Looks like I'll be joining the 550 club later this week. I've spent weeks waffling between the Panny 65S2 and the Sammy 63C550 - the floating blacks and reported graininess kept me from settling on the S2, and the reports of buzzing and banding scared me away from the 550. Now, however, the 65S2s are pretty much gone from brick-and-mortar stores, so my choice got a lot easier. I did consider waiting a few months for the 2011 ST30s to hit the market, but I haven't heard anything about Panasonic fixing the floating blacks, and I'm sure that that would drive me crazy. In another thread that asked about S2 Vs. 550, the crowd seemed to unanimously pick the 550, so I finally pulled the trigger and got one scheduled for delivery in a few days.
One thing I've noticed, however, is that not many folks seem to talk about gaming on this set. There seems to be no shortage of input lag numbers for Panasonic sets - in fact, it was the low input lag stats on Panny sets that initially had me sold on the S2. Other than the general consensus that Samsung sets have much higher lag, though, I can't seem to find anything specific. For anyone that uses the 550 for gaming, how is the lag on most settings? Is game mode a requirement, and does it totally kill the picture? My 550 will be used for 75% gaming/25% movies/0% cable, so this is pretty important for me.
Also, how bad is the image retention after break-in? I plan to break-in for a couple hundred hours since the set will be used for so much gaming, and I'm hoping that would be enough to avoid the worst of the IR. Gaming sessions for me are usually about 1-3 hours - is that going to be a problem? I know I could go to LCD and game as much as I want worry-free, but the viewing angles and uniformity issues made that a no-go. The 550 seems to get a lot of love on these forums, so I'm hoping that it will work out for me.