Samsung LN40C630

The picture is impressive with 1080i television and 1080p movies/xbox. I’m sure it can be better, but you will never notice unless you have a (…) tv in the next room. The sound quality isn’t bad at all in my opinion, although it isn’t very impressive either.

A cool feature is the easy use of an external HDD. All you have to do is connect an external drive into the usb port and you are able to play your favorite movies/media, which surprisingly works with all of my video file-types including avi and mkv(in 1080p). There’s no need to connect to a network/pc as long as you have a usb device that can hold enough of your media.

At (…), this was an absolutely great buy! Samsung is a brand you can trust when it comes to TV’s, at least as much as you can trust any large corporation.

I would give it the 5 stars, but the few cons that it has make it a “great” tv, not perfect.

Cons:

-no “internet apps” for this model, (as far as I can tell). I was assuming that the apps would be standard, considering how new this model is, but samsung makes no attempt to let the consumer know about it’s internet limitations, maybe that’s why it’s so cheap.

-you need to buy a wireless adapter to get a wireless connection, which is just another way for samsung to get an extra (…) from you. Also, right now I don’t really see the point of connecting to the internet, seeing as how there arn’t any apps like netflix, pandora, or whatever else.

-remote isn’t great, although most people can just use their cable remote anyways 
Reviewed by : D. Harris,   Apr 4, 2010

Samsung UN55C8000

First off I want to be clear about the kind of review this is intended to be. I am not a profession TV rater. I am not a videophile. I am a regular Joe and I am reviewing this for the regular Joe who is thinking about spending more than usual on a good quality television. During the next few months, I’m sure you can find a more professional review from the usual places… But for now, this is my impressions.

CORNER LIGHT: After reading many reviews on last years B8000 and this year’s C7000, I was worried about the light that emits from the corners. I’ve seen displays of last year’s B8000 and this year’s C7000 and have VERY easily seen what people are talking about. I took a big gamble in purchasing this TV before I read if people were having issues with this C8000. So let me say… After watching this TV for about 5 hours per day for 3 days… I have NOT seen the light coming from the edges as seen on other sets. And believe me I’ve been looking. I tried to find it watching the HD feed on Time Warner Cable, Blu-ray’s from the PS3, Blu-Ray’s from the Samsung 3D Blu-Ray player, watching at night, during the day… Nothing. I just do not see it!

LOOKS: This TV looks just amazing. It has a VERY dark black screen. It looks as beautiful turned off as it does on. I was nervous about the brush metal look, but it actually looks very nice and compliments the new chromed four-legged stand.

PICTURE: The picture clarity looks incredible. It’s as if I’m discovering HD for the first time. This set replaces a Samsung DLP set, so of course this is a vast improvement. Having said that, I have a newer plasma in the bedroom and this set looks much better than that. As with all new LED sets with 240 Hz, there is a bit of the Spanish Soap Opera/Home Video look to it. Some people really like this, some people don’t. I really like it. For those of you that don’t, you can always turn this feature down or off. To me this makes the picture look very clear and it makes it stand out from the other sets.

3D: Along with this TV I purchased the Samsung 3D Bluray player so I can get the 3D startup kit for free. Turning the 3D feature on and connecting the glasses was easy. The intro to Monsters v. Aliens was very cool. The opening scene in outer space looked incredible. The ball tied to a paddle part was funny and kinda made me jump a little. I haven’t spent too much time with 3D but I did notice that there were some scenes in the movie that had a double image while wearing the glasses. It doesn’t happen a lot, but it is noticeable. You can see this right away during the church scene at the beginning of the movie. It was a little annoying. I’m hoping that this is the kind of stuff that gets ironed out with a firmwear update, or as more content is released, they learn to fix it.

OnlineTV: This is also a very new area for me. I never understood the need for me to want apps on my TV… But its actually kina cool. I’ve tried a few apps but my favorite by far is the Pandora app. I’m a big fan of Pandora and this app I actually like better on my TV than online or the iPhone. The only thing I hate is that Samsung did not have Wifi built in. I think pricing this set at the $3000+ mark should be enough to include it with the set and not require me to drop another $80 for the USB adapter. I just hardwired it, but that’s another wire I don’t like dealing with.

