HL-T7288W...First impressions - Page 8

Amazon is advertising this as having the long lasting LED source. Does it really have this?

Amazon advertising 7288 with a LED light. Does it really have this?

Does this unit have an LED light source?

Read all about it:
http://www.samsung.com/us/consumer/d...=HLT7288WX/XAA

The short answer is "no."

Anyone considering the HL72A650 that should be out soon vs. HL-T7288W? Trying to decide whether I should wait or just go for it now.

This set sounds amazing from all of the owner posts.

I'm in the exact same boat. Anyone?

Count me too.

Interesting thing is that right now Big River has a pre-order on the HL72A650 that is roughly $150 less than what they have the HL-T7288W priced at.

It's a bigger difference than that...

HL-T7288W: http://www.google.com/products?q=HLT...earch+Products

HL72A650: http://www.google.com/products?q=HL7...oducts&show=dd

I know there's only three hits on Google Products for the 650 so far but they all appear to be accepting preorders and it's around $700 less for the HL72A650. That worries me that it's a cheaper quality set.

edit - The hits so far on Google Products for the HL72A650 are all from vendors of shall we say questionable reputation. I'm not actually recommending anyone order one yet (especially from TVsDepot, 1 Stop Camera, or FotoConnection), it's just a quick link to gauge pricing.

I'd really like to hear from someone who is familiar with the HLT7288W and has also had a look at the one of the 650 sets.

Grendell,

All those websites's stores located in Brooklyn, New-York, and are probably those shady stores that sell grey market goods. Here are addresses of those stores:

TVsDepot.com
1421 Sheepshead Bay Road
Suite# 220
Brooklyn, NY 11235

1 Stop Camera
1100 Coney Island Ave.
Brooklyn, NY 11230

FotoConnection
P.O. Box 300425
Midwood
Brooklyn, NY 11230

Here are reviews about TVsDepot.com:

http://www.google.com/products/revie...853d666&sort=1


I would never buy $3000 dollars TV from shady store in Brooklyn.

Grendell,

1 Stop Camera, TVsDepot.com, and FotoConnection are the same Scum Bags.

Here is website with picture, photos, and information about Brooklyn StoreFronts:

http://donwiss.com/pictures/BrooklynStores/


Here is thread on camcorderinfo.com with information about more scum bags stores:

http://www.camcorderinfo.com/bbs/t52497.html

Please, let's not turn this into a "don't buy sets online" or "these vendors are crooks" discussion now. It was just a quick link to gauge pricing for when the HL72A650 comes out. I'm not recommending anyone actually order one yet.

What we want to know is how the HL72A650 will stack up when compared to the HL-T7288W, by hopefully hearing from someone who has seen a HL-T7288W and one of the 650 sets that IS available now.

More reliable link... $3000 from Amazon, free shipping, release date is June 1.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001418WEK?...0&linkCode=asn

If I buy from Amazon where can I get extended warranty? Samsung's extended warranty on Amazon web page doesn't look good.

Ordered the HL-T7288W from Amazon last night. This will complete my living room HTand once it is in this is all that I will be buying for a couple of years. Here is a list of my gear:

Pioneer - VSX-94THX
Bue Jeans cables
JBL - E90 mains w/M2200 200 watt Mono Blocks
JBL - EC35 center w/M2200 200 watt Mono Block
INFINITY - Beta ES250 surrounds
JBL - E50 rear surrounds
HSU - (2) VTF-3 MK3 (one Turbo & one not, set together nearfield )
HSU - (2) MBM-12 (one w/ea main )
Toshibia HD DVD AX2 (HDDVD)
Panasonic DMP-BD30 (BluRay)
Sony SCD-CE595 SACD (5 disc cd/sacd player)

It took me over a year to accumilate all this stuff with the WAF.

Bill

I'm a little late to the party but Buy.com has the HL-T7288W for $2099 with free shipping.

http://www.buy.com/retail/product.as...70&dcaid=17070

That's a great price! I still would like to know what is the actual performance difference between hlt7288 and hl72a650, aside from an extra hdmi connector and that the new model is 20 lbs lighter. I can't seem to get any info on whether the new model actually improves on the old one.

I think you're not supposed to discuss prices here, but yeah, I got that email this morning too and it might finally push me over the edge after months of sitting on the fence. Wife already said ok, so now I just have to convince myself to pull the trigger. Sounds pretty good so far from what I've been reading here and in the manual.

---

EDIT: ok, I'm now officially off the fence and looking forward to my own first impressions. Thanks to everyone for the comments. It will certainly feel good to put the old Sony 61HS10 out to pasture - I feel like I've been trapped in an abusive relationship with that %($*&^%*% set.

Well, I got my 7288W today and all I can say is "wow". HD looks truly phenomenal, I'm watching a little baseball now, earlier I watched a little "Planet Earth" and some other HD-DVDs as well as other broadcast content. It's definitely an amazing step up from the KP-61HS10 - I'd spent some time reading the "Don't dump your CRT RPTV" thread and was feeling a little bad about it. I'll admit I miss the CRT "look" a little but overall there's no way that set ever looked this good.

