Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #41406 in Television
- Color: ToC Red
- Brand: Samsung
- Model: LN55B650
- Dimensions: 33.10" h x
51.60" w x
3.10" l,
64.80 pounds
- Native resolution: 1920 x 1080
- Display size: 55
Features
- 55-inch LCD HDTV with full HD 1080p resolution for the sharpest picture possible and red Touch of Color design
- Side-mounted USB port for displaying JPEG/MPEG files and listening to MP3 audio
- Inputs: 4 HDMI-CEC, 2 component, 2 composite, 1 PC, 2 USB, 1 Ethernet, 1 optical digital audio output
- Includes removable stand; measures 51.6 x 35.2 x 12.1 inches with stand; 15-watt x 2 bottom mounted speakers with subwoofer
- SRS TruSurround HD
Samsung LN55B650 55-Inch 1080p 120 Hz LCD HDTV with Red Touch of Color
Product Description
Samsung's LN55B650 takes your HDTV enjoyment, and capabilities, to new heights. The power of Full HD 1080p resolution delivers clear, vivid images on a 55-inch LCD screen. The Medi@2.0 feature lets you access countless hours of online content from partners like Yahoo! and Flickr using customizable widgets, all controlled by your remote. Auto Motion Plus120Hz technology renders the smoothest, most lifelike HD action. DLNA technology means you can harness your entire home network through your HDTV. Connect your DVD, cable or satellite HD box, or Blu-ray Disc player easily, using any of four HDMI inputs. Experience truer, more natural dark tones and shadows with the 100,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio. And highlight nearly any room in the house with a unique red accent at the bezel's edge, courtesy of the Touch of Color design.
Customer Reviews
Most helpful customer reviews
118 of 121 people found the following review helpful.
Samsung Is The Way to Go for LCDs
By Jorge J. Coelho
I now own three LCDs. Two of which are Samsung. I've always liked the fact that Samsung packs in a lot of features and quality for a reasonable price. For the past two years, I have been putting off replacing the TV in our family room, a 7 year old Sony 36XBR800, which is a mammoth of a set. However, our finally caved in for a number of reasons: (1) pricing on flat screens dropped, (2) wanted a television that supported HDMI, and (3) wanted a set that would help with the glare on the TV.The glare on the TV was, believe it or not, the tipping point. Our family room has lots of windows, and the blinds don't block out all the sun, so with the old set I would get a lot of glare in the middle of the day coming off the TV. It was bad enough where sometimes I would just give up trying to watch anything. I did some research and LCDs do the best job cutting down the glare because of the matte finish on the screen. Plasmas tend to have a glossy finish, which reflects more sunlight. Plasmas also tend to eat a little more energy than LCDs. Those two points sold me on the LCD.Although I will have to say that overall the Plasma, in my opinion, does a better job of handling moving images than an LCD. LCDs have been known to have issues ("judder") with fast moving objects onscreen, which is something you may typically get while watching sports or playing video games. To correct this issue, TV manufacturers have introduced refresh rates, which you'll see advertised (60 hz, 120 hz, 240 hz). These refresh rates help to cut down the noise you get around the edges of moving objects. However, you'll notice that while watching some programs without fast-moving action the onscreen content can sometimes looks like a cardboard cutout. It's always a good idea to use the higher refresh rates for sports and games and save the lower refresh rates for all other programming. With that said, I looked at some sports programming on both 120 hz and 240 hz sets and the improvement was marginal. At the time of my purchase the cost to go with a 240 hz set was almost $500 more (over 120 hz), which was not worth the marginal gain. If the gap came down between the two refresh rates I would definitely reconsider, but remember that you are paying for a fix by the manufacturer to the technology.So, after all my research between the two competing technologies I still went with the LCD because my main concern was glare and here are the breakdowns of my pros, cons and "somewhere in between" for this set.=====================PROS=====================+ Price: At the time of my purchase it was hard to find many other sets offering the same quality with the same feature set.+ Inputs: With 4 HDMI, 2 Component, 2 Composite, 2 USB and 1 PC input you'll have enough to plug in all the most popular components (e.g. video game systems, DVD/Blue-ray Player, DVR, etc.). You'll be able to hook up a card reader and browse pictures on the TV, watch movies from your camcorder and anything else you can think of doing with all those inputs.