HDTV Trends

Much better than expected, based on reviews here, Fantastic Set!
This TV is my first large HDTV (I have a 24" Samsung 720p LCD), and after reading some reviews I was concerned about the black level and the reflectiveness of the screen, but after getting the set all of my concerns were laid to rest. I was originally in the market for a 46" LCD, but a fantastic deal came on this 50" plasma, and I am really glad I went for this instead.

The TV picture is absolutely mesmerizing. I feed in Verizon FIOS HD, and an XBOX 360 (HDMI) and the results are absolutely incredible! The colors are fantastic, and with minimal adjustment the contrast and colors are great. I also had some concerns about the sound on the set, however it is actually much better than I had figured it would be. I know that some of the more expensive sets, like the Panasonic Viera also have woofers built into the set, but the sound on this TV is good. Its obviously not on the same level as a dedicated surround sound system, but it is really as good as any other built-in tv speakers.

I also had questions about lag, which I really cant find any appreciable amount of, thankfully, even with video games and tv out (through a DVI-HDMI cable) from my computer. Also, I found the black levels were great after minor adjustment, and, for me, the reflectivity of the screen is not an issue, even with sunlight bouncing off of the wall behind me.

For me this TV really has changed they way I watch TV, and I think its a great thing. As far as any possible negatives, I would say the only thing I wish this TV had was the extra features of the 6-series tv sets. The two extra features I wish this had was 1) Wiselink Plus: This TV has Wiselink, where the 6-series has Plus, and Wiselink Plus gives the TV the ability to play xvid video from any usb source, whereas standard Wiselink does not do video (only does music and pictures). 2) Ethernet connection for the RSS widgets - this is probably fairly useless, but it would be an interesting extra feature to have. But in all honesty, I wouldnt use either feature enough to warrant the extra couple hundred bucks.

In summary, I took a gamble buying this set. I didnt even have a chance to look at it in person as a deal came along and I pounced on it over the phone, and so I was extra nervous when I finally got the set, but I am very happy with the result. When I finally got to compare this set to others in the store, I found that while the set did look slightly dull compared to some of the eye-searing LCDs, in the actual home this set looks clear, crisp, and you would be able to watch this set for hours without burning your retinas out like with some of the over-contrasted ultra bright "popping" LCDs.

Samsung 50" plasma
Fabulous picture - power consumption much higher than I understood it to be at 320 watts in full energy saver mode and over 400 watts with energy saver turned off

Great Picture - Poor quality
I purchased 2 of these. YES 2! I have also owned previous Samsung models FP-T5084 (2007 model)plasma 1080P [I provided a review for this on Amazon as well], HP-5053 (2006 model) plasma 720P. and the LN-S4095 (2006 model) 1080P LCD. So yes I would consider myself a Samsung Fanboy. So I bought this model twice for a reason I will explain later in the review.

My first one spontaneously cracked on me and Samsung at the time refused to replace it. Keep in mind I had the unit for 42 days! I SWEAR I did not touch the plasma for this to happen. One second I'm watching WWE RAW in HD the next minute "Pop" & "buzz" noise. Lo and behold the screen cracked on the inside.

So I bought another one with the hope I could get the first one replaced (which Samsung finally is "in process" of exchanging as I write this - this is only after dozens of emails, countless calls, and escalation to Executive Customer Relations (ECR) over a 2 month period.

But I digress:

Positives:

Picture quality -provides an excellent device for movies and other hi-def content. No artifacts at all even in fast action (well duh its a plasma) unlike many LCD's where artifacts (little boxes that are unclear) are somewhat common.

Color accuracy -The most accurate color reproduction. EVen if it was not professionally calibrated the accuracy in color is great. Yes thats using factory settings.

Aesthetics -The piano black feature is aesthetically pleasing and prvides a clean sleek look for any room.

Negatives:

Sound - The downward firing "hidden speaker" within the bezel is not good. It shakes the unit when the volume is above 40 as well as when there is bass in the signal.

