almost perfect tv | Samsung LN40A650 40-Inch 1080p 120Hz LCD HDTV with RED Touch of Color

One Great TV | Samsung LN40A650 40-Inch 1080p 120Hz LCD HDTV with RED Touch of Color

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	• Samsung LN40A650 40-Inch 1080p 120Hz LCD HDTV with RED Touch of Color Samsun Electronics Samsun Electronics average customer review:based on 194 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Great TV - a few misses (rating = 4.5)

First, this is an excellent TV and my review focuses on a few points missing from the other reviews that would have been helpful to know when I was "shopping" for a new TV - not that these would have prevented me from buying the Samsung.

Second, I own 2 older Panasonic plasmas which were/are considered the best flat panels before LCD's hit the market; so my review is based on features I felt were missing with the Samsung that the Panasonics have.

If you intend to mount this unit on the wall and do-it-yourself these missing features will make the job harder:
- you'll need to uninstall the table stand BEFORE mounting to the wall.
- no lift handles
- the input jacks are located on the back vs the bottom, so you must hook up the cables before mounting as opposed to simply plugging in after the TV is mounted. This is a big deal as you will need two people to lift and hold the unit up while someone else plugs in the cables. (Note, there are a few input jacks on the side but if you have several components to hook -up and/or want a clean look after set-up you will still have to deal with the rear jacks)

However, if you intend to use the table top stand your good to go. The stand is excellent.

Usability flaws:
Unlike the Panasonics, you must cycle through the inputs via the remote vs. pressing a dedicated button for "each input" on the remote. So to switch from a DVD to video game input you have to cycle through the menu and hit enter vs a one step/direct input change. This is a big nuisance for me as I regularly switch between different components.

The follwoing is an issue with any 42+" 1080p TV when the viewing distance is within 12', not just the Samsung:

- Non HD signals or HD signals of TV shows/movies >10 years old will appear very fuzzy. At first I was very disappointed with the picture for these situations but I discovered that setting non-HD signals to the 4:3 format and setting the picture mode to "cinematic" made for a more appealing picture. Now, some people can't stand the black bars in 4:3 mode but that's never been an annoyance for me.

Overall, this is an excellent TV that I highly recommend.

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almost perfect tv

This television is awesome! There are many bells and whistles that are too numerous to take advantage of unless you have a degree from MIT. If you could program more than one profile of custom settings, (picture and sound) it would be better. the wheel in the remote is worthless. it isn't user friendly as you can do just as well (or better) with a toggle switch or a joystick type setup. Overall the tv is great, but I don't like having to change the aspect ratio to fit the screen every time I flip to a channel that isn't being broadcast in HD. Of all the research I have done, I chose the Samsung over the Sony because it was $600 cheaper for almost the same thing.

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One Great TV

I'm still getting to know all of the features of this Samsung TV and my new HD Tivo. Great features, - - great picture - - and a great price from Amazon.

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Amazon is wrong

I bought this TV and we love it but if you want 50,000 dynamic contrast you only get 40,000.
This is by far the best TV I have ever seen and will buy another soon but for true discription you might want to go to the makers ( in this case Samsung ) site to get the strait facts

Spectacular LCD

I bought mine from Amazon on July 1st, so I've had it now for almost 3 months. I spent 6 months researching TVs, both plasma & LCD, and the new technology of 120hz & AutoMotion Plus have raised the picture quality of LCDs up to the point where they are a reasonable challenger to plasmas without any of the drawbacks that plasmas have. The picture is simply amazingly sharp & the colors are perfect on this Samsung model. No motion artifacts typical of previous LCDs. Blu-ray will blow your mind on this TV. For those of you who feel you must tinker with settings to get the best picture possible, Samsung has made many of the settings adjustable without having to access the service menu, plus many websites like Cnet have posted settings to improve on the default picture settings. One note of caution on these aftermarket tweaks... Samsung has changed the firmware on this model many times since they hit the market in the spring of 2008, and the tweaks you read about are specific to the firmware version on the TV. In other words, don't try Cnet's settings for version 1002M or 3M firmware if your TV has 1004M firmware. It won't look good. My TV has the 1004M firmware & is perfect as is other than one slight change to the picture brightness. There have been some sporadic problems with picture quality on this model, one of which is mentioned here on Amazon's website above - the resetting issue - which no longer is a problem unless you get a set manufactured in early 2008. Another problem listed on HDTV websites is something called the "purple haze". It's one of those problems where if you didn't know about it, you'd never notice it unless you are an experienced videophile. It's a slight purple tint on the black portions of the screen, especially when viewed from an angle in a completely darkened room. You can see the same effect on your LCD computer monitor when booting up & the screen goes blank or has large portions of black areas. I had it on my new Samsung & easily got rid of it by turning the brightness level down a couple of points (from factory setting of 45 down to 41). Samsung's advertised 50,000/1 dynamic contrast ratio is not quite correct according the independent tests I've read on the net & you can see for yourself easily when viewing the picture off-axis in a darkened room. Believe me, this isn't as big a deal as some make it out to be. The picture quality is simply so stunning that it overshadows these minor drawbacks. If for some reason you find anything wrong with your set that you just can't live with, Amazon is especially accommodating and will get you a replacement that you're happy with, just remember to keep the box it's shipped in & make your decision quickly or you'll have to instead be stuck with a Samsung tech coming to your home. As far as Amazon's service goes, they're great! I got my TV delivered 6 days after I placed the order & it would have been sooner had I been able to take a day off work. The delivery guys unpacked & set up the TV in what has to be record time of about 7 minutes. Yes, I'm a happy customer!

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40" widescreen HDTV (16:9 aspect ratio) * Touch of Color high-gloss "rose black" finish * built-in digital (ATSC) and analog (NTSC) tuners for over-the-air TV broadcasts (antenna required) * built-in QAM cable TV tuner receives unscrambled programs without a set-top box (cable service required) * Ultra Clear LCD panel (1920 x 1080 pixels) *