Okay, I've posted on several of the topics here in the past month, and have also been reading extensively. The problem is, I still am not quite sure what to do. I'll recap my story (as briefly as possible):

Around New Year my wife and I received an LG 30fs4d superslim crt as a Christmas gift. We were almost entirely happy with it, except for a few issues: there was a greyish transparent vertical band on the left side, the pictures become blurred on the edges (common with that set), and the unit emitted a harsh buzzing noise that would decrease to an acceptable level in about a half hour. After trying unsuccessfully to exchange it with the store for another LG (I had gotten the last one), I decided to try the Samsung Slimfit (TX-S3082WH). That had its own set of problems: the picture was much sharper on the edges and it was dead quiet when on, but there are horizontal lines visible near the sides, as though the picture were suddenly really low resolution, the geometry is off (have fixed it mostly), and most importantly it powers itself off for a second, with a noise and sound like degaussing, while in use. The speakers also seem not as good. I originally called to have my LG brought back, but the powering off problem diminished and I changed my mind. I've been waffling ever since; I'm not sure I can be completely satisfied with EITHER set.

My ultimate plans with this TV are exclusively for gaming and DVD viewing; I don't desire cable. As of right now, I don't even have an HD source. I'm planning on getting an XBox 360 fairly soon, but I'm trying to hold out until the new model comes out in the hopes there might be an accompanying price drop in the old one. That said, I can't really rate either TV in anything but SD, and the LG shines in that department. The XD feature really makes the picture a lot sharper and cleaner, although I was getting really annoyed at my inability to get a proper contrast balance with it on. The Samsung really makes 480i sources look terrible, plus there is a lot of ghosting (I didn't even know that was an issue with CRT) even in progressive scan. The catch is that I believe the store set up my old LG on the showroom floor, so it's been running pretty much nonstop in torch mode for at least a week, and like I said it was the last one. That alone has kept me from requesting a return.

These are the options I see open to me: 1.) Keep the Samsung, and suffer through its quirks (or correct them if there is a way, especially the horizontal lines thing). 2.) Get the LG back and suffer through its own quirks, plus the whole floor model business. 3.) Exchange it for a similar priced (around $700, hopefully) LCD, but since I have no experience with LCD I am leary of this option. I don't really know what 1000:1 contrast ratio or 8ms response time means in real terms, and it's hard to compare based on the floor models which all have funky settings. I've figured that since my TV already has ghosting and SD already looks bad, I might as well go for the LCD, but I don't want to risk yet another defective product. I've been looking at the Westinghouse 32W6 (or the 27W7 if I can't find a good price); I don't really want to go below 26" and I want to keep the price close to $700 or $800. Since this was a gift, I don't have much price flexibility. 4.) Return it and see if I can "postpone" the gift for another time, a time when I already have my Xbox 360 and am not spending so much time with PS2. Hopefully prices will be lower and quality will be higher for LCD's by that time.

I'm liking option 4 right now, but I haven't run it by my wife OR the person who gave me the gift. It just seems, overall, like the least amount of hassle and the most sane thing to do. I would GREATLY value your feedback, however; I'm going crazy trying to "fix" the situation.

1. You can't fix the Samsung's "low-res edges". It's the way the grille is designed.

2. The best way to choose and LCD is just by looking at them at the store. Contrast ratios are very subjective and are hardly a standard for picture quality. Response time is a much more accurate measurement and I would not want anything over 12ms. The 6ms-8ms range is best.

3. Don't get an SD set. You'll be sorry later.

4. Dont keep the Samsung, sounds like it has a major problem.

5. I would grab another Samsung that doesn't have the powering-off problem and save up $200-300 to get it ISF calibrated.

It costs more than $200-$300 to get a TV professionally calibrated, doesn't it? Sure, maybe you can get one input done for that amount but that seems pointless to me. I've thought about an ISF calibration but I wouldn't bother unless I could have both of the components and the HDMI input done and that would cost more than it is worth considering I payed only $800 for my TV.

To the thread starter.:

I personally didn't think 480i looked bad on the Samsung but maybe you have unreallistic expectations ( If you think it looks bad on this Samsung wait until you see it on a LCD.;) ). You made quite a list of complaints there. Really the only problem I had with the Samsung SlimFit was the bad geometry. But I see this type of thing on this forum all the time where people make huge posts listing a myriad of complaints with their television. Often these include so many things that I suspect they must have examined their picture with a magnifying glass to find them all. I exchanged the Samsung for the Sony XBR970 and am happy with it. But I'm guessing you might not like it either.

Okay, let me clarify. To Fugiot: the "low res" section I'm talking about isn't the blurriness, it's the area right before that, for a few inches...there are horizontal lines through everything, and things in that area begin to look pixellated. For example, if it's supposed to be a solid gray, there will be very thin alternating gray and dark green horizontal lines (they bend as well, but I assume that's just the geometry).

To Wickerman: yes it does look like I have a lot of complaints. In fact, there's another major thing I didn't even mention: when you have something white against a dark background, there will be faint doubles of that image repeated all the way across the screen to the right of it. This happened on my old CRT that this TV was supposed to replace, too. I don't know the technical term for it; it's not ghosting like an LCD would have, since the images are constantly there to the right of whatever's brightly shining and move along with the object. As for having unrealistic expectations, it's possible I do. Before I went into this I didn't know that SD looks worse on an HDTV than on an SDTV, so it was a big surprise when I first noticed it on the LG. People's faces on PS2 games have jagged vertical lines going through them, and it's generally very jaggedy, to the point where I don't really feel like playing. It's far worse on the Samsung than it was on that TV, and yes, it probably would be even worse on an LCD. The thing is, if I'm going to have to use my old CRT for SD ANYWAY, I might as well get something that'll look best in HD rather than a jack-of-all-trades like a CRT is supposed to be.