"Anti-Glare" filter -I put anti-glare in quotes because anyone who has seen this unit in person will attest to the high gloss finish of the screen. I could shave in front of the tv when off. Keep that in mind if you are considering this tv in a room with light. This unit should be used in low-light rooms such as basements or rooms that have windows which get little light.

Black levels -Compared to Panasonic and Pioneer the blacks are not as deep. But considering the image quality of Panasonic and Pioneer's steep price there is a reason Samsung is usually the best bang for the buck.

Quality -Like I stated earlier the first unit made it 42 days before cracking on me SPONTANEOUSLY.

Customer Service -It took me 2 months to get Samsung to accept responsibility. They denied me several times over and had to get my call escalated to ECR. They certainly do not stand by their product as I would have hoped.

Image retention - Common in most plasmas. When you turn the unit off you will see the image for about 30 seconds after. It does go away... eventually.

Bottom line beatiful unit beautiful picture - poor reliability and service mounts to a 2 star review. Of course I also had way too many more negatives to outweigh the positives.

I have since returned my second unit and replaced it with the 52LG70 (see my review there) which is excellent. And the 2 extra inches makes a huge difference.

This Samsung "Fanboy" was really disappointed.

Best Value
I purchased this TV over 3 weeks ago and have no regret's yet. I really did a lot of research both online and in many different tech stores. I spent hours standing in front of different brands of TV's comparing the image to the Samsung PN50A550. I found the Samsung PN50A550 had among the best video, unless you want to spend several grand more on higher end TV's.

I did find that as of now, the plasma's had a far better picture quality than the LCD's. The contrast was more superb and there was no lag time when the picture changed fast as there was with the LCD's. When looking at the clarity of the picture in the specs, one thing you want to look for is the "contrast ratio". I found most TV's had a 10,000:1 listed for their contrast ratio but not the Samsung. The Samsung PN50A550 has a 30,000:1 contrast ratio and trust me you can tell it too because the pictures are really sharp.

I ordered this and received the Amazon White Glove Delivery Service for free, and I was IMPRESSED. I live in the middle of nowhere, and 100 miles from the nearest big city. I ordered the TV on a Saturday night online, and they called me Monday morning to confirm the shipping info. Wednesday evening they delivered the TV. I am one that cannot wait for something once I order it, so I was constantly contacting the company to find out where it was and every time I spoke with the same person and each time they were absolutely nice. The guys arrived at my home in a freight truck and brought the boxed TV inside my living room. They unboxed it then set it on my stand and plugged it in and put the batteries in the remote and made sure it was working. I signed for it then they left total process less than 10 minutes. This says a lot for their service since like I said I live 100 miles from a major city - so getting this kind of service was awesome and not to mention free. Amazon was offering free shipping at the time I ordered.

I have fallen in love with this TV. I ordered my HD service and it is supposed to be installed next week, I cannot wait. I would recommend this TV (and already have) to friends, family and anyone else who is looking to buy in this price range. A 50" is not too big and then again is not too small. If you are debating on what size to get and you think it may be too big then keep reading. When I setup my TV I thought dang, it is way too big I have made a mistake and for the first week I kept thinking I had made a mistake and bought a TV too large. Well now that I'm used to it I think that it is too small. So it just takes time getting used to it, as I came from a small old school tube TV.

Happy Shopping! I hope this review has helped you.

Great So Far!
I've had my new Samsung 50-Inch Plasma for two weeks now. Although the TV itself is stunning and I'm very happy with it, the amazon white glove service is really what I want to give kudos to. My TV arrived in a perfect box (no dents or dings) and was brought to my second floor room and unpacked for me. Oh, and did I mention that there was not extra charge for the shipping or service. My father-in-law ordered a TV about a month before I did from Amazon.com and had the same great service.

Very Good For An LCD Monitor
I just bought the Samsung LN22A650 days ago as a birthday gift to my wife and had a chance to put it through its paces.

The LN22A650 is definitely one of the better LCD HDTVs I've seen in terms of picture quality, possible one of the best 22-inchers. At this size, there shouldn't be any visible difference between 720P and 1080P resolution so the LN22A650's native 720P resolution is just fine.

