Official Samsung LNxxA550 (Series 5) Owners Thread NO PRICE TALK! - Page 57

Originally Posted by bigjsd

I am wondering if this is how Samsung reduced their list price on the 550 series by a couple hundred dollars. I just don't know if Samsung can be trusted anymore. This is a total bait and switch. They release the first versions of the 550's with the good build quality and get them in the hands of the professional reviewers and early adopters to build up the reputation and switch to a lower grade build and reap the windfall of profit. I think we need a new government agency to monitor this kind of stuff..........how about the "AVS Technology Defense Ministry"? Seriously though, CE manufacturers should have to make this info known. How about an ingredients list to compare. ARGGHHH!!!!

Originally Posted by davez82

hey guys hows the viewing angle on the set?

Originally Posted by rrock22

Originally Posted by bigjsd View Post
I am wondering if this is how Samsung reduced their list price on the 550 series by a couple hundred dollars. I just don't know if Samsung can be trusted anymore. This is a total bait and switch. They release the first versions of the 550's with the good build quality and get them in the hands of the professional reviewers and early adopters to build up the reputation and switch to a lower grade build and reap the windfall of profit. I think we need a new government agency to monitor this kind of stuff..........how about the "AVS Technology Defense Ministry"? Seriously though, CE manufacturers should have to make this info known. How about an ingredients list to compare. ARGGHHH!!!!



Is this true? I was thinking about exchanging my Samsung DLP for the 52a550 but now I am not sure.........

Originally Posted by bigjsd

I am wondering if this is how Samsung reduced their list price on the 550 series by a couple hundred dollars. I just don't know if Samsung can be trusted anymore. This is a total bait and switch. They release the first versions of the 550's with the good build quality and get them in the hands of the professional reviewers and early adopters to build up the reputation and switch to a lower grade build and reap the windfall of profit. I think we need a new government agency to monitor this kind of stuff..........how about the "AVS Technology Defense Ministry"? Seriously though, CE manufacturers should have to make this info known. How about an ingredients list to compare. ARGGHHH!!!!

Originally Posted by JustinHEMI05

Do you wear a tin foil hat, by any chance? There is no conspiracy dude. In fact, I have barely read a complaint about the TV. Not sure what you are all uppity about. There are bound to be imperfections in some TVs but guess what, you can take it back. And compared to all of the other TV threads out there, this one appears to have way WAY less troubles than any other line right now. Go take a look. And, relax.

Justin

PS... the of the world is coming so I wouldn't even buy a TV.

Originally Posted by scb175

Does anyone have any idea why my local channels are so much worse than any other non-HD channel? I can deal with MTV and all the others, but CBS, NBC, Fox, etc. are just horrid.

The image is so bad. It's like two images are planted on top of each other. Then when movement occurs, one image is slightly 1 second behind the other. I guess that's the best way to put it.

Does everyone experience this or is it just me? I thought it was the 46a550 at first, but now i'm thinking Dish Network has some issues.

Originally Posted by l3lahs

i just had a quick question: does plugging hdmi cables to the different connections (hdmi 1, 2, 3) have anything to do with the quality?

Originally Posted by eyekode

Well my set took much less time to get here then initial estimates. I think it probably helps that I saw online that the TV was in my city so I called ceva directly. They hadn't contacted me yet, I bet that cut off a day or three...

I have only had it for 2 days so all I have is initial impressions. To be clear, before you proceed: I have not played with the picture settings enough to make a final judgment. This is just my initial impressions.

The first thing I noticed was the screen. It is a diffuse reflective screen. I have it in a room with 6 windows shinning on it from all sides and the reflection really isn't too bad. It doesn't bother me a bit. Note I am comparing this to a plasma...

First negative I noticed was the silver trim on the bottom of the bezel is bent away from the frame in one corner. Not sure how that could have happened. Thought I could just snap it back in but it wouldn't budge. Not sure how much this going to bother me in the long run but it doesn't give me a warm fuzzy about quality.

As everyone else mentioned the sound is not so hot on this set. I think it is the simple fact that the speakers fire down and not forward. I have an 8" powered sub lying around and will give that a shot later. It will fill in the low end but I am afraid there is nothing I can do about the high end. When I first started listening to it I thought it sounded like crap. But I played with the eq and watched the set for a while and I don't think it is going to be a big deal for me.

