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1046 of 1090 people found the following review helpful.
Beautiful TV
By William R. Weiss
Yes some people will say that this TV is not loaded with features, like all the streaming internet blah-de-blah-blah-blah. But if you have that in your Blu-ray player, you don't need it in your TV as well. And some of us don't care about watching streaming movies over the net, some of us don't have good enough broadband connections where we live to support that anyway. And some of us BUY blu-ray movies that we like. So enough about internet bloody apps.The biggest complaint about this set offered by some is the fact that it only has 2 HDMI ports. And that could be a problem for some. But if you control all of your gear (like I do) through your A/V receiver, you only need ONE HDMI going into the TV anyway. If you've got to plug all of your high-def gear right into the TV, and you've got more than 2 HDMI devices, this TV is not for you, find another. So enough about only 2 HDMI ports.The picture quality of this TV is AMAZING. The total evenness of the backlight, especially during a pitch black scene, or when the background is totally black, is amazing. Total blackness with no uneven lighting at all...ANYWHERE on the screen, even edges and corners. I haven't seen a TV that can compare to this one in that respect.The set has MANY full manual picture controls and tweaks, and some advanced ones, or three pre-programed modes that you can still tweak. You don't have to settle for what the TV maker says is good, although Samsung's modes are pretty darn good, right out of the box. The "dynamic" mode is a little contrasty for my taste though. But still, it's easily modified.The front bezel on this TV is about as thin as they get on LCD/LED TVs. Some would say that this TV is a tad on the thick side depth-wise, considering it's an LED TV, but it's still pretty thin, compared to my 3 year old Sony 52" LCD, which was a tank.The sound is about the same as other thin LCD/LED TVs. You can't get huge speakers to fit into these things, let's face it. Thin with a small bezel means thin, small speakers. If you're listening through a surround sound system (as I and anyone with a "home theater system" do) it's not an issue.The remote control is a bit small, but its backlit buttons can light up in the dark, which is a plus.I just bought this TV in a bricks and mortar store for $1199, which I think is a steal. Two weeks ago I bought an LG 55" LCD and it's going back to the store today. This Samsung totally blows the LG away...the backlighting on the LG was so bad and uneven I couldn't stand it. It was really noticible how bad it was during dark scenes in movies like the second "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie, any of the "Batman" movies or "Aliens" those movies are chock full of very dark scenes. The LG couldn't handle them, but the Samsung does them proud...inky rich blacks that still have some detail in them.Someplace online I read in someone's comments that this TV doesn't do 24hz film mode. It most certainly does....set your Blu-ray player to that mode and then press the "info" button on this Samsung TV's remote and it will display that info on the screen. 24 bloody hz. So don't believe everything that people say in reviews. (except for mine lol)If you want a REALLY decent TV that doesn't have to wake you up, make you breakfast, Twitter and Facebook for you, do your laundry and surf the net for you, this is it.
415 of 435 people found the following review helpful.
Sometimes...Not BEING a Smart TV... is The SMART TV!