Most people would be completely wowed by the picture quality. Compared to most HDTV CRT (tube) sets of any size (whether interlaced or progressive scan) this Samsung model handily wins in picture clarity, resolution, and color accuracy.

If you're wondering why I've given 4 stars rather than 5, it is because of my anal retentive nitpicking of its video quality and its mediocre audio quality. If it was possible, I would actually give a 3-and-a-half star rating. The nitpicking is detailed below.

If you're a hardcore videophile who is accustomed to purchasing equipment that is only available at high-end shops, you may not be totally impressed.

Being an LCD set, this Samsung model is no different than other LCD sets in its inability to reproduce perfect black. This is just an inherent flaw in LCD technology because the ambient internal backlighting has to come out through the screen. So Plasma, OLED, and CRT will always have an edge here. Of course, if you use to watch a run-of-the-mill tube/CRT tube before HDTVs were introduced then this will not be an issue because most consumer sets had pretty average black level reproduction anyway. To its credit, the LN22A650's picture contrast is pretty consistent across a fairly wide horizontal viewing angle (impressive for an LCD TV) but the vertical viewing angle is not too good. The screen has to be a a little below face level for consistent picture brightness from top to bottom. Also, whether you're moving your head from side to side or up and down, there is the familiar and unavoidable LCD glistening effect on the screen.

On the other hand, I can't complain at all about the color and tint reproduction. Whether it's the HDTV format's color gamut or the enhanced color gamut circuitry in the set, the color and tint quality appears to be pretty accurate. My guess is that color temperature is pretty close to perfect across all brightness levels. But when I was watching a calibration DVD after I adjusted the LN22A650's settings, the red color was a bit accentuated to enhance flesh tones, pretty typical of most sets employing "red push" circuitry (not accurate but appealing to most viewers).

Resolution was impressive on HD broadcasts. I don't have a BlueRay player so I couldn't view the set using the best source but HD news reports and other HD programming looked highly detailed overall. But since broadcasts are heavily data-compressed, there was some occasional mosquito noise (not the Samsung's fault). Since this set's native resolution is 720P there was a lack of visible scan lines and the picture was nice and solid and pretty film-like.

I wasn't so happy with the picture quality of DVDs and Super VHS on this set. Most viewers would probably blame the source for its lower resolution in this case. But I don't. The DVD player was a cheap player that didn't have an HDMI port so I used the component video output. The player does not upconvert from its 480i resolution but I still think the picture could have looked crisper. The same goes for the S-VHS recordings. The upside is that the Samsung upconverts the resolution notably free of "jaggies" (jagged edges on diagional contours of objects).

The aforementioned criticism comes stems from my point of reference, my old 32-inch NTSC Proton CRT/tube set (don't remember the model number off-hand). This may seem like an odd comparison and on-paper it is. In terms of specs the Samsung LN22A650 handily blows the Proton away. But in practice, the Proton is better in almost every way. As usual, Proton's reproduction of black level is in the championship class. When the Proton puts out black, it actually looks like the TV is off! Color quality and temperature is extremely accurate for an NTSC set even though the color gamut is nowhere near as wide as the HDTV's format. The Samsung wins in this department. The big surprise for me and my wife was the apparent resolution of the Proton compared to the Samsung's. The Samsung set had everything going for it in terms of visible resolution: the smaller screen size should give the impression of greater clarity, especially with its 720P resolution. But this wasn't the case. Although the Proton is an interlaced set and scan lines are clearly visible up to about 6 feet in front of the screen, we didn't see scan lines at all at our viewing distance of 10 to 12 feet. Viewing 480i material from our Channel Master HDTV converter box through the Proton looked extremely crisp. We could make out every detail in nearly everything on screen, including links in necklaces, blades of grass, facial pores and strands of hair. DVDs and S-VHS recordings also looked razor-sharp. I know that this was real because the Proton's detail control was already turned almost all the way down, according to the calibration DVD's instructions. Me and my wife agreed that for the most enjoyable viewing we'd have to stick with the Proton. The fact that the Proton is just a 4:3 set does not deter us from using it for serious viewing either. To me this is living proof that specs do not tell the full story.