USB: I wanted to mention that this set allows you to connect a USB external hard drive and play music, photo’s and movies directly from the HDD. I have a Western Digital 320GB Passport filled with movies and music, and I was able to navigate the files structure in the drive using the remote quite easily. And it played all the files formats I threw at it.

Pros:
No corner light!!!
Very dark screen.
Very clear picture
Pandora Samsung App
3D was surprisingly fun
USB external HDD capable
and… NO CORNER LIGHT!

Cons:
Slight double images on 3D.
Wifi requires an $80 USB adaptor.

Overall I am very satisfied with the UN55C8000. Even with the few CONS, this set to this average Joe is a definite 5 star! As I spend more time with the set, I’ll be sure to update this review if I find something worth mentioning.

Please feel free to ask me questions and I’ll try my best to answer them. I know how nerve wrecking buying a big ticket item such as this is… So I would be glad to help as much as I can.

Reviewed by : F. Fernandez “BrokenFern”,   Apr 5, 2010

Samsung UN46C8000

This TV is absolutely stunning. I was actually waiting for the C9000 to come out, but that TV’s price is way over the limit. I found out that this TV which is the next step down and actually has the exact same technology as the C9000 minus the touchscreen remote (which can be bought seperately) and the slim profile, not a big deal considering the TV already looks beautiful and is half the price or less then a C9000!

In all honesty, I think this TV has one of the nicest pictures I’ve ever seen. One example is the pin-point dimming, which has garnered a lot of criticsm and skeptisism. I have seen the production TV model live and I must tell you, I think it’s better then local-dimming and I’ll tell you why… Unless there is a new panel that is made to fix the local-dimming “halo affect”, this is currently the only way to get outradgeous contrast levels without that problem. The pin-point dimming on this TV dramatically lowers the dark spots on the screen in certain area’s without a halo affect and actually goes completely pitch black when watching movies with dark screens just like a local-dimming TV. I think this TV actually excels at the dimming part over a local-dimming TV because it creates supurb black levels without any halo affects. That’s a huge deal for me. Next is the color accuracy of this panel, I think the whites and colors on this TV are probably better then I’ve ever seen. Sure Plasma’s can sometimes have better color temperatures, but they will not pop out of the screen with ambience like this TV shows. This TV is sharp looking and beautiful and it displays wonderful 3D and High-definition like never before.

Last, but not least… this tv is LOADED with features, easily making it one of the most feature rich TV’s there is on the market. It’s completely wireless, has 4-hdmi conenctions, has internet applications and streaming capabilities and best yet, it does it well! I have done a lot of research and have compared this TV with it’s newest competitors and this one is it. Don’t just take my word for it, go see it for yourselves and you’ll just see what I am talking about.

Reviewed by : Corey Fisher,   Mar 30, 2010

Samsung PN50C550

I had tried to buy the previous “B” model at close-out prices, but I missed the boat. Thought I might be outta luck until the “C” version started showing up a day or so afterward and it turned out to be basically the same TV, just about 25lbs lighter – only 2 people needed to wall mount – I was down with that and $1,100 bucks still didn’t seem too bad. I had already researched for some time and Plasma was it for me. The Panny G-10 had a similarly good picture too, and although it offers much to consider, I liked the Sammy’s picture just a bit more, but you may want to check it out as well. I received the set with zero problems or issues: no dead pixels or any buzzing, whines or anything amiss at all. Outta the box the picture was quite good, and showed me good resolution performance even with SD cable with no video noise issues (although initially I did find it necessary to use the 3 supplied ferrite, choke magnets that snap onto the power cord. These not only eliminated the several horizontal noise bands in the picture, but cleaned up the resolution on the overall picture with no downside – an easy fix that totally nixed the problem for me).

But, tweaking the picture a bit is where this set shines the most. When researching, I came across a site that offered a list of picture control settings for the “B” version. Since this is really the same panel, I factored it into my buying decision accordingly. Especially since the settings were said to be obtained with a Sencore color analyzer (about a $10,000 pro device for calibrating video displays and is the sort of thing used by the Imaging Science Foundation – ISF. They at least did pioneer and continue to legitimize the video calibration practice, but more to the point, it WASN’T done by any of the more lame imitators that have since cropped up (like Geek Squad, Spyder and others) whom, I feel, exist to separate you from your money (at about $300 a calibration) while hardly giving you a better picture adjustment than you can get on your own with a $25 calibration DVD).

