[GLX]

Hey guys I have a question for you all (one of which you probably get a lot of). I am planning on buying either the Samsung LN-R328W 32" LCD HDTV or Sharp LC-32GA5U 32" LCD HDTV to replace my budget CRT HDTV. I would like to know what you guys consider to be the better overall HDTV. The specs are pretty similiar as both have a native res. of 1366x768, have a 16:9 aspect ratio, support 1080i, 480i, 480p, 720p, etc. I have gone to my local Best Buy to try and compare them but have determined its useless due to the crap signal they send to the TV's. Is there anything I should know about the two HDTV's mentioned that put one obviously above the other?


Thanks in advance for guys help I appreciate it very much.

 

[EricScott]

Most people here will probably tell you to go w/ the Sharp. I personally faced the exact same decision about 6 weeks ago and went w/ the Samsung. The main reasons were:


1) Aesthetics - I really didn't like the look of the Sharp and loved the Sammy. This set was going in my bedroom so appearance actually did matter.


2) Price - At the time I got a great deal on the Samsung - about $250 less than I could have gotten the Sharp A5U for. This may no longer be the case but you should definitely be able to get the Sammy for less than $2k including tax and delivery.


3) PQ - To me the Samsung seemed to have a slightly crisper picture in the store. My big worry (as you pointed out) was that it's really hard to make any really concrete A/B comparisons at BB or CC. So I made sure to buy from CC with a no-questions asked 30 day return policy in case I got the Samsung home and didn't love it. The PQ issue I was most concerned about was tuning the color down - in particular the reds. After some fiddling in the user menu I was able to get them to a very acceptable level and think the PQ is amazing.


That being said, the Sharps are great sets. They offer more user menu options than the Samsung so you can probably tweak a "better" picture out of the set if you knew what you were doing. Maybe this is why I preferred the Samsung to the Sharp in the store - the Sharp perhaps needed more tweaking. But I'll never know b/c I kept the Sammy. One other thing to note - if you plan to use the display as a PC monitor the Sammy offers 1:1 pixel mapping and true plug and play over VGA. The Sharp is supposedly also good w/ PCs but may require more fiddling - again I can't vouch for that.


I think you'll be happy with either one. Good luck.