Still, the Samsung LN22A650 is great for what it is. It is a great convenient set that we also use for the PC because of it's RGB input. And we can just view movies and HD programs on it for convenience. For the price, I can't complain either. I only paid [...] through Amazon (about [...] less than other retailers) with free shipping. This is a lot less painful than the Proton's discount price of [...]. My parents paid [...] for their 31-inch Proton back in '91! Even now, I'd almost crap bricks thinking about paying that kind of money for anything.

good deal
Samsung LN22A650 22-Inch 720p LCD HDTV with RED Touch of Color This is a nice little tv for the price, I use it in my bedroom. It was easy to set on the stand (although I was under the impression from the product details on line, that the tv came with a swivel stand, not the stationary stand it came with). The only other thing that I would change is the design of the remote control. The way it is designed it is very awkward to use, it seems weighted towards the front end, thus when using the buttons towards bottom of remote, it tends to fall out of your hand. Other than that I am pleased with the product, no problems with picture or sound, I would recommend this product to others

Good Job Amazon
First set was DOA. Amazon had a replacement on the way which arrived within two days, I believe, of alerting them. They made the return painless too.
As for the television. It's okay. Touch of red on the frame is nice. Picture is okay. I had a devil of a time getting a picture as the 2d television on a Dishnet system. I like it but it does not swivel on its pedestal.

Good picture - limited vertical viewing
Bought this for the bedroom. Setup easy. Vertical viewing angle is limited so I had to put some foam under the back of the stand to angle
it down somewhat. The stand for the 19" adjusts, but not the 22".

Picture is good, even on the analog channels. Strong tuner.

Once you set up the channels, you have to put in exactly the channel number on the remote..for example, 4-1, not just 4. I have a larger Samsung that will go to 4-1 when I enter 4.

All else excellent.

Great Find Good Buy
I was really pleased with the whole transaction with Amazon. I paid attention to Consumer and Product Reviews while shopping carefully. Samsung packaged this television very well and shipping condition was flawless. Setup and tuning in the Remote is very easy with Display being superb. Other Reviewers were right on when they stated that the Red Frame was darker than shown. It is actually quite subtle and not bright at all. Set has been used daily without any problem for over a month now.

Great TV
This is a great TV. It's perfect for my small den. HD picture is wonderful. DVD's and sports look great. No shadowing with sports. One thing to remember if you have cable or satellite, HD TV's are made for HD signals! That sounds stupid but I forgot that and had to sign up for the HD service with my cable. You cant get he full benefits of this TV without that. The sound quality is OK, which is why I gave this 4 stars, but like most people, I have a surround sound system that works great with the TV. I'd give it 4.5 if I could. I love the ease of swapping between all components such as the DVD, cable etc. Not much else to say. I've used Samsung products for years which is why I bought this over LG or Sony. I've had the TV for several months now and couldnt be happier. Amazon shipping was quick and free!

Great 32" LCD
I purchased this LCD over the weekend at a local store, it is for my 12 yr old son. This was my first samsung purchase, all of my other lcd tv's are different brands. I was impressed with the TV, he has 2 gaming systems and his dvd player hooked up along with directv. The sd channels are acceptable and look pretty good, I also got him an off air antenna for local HD channels and this TV does a great job. The HD content looked great, the TV is easy to adjust, the swivel stand is a nice addition. It has a 6ms response time and I saw no tearing while watching football yesterday. I will more than likely purchase another one of these for the other kids rooms.

All in all I'd say in the 32" range at 720p you cant go wrong with this one, I even got it cheaper than I could have online. I would recommend this TV for anyone looking for a good 32" lcd

Nice TV
With all the choices available for LCD TV, it becomes very difficult to decide which is the best for the value. This was a secondary TV for a smaller room, so I asked my son (a geek gamer) for his opinion and he recommended the Samsung. As a double check, I looked in Consumer Reports and coincidentally they rated this 32' as one of their top picks. TV is great, picture and sound quality are excellent.

VERY IMPRESSED
I am very satisfied with my purchase and the quick delivery. 15 minutes out of the box and I was watching my favorite programming. The previous reviews of this LCD led me to purchase this particular model and I have to say not one of them lied. Well worth the money!

