Great review. I think the 55 may not be as bad on the negitaves as the 46. Maybe more zones ect. I dont know, only looked at the 46 for a short time but seemed to not do quite as well as the 55. I noticed that all the conners would light up on the 46 letterbox bars with bright material.This does not happen the same way with the 55.
If you have a very bright white letters on a black background I see the same glow of the 55 like I do on plasma or crt. If the bright white is turned down then this is mitagated just like any display would do.
Also if the bright is turned up a click or 2 too much then there can become a brighter area around the object.Just like other displays. But when set properly, setting anywhere on the couch at 10ft veiwing angle is no problem in the blacks. I was concerned about this before I bought and seemed the letter box bars would light up more on the 46 but it still does it on the 55 some BUT so does any display including plasma although not as bad being dimmer. Having a bright white object next to a black letter box bar will allow some of that white light to go over into the dark bar, its only natural If you back down the backlight then all this gets better and better because the bright white is not as bright.
This set is bright so you can run a much lower back light that the 650. About a 6 will equal a 10 on the 650 with same engery settings. It also seem that if you have a single icon on the extreme conner of the screen it tends to ligh up more than in the center parts where credits roll. Credits do just as good or better than any set I have seen ..
I would compair it to rear projection for example only worse on rear projection.When you have very white on very black there can be no complete cuttoff. There will be some slight glow. Crt tubes do this as well as do plasmas when they reflect and scatter the light on there own screen. I think this may be getting a bad rap and is not cause by the zones. Now you can see the zone glow when you move to the exterme angle. You will see a round circle around the object. Very ugly.but near head on you cannot see any of this. Plasmas when they get a year or too of age get extra bad for this type of stright on glowing around bright objects. The plasma has a lead glass in front of the screen. This is to keep you from dieing from radiation poisoning from the plasma.This lead glass tends to begin to reflect and cause even more of this glowing.
It might be possible to clean that glass on certin brands but it would require removel of the pannel in most cases. I am not sure it would stop that glowing but might. For sure on 2 recent 2 year old plasmas I have seen recently the glow is much worse than the 950 by far with the white letters much dimmer.
The lcd does not have this type of lead glass sheild. There may be some radiation from lcd but I have never heard of it,maybe someone more informed than me will know for sure. Is the ld perfect no, but its pretty dam good.
Is it worth 2000 more than a 657 750. Depends on if you like a bright picture.
Using auto "no review does this to date"and 3 on the back light will give very good blacks on the 650 750. Not quite as good as the 950 can do. But if you like it bright then you can run the 950 much brighter with better blacks.
In normal room lighting its hard to see alot of difference in the 650 750 vs the 950.
950 is much brighter and goes much darker to black.
Images will have alot more pop in dark scenes.
Credits are very bright where as on the 650 750 will be dimmer.
Whites are much whiter if that is even possible but they are regaurdless of white blance settings.
I posted pics to show these differences, although they are crude.
Removes the last bit of fog from 650 750 which can be small if set properly.
Color seems to be slightly better. Processing is just a touch better. SOO you make the call. Its a lot of money but it does deliver better performance than the 650 750.
From the other side
