance). You can connect your TV to the internet via ethernet, or you can plug Samsung's Wireless USB adaptor (sold separately) in one of the 2 USB ports.
Other notable features:
a) 2 USB 2.0 slots - I use one slot for the included flash drive which contains the TV manual, and the other slot for my 8GB flash containing pictures, music and video.
b) Content Library - Intenal flash with preloaded content like cooking recipes, artwork screensavers, games, and pre-school children contents. You can download more contents from the internet. I don't find this feature interesting. I tried it twice during the first week, and I haven't explored it again since.
c) Swivel base - I think Samsung is the only brand that offers this feature, which I find really useful.
d) Firmware upgrade via direct internet connection.
Get this TV, you won't regret it. Your friends will be envious if you tell them about the great features of this TV, which are not yet available in LCD TVs prior to March 2009.
I bought this from Electronics Expo, one of the most reliable merchants of Amazon. The company is located in New Jersey -- a) quick delivery because I live in New York City, and b) no sales tax because I live in New York.
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I purchased this TV because of the GREAT reviews here at Amazon & other websites. Only 1 thing, and a warning to everyone considering this TV. After owning this for less than 10 months, it started powering on & off after being on for 3-4 hours. I spoke to Samsung Customer Service, was told to reset the TV, unplug it from the surge protector I was protecing it with & plug directly into an outlet. In less than 1 week the situation got worse, so that it performed its on-off routine in 1.5 hours of being on. I Googled the problem, and found out that many were complaining of the same issue, and that these TV's are fitted with a bad power supply. Thank goodness it was still under factory warranty, as the service people came & took it in to replace the power supply (which, by the way has taken more than 2 weeks).
It seems this problem has affected ALL Samsung LCD models, from 30" up to 50". The service guys actually told me to be sure I had an extended warranty, as even though Samsung has updated the power supply software, they could not assure me that this won't happen again.
In the meantime, I am stuck without my beautiful TV for the 3rd Sunday in a row without being able to watch football on the big secreen. What a bummer! We asked what brand TV do they have to service less--Sony! Too bad we didn't spring for a bit more money & buy that one.
Hopefully, this trip to the service people will solve the problem, but it's very worrisome that
a new TV would go bad in such a short time. From what I have read while researching the problem, a lot of folks had this happen to them after their 1 year manufacturer's warranty was already up.
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You have to get one of these! We received our unit yesterday afternoon and was watching HD within 5 - 10 minutes. Setup is very easy (CEVA set up TV) and after connecting HDMI cables, you're good to go. Color, picture, clarity, detail - absolutely amazing!!
No motion blur, no jerkiness or fuzziness, no broken frame appearance. Glare does not appear to b an issue as we have one end of our room in 70% glass. SO far, on a sunny day, no problem.
The "B" model is physically different than the "A" model. The frame has a slight Vee at the bottom of the unit and the base is now rectangular with a 2 inch clear post. The TOC red is nice - sort of dresses up the unit.
We had never seen one of the models, so made the purchase cold. My wife and I cann0t be more pleased with the buy. We sat, almost open mouthed last night watching a movie. I have never seen her impressed over a TV set, until now.
CEVA kept my unit in Sacramento, Ca. for 5 days before delivery. They did deliver before the window of time closed on the stated delivery date. However, they noted, as in the prior review, that I had been contacted for delivery. I had not, so had to get thier info to make contact and arrange delivery. The delivery team did an excellent job, set he whole thing up for me and made sure I was satisfied.
Blu-ray (Samsung P-1500) works great and "Anynet" feature works great. I have not had to touch one control on the tv for any adjustment. Speakers are fine, unless you are an audiophile, or want movie theater sound effects.
Excellent TV and highly recommended!
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$1400 is a lot of money so I spent months comparing TVs, both on the internet and live at various stores, before deciding on this one. Great TV with easy set-up. Love the swivel base. The experts at C-net have optimized it for you. Here's the recommended settings (easy to do).