Great deal on Black Friday
I managed to get one of these great TV's from P.C. Richard and Sons, a large TV and electronics dealer in the state of NY and NJ. The store I went in told me they were out of them, but I went looking around the store anyway. I found one more literally stuck between two 50 inch plasmas on the other side of the store where from where the Samsungs were sold. Mind you this is a 799 dollar TV. The sale price (which I did not even know at the time of picking up the box)of Black Friday was 547.00 so I was thrilled to find one at 11am since the store opened at 5am. Since I took it out of the box I have not stopped playing with the features of the TV. My cable box does not have HDMI outputs and I am fixing that on Monday, but just using S video and Component I can tell this is going to be a great TV. Picture out of the box is stunning, but with tweaks and trims you can even make it better. Anyone still out there an on the fence on this TV should go for it. Remember 720p vs 1080p doesn't really matter on a TV that is 32".
Also you can check out the CNET.com review and video of this TV. They rated it as near the top of the list for anyone looking for a tv of this size, and I totally agree.
Buy it while you can and I hope you are as lucky as I was with my price. The next closest price I found was about 120 dollars more than PC Richard and Sons was.

Great TV, picture nice enough that everyone swears it is larger than 23 inches.
I bought this TV through Circuit City instead of through Amazon as I was afraid that such a large purchase would get damaged in the shipping. But I have had it for right about a year now and it is great! It has a wonderful picture and all the outputs make it nice to hook up to anything I want. Right now I have it in my small living room but we just bought a house and I can't wait to set it up in my kitchen for entertainment while doing dishes and to access the computer to display my recipes

totally disappointed
This set is a disaster. Never met spec as to viewing angle. Picture goes to color negative if you're more than 30 degrees below perpendicular. Returned 3 times to Samsung. First time I got back somebody's elses TV. Different size and model. Sent that back. Finally got mine back=same problem. Talked to service people who said send it back again. Did so and their service people called to understand the problem. Got it back and no fix. Paperwork said no problem found. Called them again and was told too bad. The specifications are guidelines only and what you got is what you get. RUN- don't walk away from SAmsung products.

Great Value
This is the third one of these I have purchased (also bought several of the 19 inch version). The picture is fantastic, the set up for either off air, or cable, is superior to competitors, and the look clean. One terrific unit.

Just what I needed
Excellent product, in fact I just ordered another. Hard to come by because this particular unit has been discontinued. I needed the two antenna inputs that it has, as well as the two tuners NTSC and ATSC. Unit works great with exceptional picture quality.
Thank You

Good Enough
I purchased this tv to use with my new xbox 360.I never intended to use it as a television.After reading the 1 star review about what a lousy picture it had i had a lot of concerns.I made the mistake of trying it out in the bed room as a tv before hooking it up to the xbox in the study.I just wanted to see what kind of picture it had.BIG MISTAKE after my wife got a load of that picture no way was she letting it go anywhere.I have a 27in LCD and a 57in CRT both hooked up to Dish network and thy both have a beautifull picture.I hooked this one up to a regular antenna and it has as good or better picture than thy have.True the analoge reception is not that great but for ever analoge channel there is a Digital channel and thy are wonderfull.The person that gave it the 1 star might have just got a bad set or didn't have it hooked up right.The only thing I can say bad is that now I have to sit on the foot bench in the bedroom to play my games instead of a easy chair in the study.

very satisfactory
I have found this TV very satisfactory. I am using it in the kichen
to replace a 13" and am enjoying the very clear and good color picture.
I would recommend it highly for use in any room.