What this means to us is that the results of, what I’m taking to be the equivalent of a $300 (legit) picture calibration, for this particular set anyway, have already been posted on the web for free – not an inconsequential consideration, for anyone interested. I’m posting those numbers here, for those who are:

White Balance Settings:
Red-Offset: 22
Green-Offset: 25
Blue-Offset: 12

Red-Gain: 33
Green-Gain: 25
Blue-Gain: 33

Picture Settings:
Picture Mode: Movie
Color Temp: Warm 2
Brightness: 56
Contrast: 90
Color: 53
Tint: G35/R65
Sharpness: 10
Black Tone: Off
Dynamic Contrast: Off
Gamma: 0
Colorspace: Auto
Flesh Tone: Off
Edge Enhancement: Off
Digital NR: Auto
HDMI Black Level: Low
Film Mode: Auto

When I tried these settings I noticed a very organic, natural-looking picture, one that offered me a few surprizes. This set happens to be inherently capable of showing a more-than-generous amount of color saturation without problem. I personally prefer a picture that’s just slightly undersaturated, if anything (but, I expect this set will accomodate anyone’s taste on that score, if yours are different than mine). With all this, what I found was that even when slightly undersaturated and I felt the picture was indeed realistic-looking, whenever an unusually colorful object was displayed (like a particularly vivid piece of clothing, or a brightly flourescent color – like some NASCAR colors, for example), this TV displayed BOTH the less intense colors of the more mundane objects, and the most decidedly vivid ones, equally well in the same scene AT THE SAME TIME – never subduing the most vivid colors even when the overall color level looked ‘properly’ undersaturated to me on the more everyday objects. Nor was it unnaturally emphasizing them, for that matter. The result was a TV that, on any good, HiDef, cable feed, regularly showed me a surprisingly wide (yet natural-looking) “dynamic range” of color intensity in the images. I could just about feel as if the TV itself were getting out of the way and showing me clearly (and more truthfully than I’ve seen in my home before) just what the camera saw. Very nice and, as I say, surprizingly convincing (and this with simply 1080i and 720p cable feeds – a Blu-ray player is definitely next!). This set, after my preferred adjustments, didn’t make all the colors look too subdued, like some plasmas I’ve seen have ended up doing, nor all the colors too vivid, like some LCD’s. I felt like it walked the line beautifully – not merely a good compromise, but it seemed truly the best of both in this regard. Black levels were great and with excellent detail – no complaints.

In the end, I did opt to deviate from the settings above, but only with respect to overall contrast/brightness and color level settings, everything else was the same. This gave me an appreciable gain in contrast that suits me and my family’s tastes in our well lighted, daytime living room. Plasma is usually not as vivid in the contrast department as most LCD’s or LED’s, but in the mid-price range ($1,000-$1,500 retail) it’s a small price for me to pay for a picture that I feel (with adjustment) is otherwise decidedly sharper, clearer, more life-like and dimensional than anything else for the money. I haven’t felt that any comparative lack of overall contrast has resulted in any buyer’s remorse for me at all, as no such notion has yet remotely entered my head anytime I’ve watched it.

I’ll add that in my experience with LCD’s vs. Plasmas, Plasmas kill LCD’s and LED’s when it comes to motion – at least in the sets in this price range. Up over about $2,000 and differences between the panel types start to get quite a bit smaller to me. But, just before I settled on this Sammy, I went to Wally World and dragged home a Vierra LCD, mainly to see if ‘taming down’ an LCD picture to suit my tastes could possibly be better than trying to ‘pump up’ a Plasma. In this case, a huge waste of time! What I saw was a 120-Hz LCD on sale at just under a 1,000 bucks that just couldn’t do motion very well at ALL. I popped in a SD DVD of Lawrence of Arabia and it looked like it was shot “live-to-video”, perfectly goofy. I also found out just how bad a 5-ms response time can look on a 47″ set. The 120Hz feature DID work as advertised and made fast motion MUCH better than without, but any slow-speed pan or movement caused a nearly instantaneous defocusing of the area of motion, until the motion stopped and the blurred area was able to snap back into focus. When watching a head shot of someone speaking, for example, their face would perceptably blur in the areas of facial movement while the face of another person in the scene next to them (not talking) remained in sharp focus – too disconcerting. And too much of a disconnect to the experience to NOT want to look at a person while they were talking(!). Plasma (600Hz or no) inherently has no such motion problems that require the consumer to spend money on to overcome. If that wasn’t enough (and, believe me, for me it was) the somewhat artificial vividness to the picture proved, at least on this LCD, to be something I could never quite tame, no matter what the settings.