* Picture Modes
o Picture Mode : Movie
o Color Temperature : Warm 2
o Aspect Ratio : 16 x 9
* Picture Settings
o Backlight : 4
o Contrast : 95
o Brightness : 46
o Sharpness : 0
o Color : 45
o Tint : G50/R50
* Advanced Settings
o Black Tone : Off
o Dynamic Contrast : Off
o Gamma : -2
o Color Space : Auto
o White Balance : Factory Default
o Fleshtone : 0
o Edge Enhancement : Off
* Picture Options
o Color Tone : Warm 2
o Size : 16:9
o Digital NR : Off
o HDMI Black Level : Low
o Film Mode : Auto 1
o Blue Only Mode : Off
o Auto Motion Plus : Off
This is the nicest television I've ever owned. Great choice!
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First, this is a really great display. Overall, I am very pleased with this purchase. I think the menus are a bit convoluted and confusing, but not the worst I've ever seen. The picture is amazing.
As for the 120Hz features of this set, my girlfriend and I both agree, that the default "standard" motion sharpening makes everything look like a pan-and-scan video. For whatever reason, we both associate this type of look with cheap, lower production value television programming. This becomes disconcerting when you watch a high-production hollywood or high-production TV series and you begin noticing that all the panning looks really, really sharp. I suppose this is counterintuitive because it should be an improvement when the camera pans and you can see everything much more sharply than in the past, however, that blur is something that we as an audience were used to, and seeing everything really sharply again reminded us of low production value programming. I tried to get used to it for about 3 weeks and finally gave up and just turned the feature off. I can see how it can be very good for action movies and video games and watching sports, but for typical television and hollywood movies, dramas, etc, I found it too distracting. Overall, since I can easily shut this feature off, it does not detract from my review, and also, I think most will see it as an improvement and not a distraction as my girlfriend and I did.
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If you've been researching diligently to find the best value/price HDTV, then this Samsung should be your leading candidate. I have it 3 days now. I haven't even tweaked the calibration as yet except to lower the backlight a couple of notches from 8 to 6. I am especially looking forward to using it's Internet capability feature so I can cut out the hassle of the video store or dealing with Netflix DVDs via the mail. Just selecting via Netflix or Amazon and streaming it right into my living room sounds like a solution I am really going to love. The picture is just magnificent. I just watched some of Lord of the Rings on Turner HDTV and it looked better then when I saw it in the theatre. The Time Warner Cable guy who rigged up my HDTV box told me they only broadcast in 1080i, which is not nearly as crisp as what 1080p is capable of, so I guess I will have to wait to find out the true potential of this fine TV, but even at 1080i the picture seems hard to beat. The images had a true 3D quality. I can't find anything to criticize with the picture's precision in terms of clarity, colors and overall definition. As for the sound quality, I'm not into surround sound, so all I can say about that is that I hear everything just fine with the sound set at about 1/3 of its capability. It was a bit over my budget but I'm glad I paid the extra money for this set. It also looks great in my living room; modern and sleek. The white glove delivery from Amazon was, in my case, flawless.
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I bought this TV recently for a decent price at an Amazon competitor.
I was torn between the Sony XBR6 and this one, and I think I goofed up by choosing it.
The issue is the range of colors. An 8-bit panel such as this TV uses cannot reproduce enough colors to "smooth out" certain images.
Even with a Blu-Ray movie, it's noticeable. On standard definition cartoons or even HD cartoons, the color banding is obvious and detracts greatly from the image, at least in my eyes.
Everything else good that all the other reviewers said about the TV is true.
But not being 10-bit really hurts it.
If I had it to do over again, I would buy the XBR6 or any other 40-incher that uses a 10-bit processor.
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As you've read with the other reviewers the picture quality is great. The ultra clear panel is certainly clear and shows no reflections for my bright room. I'm gonna try to hit up some different points in this review so that way, others can kind of know what i was looking for in a tv.
Gaming-
If you are a SERIOUS gamer, you should NOT get this. I am not a serious gamer. I just play some call of duty or halo when the time permits. Coming out of the box and tweaking some of the settings, i played call of duty over hdmi with a 60gig pro xbox 360, and the controller to tv response was horrible. When i turned on game mode, this really helped the response, however the pic quality did go down a little bit, and you cannot adjust and image qualities because game mode locks it down. Let me add that the game lag is not a choppy lag, its more of a delay, where the images coming into the tv are smooth but are late. So if you are a casual gamer you should be fine...
