Pros:
+ Terrific picture quality (especially after I calibrated it)
+ Wide range of adjustments available to fine-tune picture
+ No "judder" when playing 24fps Blu-ray movies
+ Worked perfectly out of the box
+ Very good value
Cons:
- Doesn't have anti-glare screen
-"Auto Motion Plus" feature just makes picture looks strange (but can be easily turned off)
- Default picture settings out of the box are WAY too bright (like every new TV I've seen)
- Not the most advanced TV on the market (which is probably why it works out of the box)
I bought this TV to replace an old rear-projection DLP. First I considered a plasma, but was put off by the power consumption, heat output and heavy weight. Pioneer is also getting out of the plasma TV business entirely, which worried me since they made arguably the best plasma TV on the market (the Kuro). Next I looked at the new LED TVs, which are super-thin and look great in the store...but I also found a lot of reports of them being kind of buggy. So I decided to go with a high-quality 55" LCD released this year that had 1080p and a 120Hz refresh rate. This takes us to this TV...
The bottom line is that this is a great TV. It has much better picture quality than even the 1080p TVs made just a couple years ago. It worked perfectly out of the box and there were no bugs, video glitches or imperfections of any kind...it simply works, and works very well. Sound quality is on par with the built-in sound in other TVs. Factoring in the reasonable price it's a no-brainer. More advanced TVs exist, but cost more money, seem to have more bugs and deliver marginal improvements in picture quality - not a reasonable trade-off in my book compared to what you get from a high quality LCD right now.
Like every new TV I've seen, the out-of-box settings are way too bright. Setting the picture mode to "movie" and turning down the backlight to 6 produced a great-looking picture, and calibrating it using Digital Video Essentials: HD Basics [Blu-ray] made it outright amazing. For those who like to fine-tune the picture this TV has every control you could want, and probably several you haven't ever heard of. The menu system is well laid out and easy to navigate.
It also has a bunch of extra features that are fun to play with, but are ultimately better left turned off. Auto Motion Plus is supposed to make fast-moving images look better, but to my eye all it did was make the picture look strange. The Edge Enhancement and Digital NR features sharpen edges and remove video noise, respectively, but they also introduce video artifacts of their own and are probably best left off as well. Finally, the Sharpness settings is *artificial* sharpening - it makes the picture seem more detailed, but also makes it look extremely gritty and noisy - I suggest setting it to 0. These aren't unique problems to Samsung; similar features on other new TVs have the same problems.
If I could change one thing about this TV, I would give it a more glare-resistant screen. There is probably a trade-off between how sharp the picture is and how well it resists glare, but this thing is SHINY. If you have a very brightly lit room it could be a problem for you.
If you want very good performance for the money from a proven, trouble-free design, you can't go wrong with one of these LNxxB650 models from Samsung. They look great, are light weight, consume little power and they just plain *work* without any fuss.Get more detail about Samsung LN55B650 55-Inch 1080p 120 Hz LCD HDTV with Red Touch of Color.
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