+ Picture Quality: The quality of the picture at 1080p is simply amazing. You will not be disappointed. At this size of a screen and with such a high-quality of picture you'll see things you've never noticed before in your favorite movies and shows. There were times when I felt like I was watching a movie live. It felt like a theater performance.+ Ability to Combat Glare: Mission accomplished. On a number of occasions I have been able to switch picture options in the middle of the day to be able to see what I am watching.+ Options: If you like tweaking than you'll like this TV set. You can tweak settings by input, which means that you can get an optimal picture and sound all the time no matter what source you are using. The menus are also easy to navigate and understand. I've used TVs in the past where all the options were buried, which wasn't the case with this set.=====================NEUTRAL====================== Internet Connectivity: This is what I would classify as a "nice to have" feature. It's nice to be able to browse YouTube, view pictures from Flickr, check sports scores, read news and more all using Yahoo! Widgets. However, there's a bit of a lag with all these features between the remote and the onscreen menu. For example, you'll notice that if you're searching for a video on YouTube, you won't be able to crank out the search text in a few seconds. It may take you some time, but nonetheless it beats crowding around a small computer screen. In short, I'm not going to stop using my computer to watch videos on YouTube or read the news, but it's nice to occasionally have the option to do it on my TV.= Speakers/Audio: Nothing amazing here. I would say it's slightly better than average. Then again, I am using the TV with a home theater system, so the sound on my set is turned off, but I did test the sound for the purpose of this review. If you sink this much money into a TV you should do yourself a favor and get a decent home theater system to complement.=====================CONS=====================- PIP: I was disappointed with the Picture in Picture options. I was hoping that the Picture in Picture would allow me to select an input other than the cable or antena hooked up to the TV, but that was not the case. On my old Sony I was able to play a game on a console, while having HD programming via my cable box on the PIP display. Basically, I was able to use any input for the TV as the source for the PIP. Samsung limits this option.- "Judder": I mentioned this earlier in the review and I have to say that I did notice this when watching sports and playing video games. I did notice an improvement when setting a higher refresh rate, but you'll still notice some noise. Part of it may be psychological as well, since I know the issue exists. There's also a game mode under the picture settings that further corrects this issue, but you lose some crispness from the picture. Again I want to mention that this was a minor issue and I almost classified it as neutral, but though it was worthwhile to point out.Overall I would give this set an 8.5/10. If I had the opportunity to go back I would still have gotten the same TV. If the price difference between the 240 hz and 120 hz was somewhere around $200, I would have made the jump to improve the picture slightly for gaming and sports. However, I am still amazed by the quality of the picture and it's the best TV I've owned to date. I love to tweak and this set meets that need very well with an endless array of options. I'm enjoying all the same programming as before, but with a much bigger smile.***************UPDATE***************Amazon.com recently announced that with their Prime Membership there was now access to free streaming movies and TV shows. While this not available for my TIVO I looked through my Samsung Widgets, which I previously glossed over, and found out that with a quick firmware update I can now stream Amazon.com VOD. I have never had a need to use any of the widgets or any of the Internet features, but 2 years after my initial purchase and the TV is still proving to be current.
22 of 22 people found the following review helpful.
Best LCD for the Money
By C. Bradshaw
This LCD is the best of both size and quality. With the additional 300 off that amazon was offering a couple of weeks ago, it was a bargain for what you get. Samsung is top quality in my opinion right now.Here is the good:Great picture. 3 extra inches worth more to me than 240 hzGlass screen makes picture more vivid and handles glare with ease.Touch of color makes it look really nice hanging in my living room.Could be better:Sound is average at best. Most will hook it up to external speakers so it doesn't matter that muchRemote is decent but needs more quick buttons to control PIP and other tools that you have to navigate through a couple of menus to changeBad:Nothing. You will not be dissapointed with this bad boy!
22 of 23 people found the following review helpful.I'm surprised...