For me, to pass muster, a flat panel must make no major blunders in the 4 most important performance areas of color, contrast, resolution and motion. To me this Sammy does all of that and at a very nice price – I don’t know how I can do much better than that, especially without another free video calibration. In fact, the only Plasma that I’m confident could beat it hands down is the discontinued-but-still-available Pioneer Kuro 50″ plasma. But then, it should, it retailed for a mere $4,500 when new. But, a few months ago it could be had on the web for only 1,600 bucks. It’s just that at the time, I didn’t have the scratch. Now, the remaining ones, if you can find ‘em, were, the last time I looked, hovering around $3,000. Oh well, I’ll tell you one thing, though; this machine at this price, has certainly eased my pain…;) I know this isn’t 3D, or more colors than RGB or anything, but I’m more than content now to wait all that out. Til the next round, this will do me just fine!

Reviewed by : jartwo “jartwo”,   Mar 22, 2010

Samsung UN26C4000

Let me just say that I was really excited to get this TV. So excited that I simply forgot to check the pixel response time before I went to purchase it. When I hooked my PS3 up to this TV via HDMI, I noticed horrible ghosting. This is not a fast display. If you’re going to be doing any type of gaming on this display, I would go with something else. Then, after I saw how bad the ghosting and overdrive was, I immediately went online to try to find out what the response time was and what do you know… there’s no response time listed for this model on ANY website. Even the websites that list response time put “N/A” in that section. Do yourself a favor and make sure you know the response time of your TV before you buy it. If it doesn’t list a response time, you’re probably in for trouble.

I also purchased the new 32″ LN32C530 and that screen also had the same horrible ghosting… again, no response time listed anywhere that I could find.

In conclusion, I was not happy with the performance of this monitor. If you want to go ahead and order it anyway, that’s your call, but I’m just putting the warning out that if you don’t like ghosting or overdrive, do not buy this. You’ll be disappointed. Note: I also saw a lot of ghosting in movies too.

Reviewed by : Jayson Allyson “Spaztik”,   Mar 18, 2010

Samsung LN32C450

It was easy to set up and plays cable and DVD’s beautifully.
Relatively compact size.

It has a very special feature for those that are hard of hearing: there is a sound setting called “clear voice”.
It appears to raise the treble information relative to midrange and bass, and also, makes the distinctions between sounds much sharper. For those hard of hearing, who usually have good bass/midrange hearing but rolled off treble, this will be a revelation. No more annoying your neighbors because you have to blast the TV in order to understand the voices. Also the TV does seem to play closed captions about as well as it can.

My aunt is using closed captions on cable TV and standard DVD playback and it works great. We had trouble using CC on a new upscaling DVD player using HDMI but that turns out to be a problem with the HDMI specification; HDMI relies on the source to decode CC and put the words on the screen, whereas older cable formats and resolutions like composite carry the CC signal distinct from the picture to the TV for decoding. This appears to be a major step back but it’s not the fault of the TV. If you Google “cc dvd hdmi” you will find a LOT of conversation on the net about this problem. No one seems to have a solution.

Reviewed by : A. Altman “Art”,   Mar 19, 2010

Samsung LN55C650

About me: First HDTV, but I am an Electrical/Software Engineer so I have a high level of technical ability, with a low expectations. I have been micro analysing which TV to buy for far to long. I attended CES in 2009 and 2010, and have seen all of the new TV that are coming out (probably why I kept waiting so long). This is the perception from which this review was written.