Now on to the 46" question... how does the picture look? Honestly I am just a little disappointed. I watched a little OTA 1080i and at least straight out of the box the picture is way over-processed. Sharpness is way too high leading to edge artifacts. Even turning it down doesn't seem to get the smooth life-like images I am used to on the Pioneer.

On to blacks/contrast: Without a doubt the Samsung can produce a deeper black then the Pioneer. But it seems to have a very slight bluish tint to it that seems artificial. And the set seems to crush more blacks then my plasma.

In general the color does not seem quite right either. Seems to be too cold of a color temperature. I tried the warm temperatures too, but they were too warm (now where did I put baby bear's porridge?).

Note I am a terrible judge of absolute color. I do a lot of photo editing and I know this is not my strong point. Also note I have calibrated my Pioneer using video essentials and I have not really dialed-in the Samsung. But then again by "calibrating" my Pioneer all I had to do was set brightness, lower sharpness, and push the tint slider ~3 tics. Everything else was spot-on from the factory.

Next I turned on the wii. It looks ok, but the colors don't seem as rich as the Pioneer. Pushing down the backlight helps but then the picture is overall too muted. And for whatever reason the poorly anti-aliased lines from the wii are much more distracting on the Samsung. Response time/motion blur is also minorly evident. For example in the intro of Twilight Princess with my plasma I never noticed any jerkyness when the image pans. I noticed this immediately on the Sammy.

I still have hope for this set. I bought it to go in a sunny location where my kids can play games and watch movies withing me worrying about IR/burn-in or if they remembered to turn it off. And for this purpose I am sure I will be happy.

Note even my 5 year old son prefers the Pioneer. But it could just be that I somehow let him know the Samsung is "smaller" then the old set . Also I do not recommend buying a Pioneer. They haven't yet figured out that TV's need a software as well as hardware support model. Pioneer has never released a firmware patch for this set. And this set really needs a firmware update (tv turns itself off when there is low signal, clock is wrong for 2 weeks out of the year due to change in daylight savings time changes etc).

Originally Posted by chronoxg3

Try the calibration settings in the calibration thread. With samsungs you have to do some tweaking out of the box to reach it's full potential.

Originally Posted by eyekode

Well my set took much less time to get here then initial estimates. I think it probably helps that I saw online that the TV was in my city so I called ceva directly. They hadn't contacted me yet, I bet that cut off a day or three...

I have only had it for 2 days so all I have is initial impressions. To be clear, before you proceed: I have not played with the picture settings enough to make a final judgment. This is just my initial impressions.

The first thing I noticed was the screen. It is a diffuse reflective screen. I have it in a room with 6 windows shinning on it from all sides and the reflection really isn't too bad. It doesn't bother me a bit. Note I am comparing this to a plasma...

First negative I noticed was the silver trim on the bottom of the bezel is bent away from the frame in one corner. Not sure how that could have happened. Thought I could just snap it back in but it wouldn't budge. Not sure how much this going to bother me in the long run but it doesn't give me a warm fuzzy about quality.

As everyone else mentioned the sound is not so hot on this set. I think it is the simple fact that the speakers fire down and not forward. I have an 8" powered sub lying around and will give that a shot later. It will fill in the low end but I am afraid there is nothing I can do about the high end. When I first started listening to it I thought it sounded like crap. But I played with the eq and watched the set for a while and I don't think it is going to be a big deal for me.

Now on to the 46" question... how does the picture look? Honestly I am just a little disappointed. I watched a little OTA 1080i and at least straight out of the box the picture is way over-processed. Sharpness is way too high leading to edge artifacts. Even turning it down doesn't seem to get the smooth life-like images I am used to on the Pioneer.

On to blacks/contrast: Without a doubt the Samsung can produce a deeper black then the Pioneer. But it seems to have a very slight bluish tint to it that seems artificial. And the set seems to crush more blacks then my plasma.

In general the color does not seem quite right either. Seems to be too cold of a color temperature. I tried the warm temperatures too, but they were too warm (now where did I put baby bear's porridge?).

