 STUNNING. Period. |
| Review Date: March 30, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Matt Drostdy, Alexandria VA |
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! |
Beautiful, Feature Rich and Future Proof
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| Review Date: April 10, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Layuger, New York, NY |
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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Amazing TV
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| Review Date: April 4, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Michael R. Waller, |
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! |
Very Nice TV
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| Review Date: May 15, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Weatherguy, Sacramento, CA United States |
$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! |
120Hz A bit hard to get used to
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| Review Date: April 27, 2009 |
| Reviewer: B. Liu, Princeton, NJ |
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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