I received this TV yesterday and watched it for most of the evening. Very good picture! I was considering the LG55lh40 but after viewing the Samsung LN55B650 side by side with the LG at Best Buy my wife and I realized there was little competition. We had the tech at best buy let us mess with the settings for around half an hour (starting with the auto-calibration from LG) but just couldn’t get it to look right compared with the Samsung. I was rather upset, as I have read numerous great reviews about the LG and it was a considerably cheaper price. Logging into Amazon I noticed the LN55C650 was on sale for $1620 (even cheaper than last years B series) but had no reviews, so I was a little nervous to order it. Hindsight is 20/20 and I definitely made the right choice. The picture is very clear and has that crisp look that Samsung is famous for.

My surround sound system will not be delivered until today, so I was stuck using the built in speakers last night. I was very impressed with the sound this thing could pump out. I varied the sound between 25 and 50 (out of 100) and it was more than loud enough and filled the room nicely. This is by no means comparable to a nice sound system, but compared to any other TV I have heard, it is definitely up there in sound capabilities.

Looks wise, I think this is much better looking than last years B650. I didn’t care for the red touch of color that surrounded the whole TV. This model only seems to have the red at the bottom center, and it adds a really nice accent without being overpowering like I felt last years were. This is just a personal opinion.

Cons:
The 120HZ feature, which was heavily complained about in the LN55B650 still has problems. The first thing I did when I got the TV was watch The Dark Knight BD (1080P) on my PS3 using a V1.3 Cat2 HDMI cable. I thought something was wrong with the TV as it was doing very strange things with background motion, but after turning the 120HZ feature off the picture cleaned up perfectly and I no longer notice any problems while watching it. I tried all of the different 120HZ modes, and they all had the same problem. That said, I turned it back on while watching HDTV (720p obviously) and it seems very clean with the 120HZ.

It is 2010 and they still can’t put a wireless radio built into the television? I find this to be ridiculous that you have to purchase a separate module in order to get wireless. My router is very far away from my TV and it will be expensive to have network cables added.

I will update this if I notice any other issues.

Reviewed by : Adam Thompson,   Mar 10, 2010

Samsung PN42C430 

After researching HD plasmas for about a month, I was all set on an LG model from a different website because it was the least expensive 42 incher with the best reviews I could find, but then I came across this model on Amazon for a hundred and fifty dollars cheaper (This was onsale for under $500 then..I dont think it is anymore). This is the least expensive 42 incher I’ve been come across, and I’m very satisfied with the quality. After watching a lot of movies with dark scenes, I was concerned because if I increased the brightness the colors seemed to wash out – well, after selecting the ‘dynamic’ picture setting instead of ‘standard’ that has been resolved – the colors are crisp and dark scenes are sharp and more visible.

I was concerned that this tv might have the ugly red stripe on the base of the tv like some pictures of other samsungs I’ve seen, but thankfully it does not. The tv frame and base are a sexy piano black. My opinion on why it’s inexpensive is because it has the fewwest inputs on it. It only has 2 hdmi inputs. Perfect for an hd cable box and a ps3. This tv also has 2 sets of component inputs, which are ideal for a vcr or other video game system that isnt in hd (like a wii).

I don’t have digital cable, just a plain old basic cable service and the QAM tuner picked up all the digital channels, but they’re not in hd so I’m still thinking of getting a comcast hd box, even though I despise the significant compression comcast utilizes with its signal. Compare comcast hdtv to a blu ray and you’ll notice how compressed the comcast video signal is (tiling and pixelating and motion blur is evident from the comcast signal).

All in all, at this price point, this can’t be beat.

Anyway, feel free to ask any questions on this new model via the comments section and I’ll be happy to respond.

Reviewed by : The Duke,   Mar 6, 2010

Samsung UN55B6000

The first thing to understand about LED TVs is that they are actually LCD TV that are backlit with LEDs. You still aren’t going to get true blacks and whites without getting a heavy and power sucking plasma. That being said, the picture is amazing! We’ve owned several LCDs and plasmas, and this is an outstanding product.

In my house, we don’t particulary care for the Auto Motion while watching TV shows. For games and sports, it’s great, but it seems almost unnatural while watching some shows. We bought this model because we knew that we weren’t going to use the 240 Hz Auto Motion anyway.