DLNA- Probably one of the only reasons i got this tv over other models is because of the DLNA feature, this feature is INCREDIBLE. I've held out in buying a tv, because the majority of tv i watch is via hulu or downloaded shows. In reading some of the forums on CNET i was worried about compatability of files from divx to avi to mkv. Because of firmware possibilites I chose this tv, and I love my decision. PC Share Manager was simple to set up and to stream. My laptop had no issues connecting and streaming the material, and the system resources it took were hardly noticeable at all (<7 percent). Im running 2 gigs of memory on a Windows XP Toshiba Tecra thats 5 years old, so I'm really impressed. I played files from 480p to 720p, and the 720p mkv files were definitely flawless. The content was hi-def and it looked amazing on the TV. There were no audio lags or video cuts.
Other notes-
-Tv does feature AnyNet, and I bought a used samsung receiver and it works great. When the feature is on, the unit works great and powers off when you turn off your tv. However you have to activate it everytime you turn on the tv. Its not complicated or a hassle, just a little tedious.
-swivel base is amazing, sony and other manufacturers havent figured this out yet
-havent really used the 120 hz, yet, but I havent set my blu-ray up yet, ill update this post as soon as i do..for a really good detailed spec, check out "matt's" review on the ln46b650, it has color calibration and intensive explanations on the features of this tv. in the meantime, i hope this all helps! For the money and the features, this tv is an AMAZING buy!
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Oddly this is my first Samsung product and am impressed since day one. It took 3 weeks for me to pick the LN40b650 over the B6300 and Sony v5100, it just came down to what my eyes like and that was Samsung 650. 120hz was the minimum feature I wanted in a new HDTV. I noticed that 120hz really pops the image out more than regular 1080p set. Some people think the unnaturalness is bad, but I find it pleasing and create a sight 3D effect. The disadvantage of this is that you get a halo effect and some blocking, mainly around the actor when they move. This happen when you set the dejudder and smoothing to max level, but is unnoticeable on mid to lower level.
650 pros:
+The 120hz makes the movie pop out.
+One of the best black level and contrast out there.
+Colors are vivid and really pop-out.
+Yahoo widget works. I can check the weather sport score, and flickr images (not fast, but good)
+There seem to be some kind of auto scaling that my old TV didn't do. You can also adjust the screen size/ proportion too.
+The extra content: cook menu, games, picture screen saver is ok, but I don't use it much
+Media player actually works, it stream thing just like my PS3. (DNLA)
+Glossy screen enhances the colors more than the matte b630 version and Sony v5100, but keep it away from direct sunlight.
+There is a gaming mode, which turns off your 120hz and some extra effects for the faster response time. (It is also fine when you turn it on, but it looks very 3D, with some blocking)
Cons:
-I found Sony V5100 image to be a tad sharper, I saw more detail in the face and depth of field in a landscape. The Sony v5100 is placed next to the 650 in many stores.
-Sony 120hz, I think is a tad better, less halo, but you can adjust Samsung's dejudder and smoothing independently.
-Glossy screen does creates some reflection, sometime with the lights on and a dark scene, I can see my reflection.
For Blu-ray movies, PS3 games this is an excellent set that will shine, pop the newer movies out. I found the DVD movies a little flat, but it still looks good. I sit too close to the set at 4-5ft, but when you move back between 5-10ft this is where the TV viewing is at its best. I think the picture is a little soft when I watch antenna broadcast , where the Sony was a tad sharper.
I calibrated my TV from the settings of this site: televisioninfo.
But I end up just using the standard settings the most. Got this set at Fry's for 1199, but it dropped to 999 a week later and got the refund different so it was priced similar to the v5100 and cheaper than the b630. I am excited and glad I purchase this set. I like the B750 color trim and rectangle set a little better then the red and V tapper bottom, but it is not a deal breaker.
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