Best Buy Lcd HDTV Blog

Not the best, but very nice.
I've owned the set for 4 months now, so its enough time to review the set and be objective about it. Firstly, I think the Sony XBR series sets and the Pioneer Elite series have the better picture, but it comes at a large jump in price. At the time this set was purchased at Amazon.com, the price was 99.00 and represented one of the lowest prices you could find; there are other places that were less expensive, but for the price difference of 0.00 or so, I'd rather spend my money on a sure thing that Amazon.com represents.

The picture is very clear and the adjustments to the picture quality are available, though the menu for set makes you jump thru several screens to get there; once there, the adjustments are easy enough to do. I found the set to be too bright when set at the default settings, so I turned the brightness down to 40.

The red touch of colour seems to make the set stand out; yet, that isn't what I complain about this set. The piano black bezel seems to attract dust like nothing I've ever seen, it is necessary for me to clean the bezel several times a week to keep it clean.

The standard speakers are something of a surprise; they sound a lot better than I thought that they would, so if you're not into surround sound or home theater, it ought to be good enough. I have the set hooked up to a Yamaha 5.1 receiver, with Polk frnt speakers, Klipsch center speakers and Onkyo rears with a B&W sub for watching certain movies; though most of time I use either the tv speakers or just the front Polk's to listen to.

The 120 Hz feature does make a difference in high action scenes, but even with normal movement it does sharpen the picture and is not a distraction, so I leave it on.

If you must have the best picture, then this is not the set for you; having said that, you will have to make a large jump in price in order to get a better picture. For the money spent, this set represents an excellent value and a good comprise between price, picture quality and ease of use.

Great Tele
I bought this tele from Amazon 3 months ago. It's a great set. The color definition is really good, and it's an incredible value for 50 - the price I paid for it. I took a month to decide between a 40 inch and 46 inch model. In the end I'm glad I chose the 40 inch model. I reside in an apartment and although the apartment is pretty big the 40 inch fits better with the decor.

I also purchased the Samsung extended warranty. Time will tell if I will use the warranty.

I would highly recommend this tele!

Outstanding deal
I have had the Samsung 40" TOC Flat Panel for about a month. This is one of the best electronic purchases that I have ever made. This TV exceeds all expectations. As stated by other, the speakers could be better BUT, this TV deserves a home theater system to accompany its performance. The wheel on the remote can be tricky to manuever, but all I consider this to be is a tactile stimulation to master. After a few time with the remote---NO BIG DEAL. I highly recommend this model or larger to anyone looking for the best bang for your buck.

An Excellent TV
We don't know much about technology and bought this television based on the reviews, Consumer Reports' high rating, and the relatively low price. We've been completely pleased with it, from the delivery to our family room to the awesome family movie watching experience. We highly recommend it!!

Samsung LN40a650 HDTV - WOW picture quality, 2 minor disappointments
We are thrilled with:
- the Amazon price of this TV compared to all other sellers we researched, both in-store and online
- our white glove delivery service experience, which was excellent as the TV came within a week of ordering and the gentlemen delivering and setting up the TV were efficient and courteous
- the quality of the picture we get. We watch a mix of digital (not HD) and HD programs as are currently available from our cable provider, and while the HD programs are definitely better, many of the digital programs are also very sharp and clear. We have a Panasonic DMP BD35K blu-ray disc player and the few movies we've watched, both blu-ray and standard, have looked great.

Other info:

We have found that keeping the 120 hz option on works well for all programming, especially sports programs, but do turn it off for blu-ray discs.

The TV sound is a bit tinny but we have a home theatre speaker system hooked up to the TV that we use for movies, and we also change the TV sound settings in the menu from standard to other options to make voices sound fuller and richer.

We find no problem with operating the remote as we ignore the wheel option and use all buttons.

Because the HD cable box we rented from our cable company was not calibrated correctly for our TV, it took a few days and a number of phone calls to the cable company (the name starts with C) to find a rep who would agree to tell us how to change the cable box settings at home rather than pay for a service call as the first few reps insisted on. Once we changed the picture setting to widescreen and the resolution to 1080, we started getting the amazing picture quality we saw in stores.

Two minor disappointments:

We have a Nintendo Wii system and have found that some of the games on the sports disc look a little jagged around the edges. We purchased a Wii HD Link Compnent Cable from Amazon but that has not eliminated the jaggies.

To use the TV screen to show digital camera images, we hooked up our Apple PowerBook G4 15" monitor computer to the TV with a DVI to HDMI cable, following the manual directions, but that did not work. After much digging for info on the Samsung web site, we discovered that our TV supports an Apple PowerBook G4 12" monitor computer, but not a 15" monitor computer. We have since switched to a flash drive which allows us to put images on the TV screen and access the options provided.

All in all, we are very happy we purchased this TV.