Fantastic Picture!
As others have said don't let the "touch of red" keep you for your purchase. I like the color it makes it look more richer. As for the connections on the back of the set, if you need to hook it up to any device, it has a connection for it. I read many reviews on this set as well as reviews on other web sites. The rating for this is very high, and after receiving it, the reviews didn't let me down. The picture is just fantastic. It's has a whole lot of setting for any kind of lighting. There were only two things I didn't like 1. I thought the set up of the channels was a bit on the long side, it took about 30 minutes. 2. When you turn the set on, it has a delay which is a bit annoying. I do have basic cable which only has about 70 channels; I guess it had to check for HD which takes quite a long time. I'm not one of those high tech folks out there, but I do know that Amazon had the lowest price!!! It's worth every penny. I'm so glad I decided on the Samsung LN19A650

Happy with TV
We bought this HDTV for use in our small travel trailer. It is a perfect size and weight. The picture is clear and crisp. We are quite happy with our choice. It is a great value.
I also support those commenting on the TOC red. It is almost not visable. Don't let it scare you off. I was afraid my wife would freak out, but she did not even know it was there until I told her.
A couple of folks complained the picture was too small (it's 19" - it won't be any bigger than that - do your homework).

excellent TV
I use this TV in my bedroom. The picture and features are great! I'm very happy that I decided to make this purchase, although the screen does look a little smaller than I thought it would. You may wish to consider a 20" or 22" instead. The 19" does work OK for me, though, because I'm only about 5' away from it.

I wish Amazon would be more careful with their packaging. The TV came in its original box from the mfg'er, which was put into a box about twice as large with very little packing material for cushioning. Very poor job, Amazon!

Wonderful set at a great price!
I am very pleased with this set! I'd purchased it to place in my kitchen; the viewing distance from my kitchen table to the set is 8 feet, and I can watch with perfect visibility; the kitchen counter stretches another 7 feet and I am fine viewing the screen from that distance as well. Hooking up the HD cable box is a piece of cake, and I'd completed the task within 20 minutes; the TV will then automatically update the channels and you can of course, customize them as well. The color is great, and the deep red color within the frame of the set is very subtle. I truly believe that the clarity and crispness of this picture is better than my larger diameter HD set! Additionally, Samsung ranks high on dependability...

The savings on the set is significant; PC Richards offered me a "rock bottom" price of 0.00; with tax, it was topping out at 1.00. Here at Amazon, there wasn't any sales tax, and being I am an Amazon prime member, I received 2 day shipping at no extra charge! Collectively, it is a savings of over 0.00!

Buy this set; you won't be disappointed!
Ellen

White Gloves CEVA is not good
Delivery service was less than adequate.One man came to deliver tv. He was unable to transport it to second floor and hook it up to see if it worked. My wife had to help carry it up and hook it up.

This TV is Freakin' Sweet!
I ordered this Friday morning (11/14/2008), took advantage of the free shipping, white glove delivery and 0 off the Samsung 1500 Blu-ray player. The 1500 shipped out later that same evening, while the TV itself shipped out on Monday.

I was a little hesitant about CEVA shipping it, as I haven't heard of them prior to purchasing this TV. The reviews I have read on here have been mixed, and I was a little dismayed to see that Amazon's estimated arrival date wasn't until 11/26/08. I kept tracking the package online and saw it was actually in my area on Wednesday. A quick call to CEVA and they set up delivery the next day at 9:00 am. Got an immediate confirmation email, and a call at 8:30 this morning verifying delivery. They showed up right on time (a little early even), brought the TV to my room, unpacked it and placed it on my TV stand. They had offered to hook up all of the connections for me but I declined, part of the fun of getting a new HDTV is setting it up yourself ;-) They made sure the sound worked great, no dead pixels or lines before they had me sign. A+++ with CEVA, could not have asked for anything better.

Now onto the TV itself. The TOC is nice, though not too noticeable to me. The sound is great, granted I have a small room and don't have it cranked up, but I'm still very pleased. Hooked it up to my Samsung Blu-ray, Popped in "The Mist Blu-ray" and was immediately blown away. A quick search on Google gave me some suggestions on specific color settings and I was able to sit back and be amazed for the next two hours. Some scenes looked as if I was really there, it's that amazing!

Since I have a Blu-ray dvd player that is also a Samsung, I can controll both items with just one remote. If I pop in a dvd, it will automatically turn the tv on, which is nice. The downside is, is that if I am watching a dvd and puse it to switch over to something else, then it will stop my dvd and I'll have to find where I left off manually, which can be a little annoying. One broght side of this set-up, is taht when I pop in a dvd to watch while I fall asleep, the sleep timer will turn my tv AND dvd player off, which is great.