By F. Maria
UPDATE:The picture settings that I previouly stated in my review were made while the `Eco Solutions' settings (found under the `Plug & Play' tab) is set to `On'.However, I found something very interesting. If you change `Eco Solution' setting' to' Off', it dramatically changed the picture. When you first turn the setting to `Off', the picture turns exceptionally bright. However, it is not as bad as you think. While having the `Eco Solution' setting set to `Off', I made the following changes to my settings and I'm updating my review to allow for a choice between the two options. No matter which setting changes you choose, your picture will be greatly improved. It's just a matter of taste.Again, my goal all along was to get the clearest, most stunning picture that the set had to offer without comprising the beautiful blacks, nor the brilliant colors, nor the outstanding 3D like effects you can sometimes perceive, all while never having to change the settings between channels or sources, no matter what the lighting of the room may be. I believe that I succeeded in this endeavor.If you choose to set the `Eco Solutions' setting found under the `Plug & Play Tab' to `Off', then try these settings. I recommend that you do a `Picture Reset' first. This is found under the `Picture' settings.Under The `TV Picture' settings, I have the `Picture Mode' set to `Standard', the `Backlight' set to `10', `Contrast' set to `80', Brightness set to `45', `Sharpness' set to `50', color set to `50', and tint (G/R) set to `50/50. Under the `Advance Tab' settings, I set the `Color Space' to `Native', the `Dynamic Contrast' to `Low', the `Black Tone' to 'Dark', (and here is a big change), the `Flesh Tone' to -3, and the `Motion Lighting' to `Off'. Under the `Picture Options Tab' settings, I set `Color Tone' to `Standard', the `Digital Noise filter' to `Auto', the `HDMI Black Level' to `Low', The `Film Mode' to `Auto', The `Auto Motion Plus' to `Clear' and the `LED Motion Plus' to `Off'.If you choose to set the `Eco Solutions' setting found under the `Plug & Play Tab' to `On', then try these settings. Once again, I recommend that you do a `Picture Reset' first. This is found under the `Picture' settings.Using the `Standard' viewing mode settings for everything, I made the following changes. Under `Picture' settings, I changed the contrast from `100' to `85'. Under `Advanced Settings', I set the `color space' to `native' the Dynamic Contrast to `medium' the Black Tone to' Dark' and turned the motion lighting `Off". Under `Picture Options', I have the color tone at' standard', digital noise filter at `auto', HDMI Black level at `Low', Film Mode at `Auto', Auto Motion Plus at `Clear', and turned the LED Motion Plus to `Off'.ORIGINAL REVIEW:First I must say that I didn't purchase this TV from Amazon. However, I love Amazon and I love this TV!PROS:This TV is aesthetically gorgeous and made a solid hand shake with my receiver. It has surprisingly smooth sounding speakers that I can finally hear over my loud AC. The colors are vibrant, vivid, actual, and true. The picture can, at times, appear to look like a 3D TV when viewing certain movie sources. It quickly powers on and off and plays a sweet sound. It comes with a perfectly sized backlit remote that has a sleep button on it. It does not use Edge lit or ARC channel technology. Yea!CONS:I had a dickens of a time tweaking this set. Initially, it gave off a bright, 'reality' type look. My circle of people thought that this was a cool thing. However, I hated it with a passion and spent the last two weeks trying to get rid of it.These changes made all the difference in the world and now there is uniformity between all of the source material. Movies, be it cable broadcast movies or Blu Ray movies , as well as primetime cable shows including cable news, all look the way they were intended.SUMMATION:In my quest to find the best TV for the money, I've discovered that most of today's LED TV's are challenged with the aforementioned "soap opera' effect. In a way, it's understandable. Networks broadcast their shows using a multitude of lighting choices. That alone can be problematic. Add to that the commercials that are broadcast in a non-HD format and then throw in the desire for TV makers to make TV panels super thin and you get too many options for your backlight to choose from. All I know for sure is that I love the fact that, with this TV, Samsung chose to put the backlights across the whole of the back of the TV and not around the edges. Also, please know that, in my opinion, this TV is easily thin enough, takes up surprisingly little space and has the audacity to look beautiful.I actually HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS TV and think that it is a fantastic TV and it is being offered at a fantastic price. YOU JUST GOT TO TWEAK IT. I'm also writing it so that the next person doesn't become discouraged and want to immediately send it back. They would be making a HUGE mistake. I was about to return it myself because of that crazy REALITY look that it had on certain stations and formats. To my mind, my initial tweaking should have done the trick and solved the lighting problem. It is, after all, my fourth owned HDTV, one being a Sony XBR full array set, so I'm no stranger to tweaking.MORE THOUGHTS:The changes I eventually made was just counter-intuitive as first choice changes, hence, it took me two weeks to get it right. I don't have a college degree, but it seems to me that, if it took me two weeks to tweak the TV, Samsung could have, and should have; done it themselves before they put it out on the shelves. They know, or at least they should know, about the various swings regarding lighting amongst the various media sources. It just shouldn't be rocket science.
278 of 293 people found the following review helpful.
