Samsung 2012 PNxxE450 Thread

Looks good, wonder if you can enter service menu and change it to an e7000, etc.

The D450/D490 you can go into the service menu and change it to a d7000 to get day/night modes and the 10 pt greyscale. Also you can get cinema smooth. If you can do this on the e450 this year this will make it definitely best bang for your buck model.

Would appreciate some pictures of this set. Don't really trust the stock photos or the specs which usually has errors.

From the stock photos, it looks like they changed the stand of the E450 to a thicker foot. Also, it looks like they removed one of the component inputs, down to 2x HDMI, 1x component (shared composite). Can someone verify this?

The E490 stock pictures looks pretty much the same as the D490, but in the specs they also seemed to have removed 1x component + VGA input. They also seemed to have added LAN input though.

So is that a non-swivel base? Not sure why Samsung would do that, seems like a minor step backwards in design compared to last year's.

Ctm - how is the set?

They have apparently lowered the lines of resolution from the D450, as the 51E450 now has 1024x768 native resolution vs 1360x768 for the D450. Not sure if this has a major impact on picture quality, but if it is important to you, then you may want to hurry and get a D450 while there are still some available on closeout.

The 43D450 has 1024x768, and the 51D450 has 1360x768. Apparently, the 51E450 is changing to 1020x768, but not sure if this will have a major impact upon pic quality. Just wondering, will have to go check one out in the store.

Thanks for the pictures CTM Audi, really appreciate it. Just wondering are there any inputs (HDMI, USB) on the sides of the panel?

The E450/E490 has popped up on Samsung's Office Site.

NEW 51" Class (50.73" Diag.) Plasma 490 Series TV PN51E490B4F
NEW 51" Class (50.72" Diag.) Plasma 450 Series TV PN51E450A1F

Looks like the native res for the 51" set is 1024x768 now, which I hope is really a typo. Looked at the User Manual for the PN51E450 and it also states 1024x768. They don't seem to have a proper user manual for the E490.

This is disappointing for me because I intend to use this for HTPC purposes, and want 1-to-1 pixel mapping (square pixels). Panasonic went to 1024x768 for their 46/50" 720p sets couple years back. Guess Samsung finally moved to a lower res panel to reduce cost and power consumption as well.

It also looks like they removed one of the component inputs for the E4xx series as well, but didn't seem to add any extra HDMI inputs. For the E490 they list 2 HDMI which I hope is an error because the D490 had 3 HDMI (2 back/1 side). It looks like they might have removed the VGA input as well, which is very useful, but added a LAN input which I personally don't have much use for.

I guess I might pick up the older PN51D490 if the price on it drops some more, back to around BF levels. Or else spent some extra money and step up to 1080p panel E530 or Panasonic ST50 series.

Thanks for the review have a 42 inch nad 54 inch high end PANNYS but gonna pick up the 51 inch model of this tv for my GF's bedroom 20 inch's from 12 ft doesnt cut it for me LOL!

I believe it was the same last year where they incorrectly published 1024x768 as the resolution for the 51D450. I can't see the logic in building a whole new production line for a lower resolution TV which frankly will not even be viewable at that size, and as a result will sell far less units. I'm willing to bet it is the same 1366x768 panel as they are using on the 51D450 but with updated firmware, probably with the FBr fixed/optimised as the rest of the E range and D range is with the latest logic board f/w.

What I need is someone with 51E450 logic board f/w to extract it so that I can put it on my 51D450

My friend has the 51" from HH Gregg at $599.

Used the Rock Band 2 guitar for XBox 360 over HDMI to do autocalibration, video input lag was 35ms with game mode on and 31ms with game mode off. Go figure.

The specs say non square pixels and I looked at them really closely and think I could tell they were wider than squares, but maybe I was seeing what I thought I should be seeing.

I wouldn't buy a set with non square pixels but I admit for just watching HDTV both his 51" and a 1024x768 Panasonic 42" plasma I watch sometimes are great looking.

I am going to bring over the Aladdin DVD to run THX optimizer and will report calibration. I am even thinking of spending $6 on the blue filter glasses that work with the THX optimizer. Any opinions on whether it would be $6 well spent?

I want to thank everyone for there great posts, by reading this forum I decided to go with the Samsung 51inch plasma PN51E450. My only question now is since this is a gift for my dad who's in his 60's and is upgrading from a 30 inch CRT, should I bother with calibration? will he really know the difference? Also my dad wants to hang the TV but the manual says to buy the wall mount kit separately, he wants it on the wall for the Masters this Thursday so I don't have time to get something online, does anyone have a good reccomendation for a VESA 400x400 wall bracket set that I could get at Best Buy or walmart?
Thanks in advance, again just a great forum, I can't thank everyone enough

Waste of time. So you get blue luminance accurate, the others will still all be out by a factor that only a 3D CMS can fix. And even then, there will still be nonlinearities in luminance and/or saturation tracking of any or all of those colours from 0-100% which would need to be accounted for. And you still have no idea what is going on with white balance or gamma tracking.

The only result that is worth investing in is a meter that is guaranteed to read accurate colour from your display and then run it through a full 10 point + 3D CMS calibration on various patterns types at various picture levels to get an accurate impression of how the display is actually producing colour. Only then will you be satisfied with the appearance of all content. But, this is nearly impossible to achieve, all displays have their flaws.

Im about to pick up a PN51D450 or PN51E450 and not sure which I should get. I did a search but not much pops up. How can you tell the difference in store?

Has anyone tried this on the e450 yet? I need a TV like tonight lol

Down to 51" d450 or e450

They still haven't fixed the "dirty screen" problem. It's a shame, because everything else about these sets are wonderful for the price.

Turn on the scrolling feature. If yours has this problem, you'll notice what looks like fingerprints or dirt on the white parts of the screen.

Will one of you guys check this for me, jeez help a brother out?

I just picked up one of these at Best Buy last night. Price was $480, which is about what they are going for in other places, but apparently not the best price ever.

This is my first plasma TV. I've always thought that plasma displays looked great and I wanted to try one. I got the 43" version for use as a bedroom TV. It looks really nice so far. I was worried about not having full 1080p resolution, but in actuality at a viewing distance of about 8-9 feet in the bedroom, there is no way I can see any pixels or screen door effect.

I do have a couple of questions. First is about calibration. I don't want to spend $200 to have it professionally calibrated, so I'm going to use the settings listed by the OP (thanks!) and go from there. If anyone has any tips on do-it-yourself calibration, I'd like to try it.

Second question: I run this TV through a Yamaha AV receiver and it works fine. However, when it's hooked up like this, there is NO sound from the TV speakers themselves. With two other TV's I have had running through the AV receivers the TV sound/speakers are still working. If I run the sound test on the Samsung's menu, the speakers ARE working. I just want to make sure that the TV is functional on its own in case I want to sell it someday. Samsung tech support says that it's a function of the receiver and Best Buy geek said some TV's work this way--if sound is coming from a receiver the TV's speakers are shut off.

I have Best Buy's 30-day window to return or exchange. I'm mulling over turning it in for the 51-inch 1080p model, but we'll see.

Thanks in advance for any info/pointers.