Awesome TV!, September 8, 2006

Bought the TV a week back after months of agonizing over Sony XBR and Samsung, and I am glad of the choice I made. It’s probably the best LCD tv I came across with eye-opening contrast. The picture is exceptionally clear, even for the SD programs. Obviously, I can’t test 1080p, but its a probably a good thing to have for ‘future-proofing’. ( I did see a Samsung demo of 1080p on this model…its quite impressive).The native resolution of 1920×1080 also works great for connecting to PC. Movie Picture mode produces great black levels comparable to Plasmas.

Advantages -

1. Great looking – elegant.

2. 1080p with 1980×1080 native resolution.

3. Great dynamic contrast ratio – 6000:1

4. Separate Game mode.

5. Great even for SD.

6. 8 ms response time

7. less expensive than XBR.

Disadvantages -

1. The only difference I could think of between Bravia XBR and this one is 2 HDMI inputs instead of 3 for BRAVIA. Not a big deal for me.

Overall – I love it.

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Awesome!, November 1, 2006

Did tons of research and Samsung seemed the way to go. Even though all my purchases thru Amazon were great, I was a bit leary of buying this TV online due to the return policy. I decided to go for it since I would save close to 1000.00 which included free shipping and no tax. Amazon came thru again, and everything was perfect. The TV is very slick in design and the picture is beautiful.

Do not expect to see a picture like you do in the stores. Unless you have High Def channels available, your picture will not be as clear. It looks great from 10 feet away, but as you get closer the resolution is not as good. High Def channels make a HUGE difference.

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Great Set, April 23, 2007

By 

C. Longo (New York, NY) – See all my reviews

  

I have been dragging my heels entering the HDTV era for years now. I sat by while my early adopter friends bought their first HD sets, waiting for HD to reach “prime time” status. Finally, the combination of 1) 1080p 2) HDMI 3) lower prices across the board are what ultimately drove towards me to getting my first HD set.

I researched models for months before buying. I first looked at the Sharp Aquos line which seemed great until I started reading of “banding” issues (a manufacturing flaw) which plagued nearly all Aquos models 40-inches and over. Being the obsessive type, I could not justify spending that much money on a set with problems out of the box. Next I looked at the Sony XBR2 and XBR3 series, which also seemed great. In the end, two things turned me off 1) The price was 0 – 00 more than comparable Samsung or Sharp models and 2) Reports of “clouding” issues, where black screens have noticeable white blotches, another manufacturing flaw.

I spent hours upon hours reading threads at the excellent AVS Forums about the Samsung models and was surprised to see nary a complaint uttered. For those who don’t know, AVS is a haven for hardcore home theater enthusiasts. These guys mull over every single pixel of a display. If there is something wrong with the set — they will let you know. Post after post were overwhelming positive about the Samsung sets, both the LN-S and LN-T lines, even in threads about Sharp and Sony sets Comfortable I was not about to drop over two large on a lemon, I pulled the trigger.

I’ve had the set for three weeks now and I have zero regrets. The thing I worried the most about before receiving the set was the black levels. Apparently, LCD displays cannot render truly deep blacks that Plasma displays can. I worried for nothing. The blacks seem plenty black to me, even with all the lights off. There’s also an “Energy Saver” mode available directly from the remote which toggles the backlight between four levels, so you can adjust the black levels even further.

The colors on this set just “pop” — it’s amazing. I’ve started watching “Sunrise Earth” on Discovery HD every morning while getting ready for work because it just looks so good. This is going to sound like total BS, but the first day I played Sunrise Earth on the new set there were ducks on onscreen and my dog ran across the room, sat down in front of the set, and started barking

The set has a DNIe mode which automatically tweaks the onscreen colors and sharpens the picture. This mode can provide some amazing images for most content, but I found it cause artifacts in DVDs and sports. I suggest anyone who dislikes what DNIe does to DVD content turn it off and get a Lucas Films DVD and use the included THX Optimizer to tweak the set yourself. The truth is that 90% of the people who buy this set won’t care about such subtleties and don’t have to touch a setting to get a great picture.

Overall five stars. Great picture, great price. Two HDMI ports and 1080p make it future proof. The Samsung LN-S and LN-T lines are, at the moment, the best bang for the buck in the LCD market.

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