Worth every penny
By Jason
Let me first state that while I didn't buy this product from Amazon, I felt it was worth leaving a review for this TV since buying a new set can be a complicated process, and I hope this review will make your buying process easier. Also, I happen to be primarily a gamer, so if you enjoy video games as well, this review might help you. To start, I'll give some general information, then dive into a more detailed discussion of the various settings and how I calibrated my TV.I'll get the obvious out of the way first: this TV is BEAUTIFUL. The first words that literally came out of my mouth when I turned on my Xbox 360 (even before I calibrated the video) were "Oh my God." Granted, I'm upgrading from a 4-year-old 720p 32" 60hz Sanyo, but even so -- the picture quality was notably impressive. Even a non-videophile (like myself) can appreciate this set. Blacks were black, whites were white. (Although looking back, I can see that my non-calibrated set looked non-ideal -- more on this later.) The audio, as to be expected with this sort of set, was somewhat disappointing -- the speakers are on the underside of the set, and I could tell right away that the sound was off. Calibrations to come!The set itself is easy to set up. Four screws put the base together, and another four connect it to the TV. I will say, though, that the set is VERY wobbly. A slight bump can make your set rock back and forth, so make sure to be VERY careful around it. As another downside, there are only two HDMI ports and one (!) slot for component/AV cables. What this means is, you can have component OR AV cables attached, but not both. The ports are surprisingly limited, so it's worth taking into account. If this isn't a problem, though, the TV definitely impresses. It's very lightweight, so you probably won't need to buy a new stand.So, on to the technical stuff. Again, if you're a gamer, these settings should help you get a spectacular picture; keep in mind, though, that everyone's different, and my preferences may not be the same as yours. Either way, these should be a good starting point.The TV has three main video settings: Dynamic, Standard, and Movie. The TV starts out at Standard, and you can change it to the other two. Dynamic greatly brightens the screen, and at first I thought I'd found my ideal setting. Upon closer inspection, however, one can see slight problems with colors -- some greens seemed too blue, even on the "Standard" color setting (not the same Standard as I listed above). Which brings me to my next issue -- Dynamic offers no option to manually tweak red, green, and blue levels, making it difficult to adjust. It's almost a case of "what you see is what you get."The audio also has several "preset" options: Music, Movie, Clear Voice, and Amplify. Clear Voice and Amplify seemed too muted, so I never even bothered with them. Music and Movie, on the other hand, increased sound quality (and volume) but, like with video, do not allow you to manually adjust the equalizer.Finally, we have the Samsung Auto Motion Plus. This setting controls the quality of the image during fast motion, and like everything else, it requires some tweaking to get just right. For example: say you're playing a first-person shooter. When moving the screen from left to right (or vice versa), this setting controls how smooth the motion is. On one setting, you have nice, smooth motion, but the top of the screen "tears," creating very noticeable graphical glitches. On the other end of the spectrum, the graphical glitches are removed, but the motion is back to blurry -- almost as if the TV doesn't have 120hz.Now then, I think it's worth noting the few problems I've noticed with the set in the months I've owned it:1. Vertical desync. This is the biggest thing, and I'm actually noticing it right now as I play Fallout 3. When moving through certain parts of the world, the screen will "jitter" and parts of the picture will become uneven. I'm not totally sure how to put it into words...there's no discoloration, there's just horizontal lines that move up and down across the image, making it look uneven. It only happens in certain situations, and only in certain games; I've never noticed it in Battlefield 3 multiplayer (I do see it sometimes in campaign, but only when scanning my screen across images that are large and close-up -- like buildings -- which is curious in and of itself), and I've never seen it in Halo 4, Enslaved, Mass Effect 3, or most other games either. It may be an issue with the AutoMotion Plus, but I'm not sure if it is, and it doesn't bother me enough to worry about too much.