Customer Rating: 
Summary: Resolved the Plasma vs LCD decision
Comment: Have been watching prices and technology for years. After lightning destroyed my 27" analog JVC and reading speculation about upward price pressures, decided to act. Had settled on Panasonic plasma when I discovered this model - what luck! The model has the best of both worlds - brilliant picture and pop of plasma, but with low-power consumption and freedom from burn-in worries of LCD. I no longer felt like I was compromising. And the extra dollars for 52 inches over 46 well spent.
Positives:
- Best designed remote I've ever used.
- Menus are well designed and transparent.
- Great speakers even though I normally use a 5.1 sound system for movies and extended viewing.
- Screen reflections a small fraction of the flat CRT it replaces, virtually unnoticeable in a room with only east windows.
- Delivery was timely and uneventful - I had prepared several solid color jpeg's on a USB flashdrive to verify zero pixel defects before the delivery guys left. Never thought I would order a large TV from an online merchant; now I would never do it any other way.
- Amazon quickly adjusted a few minor price decreases without question after delivery.
Extra features:
- The Wiselink support for MP3 and JPG viewing is interesting but very basic and will be used minimally. I tried a 8GB USB flash drive full of photos and waited 20+ minutes while it was creating thumbnails of all the pictures. Probably useable for a few hundred photos at a time.
- The RSS news/weather feed doesn't seem compelling enough to hunt down the WiFi dongle required for wireless use.
- The picture-in-picture facility is limited to an analog feed in the window. As an over-the-air viewer this feature becomes irrelevant in 6 months. Seems like an odd feature to bother including.
Negatives
- none
Customer Rating:
Summary: Awesome LCD!
Comment: I've been mesmerized by this beautiful LCD TV for the past month! I'm SO glad that I got it just before the Summer Olympics - what a treat to watch all the glory in HD splendor. The SD content is decent - and can be somewhat tweaked with the pic settings. I've been reading through the AVS Forum pages for recommended adjustments, etc. Watching Bluray via my PS3 may keep me out of the movie theaters from now on - spectacular clarity (and probably a bit cheaper in the long run). The slight red in the bezel is elegant and I really like the curved lines of the 650 model. Thank you Samsung!
BTW: The delivery company was excellent - on time and helpful.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Outstanding TV
Comment: Pros: Big picture, readable even in direct light
Cons: Slow warm up, attracts dust, remote compatibility, HDMI switching a bit slow
Overall: Outstanding value!
The TV I replaced with this was a 27" CRT, so I really don't have much to compare it with, but all I can say is WOW I can see faces, read the TV guide channel from across the room - a huge improvement, literally. I've not seen any HD format material on it yet, so I've no way to verify that except what I saw in the store on the 46" version of this set. They were showing a Bluray disc on it. I have only regular format cable and regular DVD material I've seen on it (oh, and a Wii using component inputs) and I can see details I've never seen before. We'll see what happens in Feb 09 when the formats switch.
OK, the cons - the CRT TV was pretty much instant on, instant off. This one blinks about 2 sec, plays a little sound, then about 8 sec later you get a "searching for signal" screen, then your show pops up about 2 sec later. Power off takes a bit less time, about 5 sec. The "auto" power save feature is pretty worthless as it is driven by the material played, not by the ambient light in the room - if they had a lux sensor on the tv then you might actually save some power when the room is dark. I've seen some folks complain about the screen as being too reflective. Yes, it is reflective, not exactly matte finish, but I've not seen any interference from light shining through the window about 10 feet away. The odd thing about the remote isn't the remote so much as it's compatibility with other remotes - I've tried setting up my DVD and DVR and receiver remote to operate it, and it is hit or miss whether I'll find a code that will not only turn the tv on and off (the ability to switch channels and the built in tuner are fairly useless for me since I have cable) but control the volume. That is, just about all of the codes will allow you to press the volume up or down one step, but if you hold the volume button in one direction or the other, you only get one step of movement from the TV. So you have to keep pushing the volume button. A bit annoying. Of course, this isn't an issue with the TV's remote, but it doesn't control any other components, so I rarely use it except to control the backlighting. Finally, it seems to be a bit "smart" in that it knows when I turn on the DVD player (which is piped into the HDMI2 port) and will switch to that signal from the cable signal (which is piped into the HDMI1 port). However, the source selection screen just sits there for about 30 sec before it goes away - a little too long if you ask me.
Customer Rating:
Summary: This television ROCKS!
Comment: Growing weary of the upselling pressure at my local Best Buy, I walked out and decided to purchase this set from Amazon. My product decision was based on CNET and other reviews. The Amazon price was excellent as was the delivery service.
I want to add that I was concerned about the high gloss screen in my large-windowed family room but that hasn't been a problem, the brightness of the set makes the ambient light a non issue.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Awesome picture !!
Comment: TV is wonderful - great picture right out of the box. Remote control needs improvement because the flywheel is difficult to maneuver. This is the best LCD you can buy for the money.
I must comment on the shipping company. The TV did arrive on the promised date but it would have been here days earlier if it had not been accidentally rerouted to a city hundreds of miles out of the way. One of the two guys that delivered it was a total jerk and acted like he was doing us a favor. The other man was nice though and they did set it up and made sure it worked before leaving. Also, do not rely on the tracking info on their website as it is not accurate and they are slow in updating. I saw that the TV went to the wrong city at about midnight and I decided to call them in the morning to find out what was going on. By that time the tracking had been deleted from the website (I think they tried to cover up their error).
Anyway, alls well that ends well and I love the new TV.
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