Note I am a terrible judge of absolute color. I do a lot of photo editing and I know this is not my strong point. Also note I have calibrated my Pioneer using video essentials and I have not really dialed-in the Samsung. But then again by "calibrating" my Pioneer all I had to do was set brightness, lower sharpness, and push the tint slider ~3 tics. Everything else was spot-on from the factory.

Next I turned on the wii. It looks ok, but the colors don't seem as rich as the Pioneer. Pushing down the backlight helps but then the picture is overall too muted. And for whatever reason the poorly anti-aliased lines from the wii are much more distracting on the Samsung. Response time/motion blur is also minorly evident. For example in the intro of Twilight Princess with my plasma I never noticed any jerkyness when the image pans. I noticed this immediately on the Sammy.

I still have hope for this set. I bought it to go in a sunny location where my kids can play games and watch movies withing me worrying about IR/burn-in or if they remembered to turn it off. And for this purpose I am sure I will be happy.

Note even my 5 year old son prefers the Pioneer. But it could just be that I somehow let him know the Samsung is "smaller" then the old set . Also I do not recommend buying a Pioneer. They haven't yet figured out that TV's need a software as well as hardware support model. Pioneer has never released a firmware patch for this set. And this set really needs a firmware update (tv turns itself off when there is low signal, clock is wrong for 2 weeks out of the year due to change in daylight savings time changes etc).

Originally Posted by rrock22

Originally Posted by bigjsd View Post
I am wondering if this is how Samsung reduced their list price on the 550 series by a couple hundred dollars. I just don't know if Samsung can be trusted anymore. This is a total bait and switch. They release the first versions of the 550's with the good build quality and get them in the hands of the professional reviewers and early adopters to build up the reputation and switch to a lower grade build and reap the windfall of profit. I think we need a new government agency to monitor this kind of stuff..........how about the "AVS Technology Defense Ministry"? Seriously though, CE manufacturers should have to make this info known. How about an ingredients list to compare. ARGGHHH!!!!



Is this true? I was thinking about exchanging my Samsung DLP for the 52a550 but now I am not sure.........

Originally Posted by rahzel

+1. most if not all of his complaints seem like they can be easily fixed.

Originally Posted by hayesri

Hi all. Long time lurker, first time caller. Just got back from future shop after pulling the trigger on the 52A550. If it wasn't for the advice and opinions in this thread I probably wouldn't have bought it. The Sony W3000 that was right beside the Samsung was better calibrated and just plain looked better. But I realize that you can't trust what you see in store. So thanks to all who participate here. I'm really looking forward to Wednesday when I can pick mine up. As for the price (which we won't discuss), it's the first time I've ever talked a future shop employee into discounting an item.

Originally Posted by hayesri

Hi all. Long time lurker, first time caller. Just got back from future shop after pulling the trigger on the 52A550. If it wasn't for the advice and opinions in this thread I probably wouldn't have bought it. The Sony W3000 that was right beside the Samsung was better calibrated and just plain looked better. But I realize that you can't trust what you see in store. So thanks to all who participate here. I'm really looking forward to Wednesday when I can pick mine up. As for the price (which we won't discuss), it's the first time I've ever talked a future shop employee into discounting an item.

Originally Posted by hayesri

Crispy, that's essentially how I got the discount. I gave him the current web price and said give me the same discount as last Sunday.

And Peanut, that's good to know. I figured that since the w3000 is old product and the a550 is new product, it just has to be better.

No matter what lcd I picked it was still going to be better than my old 32" crt. It's only recently that I've been giving it the critical eye - and really it just can't compete with LCD. A lot of people on the threads are obsessed with minute details of performance, pixels, black levels, etc. All valid concerns when comparing things that are very much alike. But a CRT really can't compete with the worst of the flat panels.

Originally Posted by hayesri

Crispy, I guess I can't argue with you about the CRT/LCD thing. My experience comparing the two is based on computer monitors, not TVs.

Now I just bought a rather long (35ft, 24gauge) HDMI cable from Monoprice so I can connect to my computer. Anyone else driving that length of cable to their Sammy? Any problems specific to the distance?

Originally Posted by cripsy66

I'd have to disagree with you there, a good high def tube CRT will look better than a bottom line LCD (insignia etc).