*UPDATE* The vertical desync stems from frame rate drops while playing certain games; if the Xbox or PS3 is unable to handle all the action on the screen, the frame rate will dip below 30 and the TV will be unable to consistently create a smooth image. Lowering or turning off Auto Motion Plus reduces the effect to a degree.2. Black levels. Black levels are difficult to get just right; sometimes you think you've got the right level of black, and then you notice certain scenes are too black, or too grey. I've noticed this quite a bit when calibrating the set for my Xbox 360 and PS3. In Fallout 3, I do get full, rich blacks when it seems like you should be getting them, but other times blacks seem too grey for my liking. If I increase the grey level or decrease brightness, however, the rest of the image can suffer. The PS3 calibrations were similar; in Uncharted, dark scenes (such as inside caves or tunnels) were extremely black at first, and I had to do quite a bit of adjustment to get them where I want.Something to keep in mind -- the Xbox 360 and PS3 have their own color calibration settings in the Display area. These settings (Reference Levels on 360, RGB Full Range on PS3) GREATLY impact the appearance of blacks on your image. Set Reference Levels to expanded or RGB Full Range to Full, and blacks are crushed. I have these settings on standard and limited, respectively, and have calibrated the set around those settings. The calibrations listed in my review are applied to both inputs for both consoles, and work fine.TL;DR of the last paragraph; the calibrations on my set are where they need to be. If they seem off, it's worth looking into the color settings on one's console and adjusting them if necessary.3. AutoMotion isn't everything I hoped. I touched on this a bit in my review; on the Smooth setting, the screen motion is very clear, but the "tearing" or "jittering" is even more prevalent. My Custom setting works fine for the most part, though; although motion isn't perfectly smooth, I barely notice it in most situations. And honestly, try looking left to right around your room. Objects blur a bit in real life, don't they? Anyway, I'm not sure is a Plasma is better for this (as I've never owned one), but this is still a nice feature and makes things look better than my old set.So where does all this leave us? These are the settings I'm using right now, and the TV looks and sounds as good as I think I can get it. This is the result of about four hours of tweaking. Also, note that I'm using HDMI to connect my consoles to the TV.EDIT 12/28/12:I've updated the video settings for the television; slight changes include lowering brightness, increasing gamma, resetting RGB sliders to default, and a few others. The changes create a vivid, bright image, but not one with too much brightness (my previous settings had the brightness levels a bit high, making blacks look gray in some areas).1. PICTUREMode: StandardBacklight: 20Contrast: 90Brightness: 44Sharpness: 35Color: 50Tint: G50/R50 1A. ADVANCED SETTINGS Color Space: Auto Gamma: +3 Dynamic Contrast: Off Black Tone: Off Flesh Tone: +4 Motion Lighting: Off 1B. WHITE BALANCE R-Offset: 25 G-Offset: 25 B-Offset: 25 R-Gain: 25 G-Gain: 25 B-Gain: 25 1C. PICTURE OPTIONS Color Tone: Cool Size: Screen Fit Digital Noise Filter: Off HDMI Black Level: Either (This setting will depend on what sort of input you are using. Some inputs may default at Normal and not allow you to change it; others will let you set one or the other. Normal is a much brighter setting than Low, so you have to try both and see which works best for you. For example, I have my game systems on a setting that darkens the picture but expands the available range of color, so therefore I use the Normal (brighter) setting. Film Mode: Off LED Motion Plus: Off 1D. AUTO MOTION PLUS Auto Motion Plus: Custom Blur Reduction: 7 Judder Reduction: 5 NOTE CONCERNING AUTO MOTION PLUS: The higher this setting, the more vertical desync (which I mentioned earlier in the reciew) you will receive with certain games. For example, when playing Far Cry 3 on the Xbox 360, any scene which resulted in a frame rate drop would produce the vertical tearing. Lowering the Auto Motion Plus (or even turning it off) had an positive impact on the tearing, reducing it (but not eliminating it all together). For normal television viewing, the tearing won't be an issue, but if you notice it while playing a game, set the Auto Motion to Clear or Off.2. SOUNDMode: StandardSRS TruSurround HD: OffAuto Volume: Off 2A. EQUALIZER 100Hz: Two notches down from highest "+" setting. 300Hz: All the way to "+" setting. 1KHz: Two notches down from highest "+" setting. 3KHz: All the way to "+" setting. 10KHz: All the way to "+" setting.3. GAME MODE: OffAnd that's pretty much it. Blacks are black, white is white, and every color in-between seems as close to "normal" as I can get them. Again, these settings may require your own fiddling to get "just right," but this seems like a good starting point.Anyway, bottom line: the picture quality is superb. The negative I listed above aren't enough to warrant a detraction in stars when so many times I've been amazed by the quality of the picture being put before me. You will not be disappointed.
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Not that great, although the price is good for the specs.