Still trying to figure out how to set up the RSS feeds with my wireless adapter plugged into the usb port, but I'll look again after work.

As many have said, the preloaded features are cool the first few moments, but I seriously doubt I'll look at them ever again. The wheel on the remote can be a little tricky, but overall not too bad. If you get too frustrated, you can still click in the direction you want, instead of using the wheel to scroll.

I'll be updating this review every so often to keep everyone informed on how the set holds up after time, as well as any issues or whatnot that hopefully will not occur.

Love that TV. AMAZING HD picture
I really like that TV. I went with the 750 and really happy about that. The design is superb. The remote is a bit clunky. The HD picture is AMAZING. Blu ray (from PS3) is amazing on that TV. PS3 gaming are fantastic. Sound is good. Wii looks very good as well. Lots of HDMI connectors which is a plus.
120Hz looks great. No ghosting images. Sports events look amazing. Things are so sharp, you can see anything in the image. I feel like I put a better glasses when I watch that TV.
What can I say. It was a great buy. Samsung has a very good product line.

Shipping was awesome as well. (Ceva)

Go 4 it!

This tv is AMAZING! Highly recommended and affordable.
I cannot say enough good things about this tv, I highly recommend it if you are shopping for a new 40" tv. First off let me say to date the picture is superb out of the box. A little tweaking the picture using the menus and it looks even better as you watch Blu-Ray movies like Iron Man or Batman Begins. The PS3 is the perfect way to demonstrate how amazing web browsing can be on this screen and the Xbox 360 also outline the amazing picture quality of this tv. I spent 95 when I ordered this from Amazon, got free shipping and a guy from CEVA wheeled the tv into my house, took the box off and even offered to set it up. I told him I could handle it and once I started watching cable, playing games and watch Blu-Ray movies, I was confident I had arrived to the high definition land of milk and honey. I cannot get over how amazing this tv is. Run out and buy this! Oh and I received this tv within 4 days of my order and I live in California. The 120 HZ frame mode looks weird, almost like quick or fast movements are put on fast forward. Its unatural when you watch tv or movies. I highly recommend you turn it off. In games, i havent tried it, maybe its awesome since games are fictional recreations that never quite look photo realistic to begin with. Anyways thats the only bad thing I can think of off the top of my head and even then, its not a bad feature. Just an added feature you might get used to the more you use it.

Wow!
Since everyone's got their own issues and configuration, I'll talk about our configuration, not just the TV itself.

Bottom line: this TV is fantastic.

We just got it along with the Samsung BD-P1500 1080p Blu-ray Player and a cheap HDMI cable. Amazon threw in two free Blu-ray disks. For a couple of bucks a month we've upgraded our Netflix subscription to Blu-ray.

Delivery of the TV was simple--we inspected for physical damage, checked the TV to make sure it worked, and sent the deliveryman on his way.

We get over-the-air TV, not cable or satellite. I just plugged in the antenna cable, powered up the TV. In a minute it found all the channels (regular and DT and HD), set itself up, and was good to go. The only mistake it made was on Daylight Savings Time--it thinks it has already ended, so I had to manually reset the time.

Stunning picture, elegant design, right-out-of-box set-up. The Samsung Blu-ray remote works perfectly with this TV. It's a little cleaner layout than the nice but many-buttoned Samsung TV remote. (Our second Blu-ray disk displayed an irksome "Bonus View' box, but a quick Google search led me to a button sequence--Popup Menu/Info/Popup Menu--to make it go away.)

The TV speakers are great. Perhaps down the road we'll add a speaker system , but in our not-so-big living room the TV sound seems plenty good enough.

We've got lots of windows and sunlight, but the screen of this Samsung is fine even in full daylight. The touch-of-red is subtle, and the overall look is sleek and elegant.

We waited a long time to replace our 1991 Panasonic Prism 19" TV, and did a lot of reading of reviews. You won't want to wait as long as we did to get this great TV.