By et
I'm surprised that more people aren't buying this set, or at least reviewing it (which typically is indicative of sales). Really with this set there are only two things that may bother your run-of-the-mill average TV watcher, and that is 1. Glare, 2. Flashlighting/clouding (backlight shining through).On 1 I can honestly say the glare doesn't bother me at all. Some people may not be able to deal with it because they are picky and/or have a really bright room this TV is going into, but that is not an issue to me. Just personal opinion. I would never let that be a factor to me unless it truly bothered me, and it truly does not with this set.On 2 I can say that I did have some initial problems with clouding and it being visible. I used settings posted on Cnet for this TV. They are kind of dark, but you get used to it. This prevents clouding from being as noticeable, but some backlight will bleed through, and it's especially apparent on large TVs. How apparent is it? I am very picky and although I can notice it on a completely pitch black screen, it really doesn't bother me that much during normal TV watching. I have my backlight set at 3 (out of 10), standard mode leaves it at 8. This is way too bright and you will most definitely see some bleed through.There are a few recommended fixes if you have clouding that is poor around the edges. Wiping the entire TV side to side and up and down with a microfiber cloth has worked in limited cases, as well as loosening a few bezel screws along the TVs edge to loosen the pressure and keep the backlight from shining through as brightly. Also limited success stories on this method and I even tried it with no such luck. Changing my settings was the action that gave me the best result. Photographs have proven even TVs that appear as if they have no apparent clouding to the naked eye actually do have clouding, so don't stare at your TV for hours looking for this imperfection, simply find a setting that seems to remove it upon a glance at the TV and move on.Some other cons to point out that you may or may not know about and/or normally wouldn't think they will bother you but might actually. The off angle viewing of this TV is not good. You will see the TVs contrast change dramatically even moving your head 2 feet from the center of the TV sitting 10' away. How big of a deal is that to you? Depends. Some experts have said that this TV is best for one-person and adding multiple people with different viewing angles renders this set to not be preferred. Do I believe that? Not really. I think for most families sitting an appropriate distance from this set probably won't be too irritated at the slight off angle viewing issues. However, it is noticeable and the best angle by far is directly in front of the set. Keep this in mind--maybe check it out in action at the store first if you are buying this set for a family.Another thing to keep in mind is that the TV has an included rope you screw into the back of the TV and tie off on a screw in the wall. Very silly design and completely retarded to put on and even easy to look over when you purchase the set. But guess what? Use it. This TV is top heavy like mad and easily could tip over. I've also heard some complaints on the PIP and remote and audio as well on this TV, but I don't use any of them so I won't comment. I also don't play games so I won't comment there, although I hook my computer up and it looks just fine.People like to hear potential negatives in reviews more than positives I think, so there is my list. I consider myself pretty picky but overall I think this TV is an excellent buy at a sub-$2,000 price point. If you can afford a $5,000 LED LCD with the latest technology, why are you even considering this set? While the PQ might be comparable to more expensive TVs (truly this TV looks that good), lesser auxiliary issues like tying a rope to a wall to keep the TV from falling shouldn't even be something you should care about. PQ is great from cable to blu-ray to PC on this set and I really don't think you're going to be disappointed if you purchase and this is your price range (or a little above).Another big debate is whether or not to go with the 52B750 with a higher refresh rate. The truth is that your eyes will never tell a difference between the two refresh rates. I have read that there are lesser cases of backlight bleeding with the 52", but that's probably partly due to the fact that the 52" is 3" less in size. I'm still in the return period and I could get the 52" if I wanted, but I simply think that's not the best buy. This TV is.Lastly I will point out that the LCD panel used in this particular set is a CMO Panel and not a Samsung panel. Approximately 60% of Samsung's don't use Samsung panels, so don't worry that you aren't getting an authentic Samsung; it is pretty common. The CMO panel a lot of experts complain about, but they also complain about the S-PVA panel used in the 46" version of the B650 or the 52" version in the B750. The difference between the two is negligible to the everyday user, not to mention side-by-side the two panels are almost identical in specs. If you've heard about this before and it's concerned you, or if you are hearing it now for the first time, consider it extra information and nothing else that should sway your opinion on purchasing this set. Lastly I will say that if you are someone who thinks 42" or 46" is fine, just buy this TV. The price difference is insignificant and very rarely have I ever heard of someone buying a bigger TV than what they wanted and complained about it later. My dad likes to complain it's too big, but that's because his TV is best for viewing under a microscope and he's not used to watching things bigger. Bigger is better. Overall I give this TV a solid A.
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