I have a few things to point out about this TV though.

First, the power cord is incredibly short (At least the one we received from Amazon Warehouse Deals, it was.). This is a very important thing to know if you are mounting on the wall or above a fireplace that doesn’t have a highly mounted power outlet.

Second, there is only one speaker, and it is in the back of the TV. This isn’t particularly a problem for us because we use an A/V receiver, but don’t expect the TV’s audio to sound good on its own. Another thing concerning audio, is that it does not have Audio Out so that you can plug your components (DirectTV, XBOX, Blue Ray, Computer…) into the TV and have the audio be sent out to a stereo.

BE PREPARED TO BUY AN A/V RECEIVER.

Reviewed by : A. J. Mathews,   Mar 9, 2010

Samsung UN55C7000

I pre-ordered this from Samsung and received it about a week ago. I’ve been putting it through a battery of tests. To get right to the point, I plan on returning it and waiting for the 2010 local dimming LED. It is a good TV. It compares favorably to any of the edge lit led lcd’s that Samsung released in 2009. However, it doesn’t hold a candle to the UNB8500 that was released late in 2009. It is also outperformed by Vizio’s latest (552), the Sony XBR 8, and even LG’s LH 90 gives it a run for it’s money and outperforms it in a few important areas. If you are not a videophile and do not concentrate on picture performance in a completely darkened room, I’m sure this television will suit you just fine. However, if you are a videophile and/or picture performance in a completely darkened room and accurate reproduction of theater film viewing is very important to you, this television is not for you. This TV exhibits many of the same problems that plagued Samsung’s 2009 series of edge lit led’s — namely, a lot of light shining through from the corners, top and bottom, and sides of the picture while viewing in a darkened room — and does not perform the way you would hope for a television that costs this much. Samsung did improve upon the fluctuating back light problems of last years edge lit led’s. This television does not have a fluctuating back light problem at all. However, I must come back to the issue of light shining through from the edges of the screen. It’s a big concern for anybody who wants to reproduce a natural theater experience and view films the way they were meant to be seen. You simply cannot recreate that experience with this television. When you view a film — or any other content — in a completely darkened room, it is impossible not to notice the light shining in from the edges. That is a huge problem for a lot of us. I will say that when you are viewing a film in a bright room, this television is an outstanding performer. It is also an excellent performer for viewing sporting events, animated features, and other lively bright content in a brightly lit room. Of course, most of us do not wish to pay $3,300 to only be completely happy with our televisions when we are watching them in a brightly lit room. The light shining in from the edges also creates the potential to create a lot of problems with 3D viewing once we have sufficient 3D content available. Imagine trying to immerse yourself in a 3D viewing experience and not be able to focus on the 3D atmosphere due to the fact that there is light shining into the viewing area. I just don’t see it working. It seems that it would be a major obstacle in viewing 3D content. Imagine going to see Avatar in 3D or IMAX 3D and having light shining into all of the edges of the film. There’s just no way that it wouldn’t distract you and take away from your viewing experience. I foresee this being a huge problem for 3D viewing once we have the content. I will discuss some of the positives of this television because I don’t want anyone to think it’s a bad television. I would have really given it 2.5 starts out of 5 but Amazon doesn’t allow for a half star so I went with 3 because the positives probably do outweigh the negatives on this TV. The color accuracy is what we have all came to expect from Samsung, which is to say it’s flawless. The black level is outstanding — if not up to par with the local dimming led sets such as the 8500 and the XBR8, or the Pioneer Kuro 151 plasma — and does not have the fluctuating backlight problem. The black level is definitely better than last years edge lit led sets. The video processing and motion resolution is beyond reproach. It’s probably as good as the 8500 which is the only lcd in history to be able to resolve all 1080 moving lines. It will be interesting to see if this television can do that once the reviews come out and the video processing has been tested. This television handles 24fps content perfectly, and reproduces the proper cadence of film based content. It is definitely a good television, it just has some major flaws, and it outperformed by a few sets that cost over $1,000 less. The potential for 3D viewing problems definitely exists, and Samsung needs to find a way to cure the problem of having light shine in from the edges of the screen.

Reviewed by : A. Leetham “ViDeeOhPhiUhl”,   Feb 26, 2010