Of course, that only applies to HD - SD looks pretty awful especially stretched. You'd think they'd be able to do some better upscaling, but I guess SD is thankfully on the way out.

Games (PS3 and X360) are a gigantic improvement. Especially with games nowadays tending to use smaller text and icons, and tending to put these things at the corner of the screen where my convergence was worst, it was getting a bit irritating. The PS3 XMB even looked pretty bad on the other set whereas now it looks like a computer monitor. A really honking big computer monitor

I still have to do some tweaking but out of the box it looks pretty great... Now I just wonder why I waited so long to get a new TV!

thats a common complain for people switching from analog CRT. SD was MUCH better on that platform. Unfortunately you must embrasse the future.

BTW - never watch it stretch. There is no burn in so never ever a need to stretch anything ever. did I mention ever?

Well, after watching my first Blu-Ray tonight (I Am Legend), along with watching a lot of broadcast HD and playing 360/PS3, I am suitably impressed with the 1080 picture to not worry so much about SD.

Although, a lot of the extras on "Legend' are in SD - the PS3 was sending them to the set as 480p and I have to say it looked pretty good. Between that and different SD analog/digital broadcast channels, I'm discovering the quality of the source material does have a lot to do with how SD looks. Seems like worse SD sources looked better on CRT, whereas good ones look better on the new set.


Yeah, I know about no burn-in, I was just playing around with the settings plus I believe it ships in 16:9 stretch mode by default. There is one reason to watch stretch, though, which is 16:9 letterboxed in a 4:3 frame. Unfortunately it seems like the 'Zoom 1' mode tends to stretch things a little more than it should resulting in a good portion of the top and bottom of the picture being cut off. I don't know if what's being broadcast isn't really 16:9 or the implementation is just off, but it seems like a logical thing for one of the stretch modes to work that way. It would be nice if they just let you set the X/Y zoom factor manually (maybe you can in the service menu?). But, it's a minor nit, and hopefully within a year or two it's not even an issue as the SD channels disappear.

Overall, first week, extremely happy

todd.

about to buy a HL-T7288W for 1999 free ship.

Should I? Or should I wait? Help me

Ok, read the whole thread and am wondering what everyone's thoughts are a year or so after this set was released. Any regrets? Still wowed?

Is this still the best 70"+ set on the market (barely)? Is the HL72A650 better? What about any Mitsubishi.

Sixfoot: Until you mentioned it, I didn't realize my set is 1 year old already. The picture still looks fantastic. I'm not sure if you could classify it as a regret, but after having a CRT RP HDTV, sometimes pictures look way too digital for my liking, this includes some HD DVDs, but that is probably true for other digital sets. I also wish I had waited for a TV that can do 24FPS, I got fooled by the fact Samsung said the TV could do 120 Hz, but I guess that only applies to gaming, which I don't do with this set. Since you read the full thread you are aware many of these sets have a bowing issue, I was lucky that my set only had 1/4 " of bowing and hasn't got any worse with time. If you decide to get the TV, I'd check the bowing when they deliver, and don't let them leave before you check it. Besides these nits I'm a satisfied customer.

John

Thanks.
Such a newbie question, but what does 24FPS and/or 120 Hz do for you? Yes, I read about it in this or other threads, but it was way over my head. I'm a software engineer, but not videophile.

it's been over a year for me also and I still love this tv. Not one issue and the color is still great and within the IFC calibration settings that were done on it. The BR's play 24fps and with vivid def on the PS3. I'm still happy that I bought this set..

I bought this set online; it was delivered last Friday. I set it up on the stand Saturday, did all my menu settings and calibration Sunday... and starting Monday, the screen wouldn't come on. (The power comes on, the lamp fires up... but nothing ever appears on the screen.)

Damnit.

Samsung's warranty service sent a tech out today to replace the system board... which didn't do a thing. So now I'm waiting on a replacement DMD board, but I'm told these are backordered at the moment, so it may not be a short wait.

I did like the set during the day-and-a-half in which it worked; the only thing I found at all off-putting (viewing on-air HD, upconverted laserdisc, upconverted DVD, and Blu-Ray sources) was that black levels weren't fantastic even after calibrating. That may just mean I need to find different settings, though.

wow, it's been awhile since I looked or posted in this thread but something has been catching my eye lately with my 7288w.

I noticed on Sunday during the Lakers game that the screen dimmed. At first I thought it was the lights at the Staples center. Yet, when I put in a blu ray later that night, it happened again. The best way I can explain it is if someone lowered the brightness level by turning off a light inside the tv. It was a noticeable difference. I've had the tv since it came out and no real problems since I got it.

Any ideas?

Rocky

Blast from the past. Any word if this 3-d ready TV will be able to do anything with the 3-d tech that's coming out?

I have an HL-T7288W. I just got a Panasonic DMP-BDT350 3D blu ray player and the 3D works great with this set. The Samsung BD-C6900 3D blu ray player does not work. And of course you have to have the emitter cable and compatible glasses. The new Samsung 3D glasses do not work with this TV.