Samsung UN55B7000

Many folks still wonder about the newer LED/LCD vs. Plasma.
I was one of them. After months of research, I picked the 58″ B650 Plasma.
It is always tough to audition in a store, but we felt it beat out the big LCD’s.
Well – read on.
Had it 3 weeks, waiting for it to ‘break in’, which it did (the phosphors have to age and become uniform – took about 50 hours of viewing to achieve.)
Was able over time to get a great pic (in dynamic mode), but it never quite
looked as great as our Samsung 40″ B630 upstairs.
Then I measured the power consumption after we noticed the heat coming off the screen. Uh – 550W average, with peaks up to 700W in certain brght movie scenes!
My wife and I play the set quite a bit, and some quick math told us the heat and cost was just too much a price to pay for something that will hang on the wall for years to come. Back to the stores for more auditioning.

After another few weeks of looking we bought the 55″ UN55B7000 LED/LCD.
Almost the same size – but 1/4 the power after reading up on it.
Out of the box, this set looked as good or better than the plasma.
Black levels as good – color balance even better – My test BluRay that has a number of tough to get right grey/black scenes is Terminator Salvation. Looked better on the 7000.I use that, and UP, which really tests the color saturation.
And this is in the default movie mode, which comes up when I use my Samsung BluRay player.
With minimal tweaking in Standard Mode, I got it looking even better.
No heat. Long term cost way down over the plasma.

SUMMARY – I was able to own both in my own home and do my own tweaking and comparing, and all things considered – The LED/LCD 7000 beat out the 58B650 plasma.
Hope this provides some input for others that are trying to decide.
Consider all the factors – the heat and power as well as the picture.

Reviewed by : PhillyBill “PhillyBill”,   Jan 27, 2010