Okay, let me clarify. To Fugiot: the "low res" section I'm talking about isn't the blurriness, it's the area right before that, for a few inches...there are horizontal lines through everything, and things in that area begin to look pixellated. For example, if it's supposed to be a solid gray, there will be very thin alternating gray and dark green horizontal lines (they bend as well, but I assume that's just the geometry).

To Wickerman: yes it does look like I have a lot of complaints. In fact, there's another major thing I didn't even mention: when you have something white against a dark background, there will be faint doubles of that image repeated all the way across the screen to the right of it. This happened on my old CRT that this TV was supposed to replace, too. I don't know the technical term for it; it's not ghosting like an LCD would have, since the images are constantly there to the right of whatever's brightly shining and move along with the object. As for having unrealistic expectations, it's possible I do. Before I went into this I didn't know that SD looks worse on an HDTV than on an SDTV, so it was a big surprise when I first noticed it on the LG. People's faces on PS2 games have jagged vertical lines going through them, and it's generally very jaggedy, to the point where I don't really feel like playing. It's far worse on the Samsung than it was on that TV, and yes, it probably would be even worse on an LCD. The thing is, if I'm going to have to use my old CRT for SD ANYWAY, I might as well get something that'll look best in HD rather than a jack-of-all-trades like a CRT is supposed to be.

Ahhh, jaggies. That isn't the fault of the TV, not really anyway. The problem is that in those models the image enhancement software that they have, like velocity scan modulation, is always on and can't be turned off in the user menu. I personally can't stand this software because it adds jaggies and makes things look unnatural. The only way to turn that stuff off with those models is to go into the service menu. On my Sony XBR970 I can turn the stuff off in the user menu. The Sony has something called ClearEdge VM that gives things unnaturally sharp edges, and it looks like ass in my opinion. It allows you to turn this off. It also has some other kind of image enhancement running on its vivid and standard modes. I'm not sure what it is exactly but it also looks like ass. This you can't turn off in the user menu but there are two other modes, movie and pro, where it isn't running. So I am on pro mode with ClearEdge VM turned off and the image is very smooth and natural. All that enhancement software especially makes video games look terrible. So to turn off that stuff on your Samsung find out from somebody how to get into the service menu and what sub-menu to go into to turn off the image enhancement software. Doing that should make the jaggies go away. Personally I think that SD looks better on my XBR970 than it did on my SDTV, but I'm running with the proper settings that are jaggy-free. I recommend the Sony XBR970 instead because overall it is better. It is 4" bigger, has better geometry, doesn't have the problem of being less detailed at the edges, and getting a smooth, jaggy-free picture is much easier since it can be done from the user menu.

Wickerman, sorry to drag this out, but I still feel as though we are not on the same page. I do know what jaggies look like, and that's not really what I'm referring to. It's not the edges of the lines that worry me, it's the actual shading of things, especially flesh-tones: it noticeably alternates between darker and lighter tones, as though everything were made up of vertical lines that weren't quite shaded correctly. I'm assuming this is some sort of de-interlacing fragment. The fact that these vertical lines don't all match up at the edge of the image creates the jaggies, but that doesn't bother me as much as the actual composition. In fact, it looks almost exactly like this problem publicized that the PS3 used to have displaying 480i (I don't have a PS3 myself, but it looks a lot like the pictures). This person theorizes pixels are being switched. Since I saw this with both TV's, and CRT HDTV's are supposed to be really good for showing SD, I'm just running on the assumption that this is how PS2 looks on an HDTV.

http://boardsus.playstation.com/playstation/board/message?board.id=ps3&thread.id=808212&view=by_date_ascending&page=1

The good news is that nothing like that is visible in 480p. And I've been into the service menu to fix the geometry, and turned of VM there at somebody's recommendation; it didn't help with this problem, and actually seemed to exacerbate the problem with horizontal lines near the edges, for whatever reason, so I just turned it back on last night. By the way, I heard somebody talk about how it seemed like you could see the spaces between the pixels near the edges; that might be the same thing I'm referring to. Like I said, the picture is sharp there, it just looks really low-resolution.

Thanks for the suggestion of the Sony, but that's way out of my price range. Like I said, $800 tops is what I can do, since this was a gift that I wouldn't be able to afford otherwise and $800 is already a couple hundred more out of pocket. It does look like a great TV, however. Oh, and I went back and tried playing on my old SDTV last night, but...man, the problems it had a couple months ago have just gotten worse when it wasn't being used, it seems. It's got those ghost double things like the Samsung, but FAR worse, plus last night ANYTHING from the speakers was hugely distorted and rattling. So it seems like keeping that TV for 480i isn't an option, which pretty much narrows things down to the Samsung or the LG. Since I'm very hesitant to get a TV back which has been on the showroom floor for over a week, I guess I'll keep the Samsung. If anybody has any other advice, though, feel free to add it.

The scan lines being wider at the edges is just the way SlimFits are made, with both the Samsung and the LG. I payed $800 for my Sony XBR970 new. If you look around you might be able to find it at that price.