Samsung LN46A550 46-Inch 1080p LCD HDTV
 | Average Customer Rating: Recommend 46" widescreen HDTV (16:9 aspect ratio) * high-gloss black finish * built-in digital (ATSC) and analog (NTSC) tuners for over-the-air TV broadcasts (antenna required) * built-in QAM cable TV tuner receives unscrambled programs without a set-top box (cable service required) * 1920 x 1080 pixels * Product details and pricing info |
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262 Customer Reviews Posted
- Excellent TV
- This is a great TV. I used settings from AVS Forum both for video and audio and I'm really impressed. I like that the screen is not reflective and the image quality is outstanding (at least to my eyes :) ). I also have no complaints about sound quality with internal speakers.
- 2008-05-12, 0 of 0 people found this review helpful, Rated:
- Fully Satisfied with the purchase
- I am not a video buff. But it was time for me to buy a new TV. I have been looking for about 3months - staring at the TV's in the stores and reading reviews online. I boiled it down to Samsung 4665/4661 in terms of picture quality/price. But I personally hated the glossy trim on 4665..too wide for my taste. Then one day, me & my wife saw the 46A550 in BestBuy..pic quality was awesome and trim was just perfect. I checked a few things online and decided to go for it. Was way of ordering it online but after reading about other's experience of purchasing from Amazon, i placed my order. TV arrived quicker than expected and guys who delivered placed it where I wanted and waited until I tried a DVD. Its been a month now and i am delighted.
What I like:
- good/bright picture quality (maybe its 30000:1 contract ratio or something else)
- simple easy to navigate menu. decent manual & remote.
- to my delight, even just a regular DVD picture looks awesome. I tried blu-ray. Its definitely better than DVD picture but not better enough to force me to make a purchase. considering that huge number of regular DVD media around, this is great.
- i love the wiselink feature which allows me to copy pics to usb drive and display them as slide show on TV with background music. a great background for party's. I can finally see the value of my 8M digital camera..5x7 prints dont do justice to 8M camera's
What I didnt like:
- no many things but audio could be better.
- i am still trying to get my hands around the 4:3 vs 16:9 aspect ration. Somehow, I don't always like 16:9 format. But this TV has a feature to zoom vertical portion slightly (zoom1) and seem's more to my liking.
Here are couple of related items:
- i bought my cables at monoprice.com. good price/quality.
- amazon's 30day price match is great. when TV dropped $75 in a week, they made prompt adjustment. You have to call when price is active though !
In summary, I strongly recommend this TV and also ordering it from amazon !! - 2008-05-12, 0 of 0 people found this review helpful, Rated:
- Awesome
- This is the Holy Grail of great picture at a reasonable price point. I had another LCD (Sceptre) which I returned and this is superior in every way- it just not have the ghosting and motion judder that the other did. The 5ms response time really makes a difference- I don't think the 120hz processor is necessary since this tv makes up for what it would add in response time and firmware. This is the best looking tv I have seen, and it even does a good job of displaying standard definition satellite signals- 10 times better than others I have seen.
There are no cons except it is possible you could run out of inputs in the future- just count up your components and compare. - 2008-05-11, 2 of 2 people found this review helpful, Rated:
- Samsung LN46A550 46-inch 1080p LCD HDTV
- Samsung LN46A550 46-inch 1080p LCD HDTV--The Color is amazing, it does need a little adjusting per the viewer. The audio seems to be fine for me, however when I throw in a DVD or watch a premium channel the picture is amazing, but for the audio I turn on and up my Sony 5.1 surround sound amp and it is just like I have my own personal theater in home. For those that are unhappy with the audio, get a surround sound system, that will improve the audio greatly. The Picture is best watching in Tru-HD broadcast. I do stretch the picture when those channels come in 4:3, to prevent Burn in, they say LCD's are not likely to have that happen, but I have read for the first few hundred hours to do this can't hurt. LCD screens do take a little getting use to, my old HD-TV was awesome too, Thanks to Comcast lack of listening to me, when I called to say my cable kept freezing up, it created Burn in on my Panasonic HD TV, it damaged the tube, they did correct by buying me this Samsung, I miss my old TV. Overall, The Samsung has a ok audio,recommend using 5.1 surround sound with Samsung TV, the picture is Great once you get use to looking at it, the screen has anti glare which is great and is viewable from sides too. I must give this TV a 5 Star rating and is recommended for the money.
- 2008-05-10, 0 of 0 people found this review helpful, Rated:
- Great on all counts but sound.
- This is a generally great TV. Like many others, I researched untill I was convinced more research would do no more good, then I committed. I was convinced of two things from reading customer and professional reviews; 1) the picture was great and 2) the sound was lacking.
Boy were those two things right on the money. First, the bad news. The sound really is bad. Remember those tinny speakers that came with your 8-bit sound card in 1992? That is what these reminded me of. Someone else in these reviews said they were like speaking into a coffee can. I thought the reviewers were just overly sensitive. However, they were about as accurate as they could be. In fact, these were my only dissappointment and I still had to decide if I could actually spend the next few years listing to these horrible speakers (sometimes I like to just plop down and turn on the TV, not crank on the surround sound).
Finally, I decided to play with the built-in equalizer. I turned down all bands as far as I could, then individually turned up one at a time. I found that by only turning up the longer wavelength (lowest bass) all the way and leaving the others completely down, I could find peace. This requires you to push the volume control a bit further up but viola - bass is now mixed in with the tinny sound. I wouldn't call it great sound (my 13 year olde 27" CRT still kicks this TV's speaker's hiney), but it is sound I can live with when I'm lazy. Try this and don't give up on the sound automatically.
Now the good news. The other reviews that raved about the great picture were right. I used the factory setting for movies and watched 'Cars' (Pixar) with my 7-year-old son. We cranked the surround and sat in front of the TV. We don't have a Blu-Ray, but did buy a cheap upconverter until we do ($40 RCA at Wal-Mart). After the movie came into force, I actually got chills and said, "Awesome." Now... I'm a 39 year old professional and haven't said 'Awesome' (and meant it) in about 20 years. My son replied, "Yeah... awesome." Nuff said bout that.
The TV handles standard def signals from cable just fine. It's a big Tv and SD is really about 240 (480 if you're lucky), so don't expect HD levels of clarity. SD digital channels looked better than analog, though. Making aspect ratio adjustments is very easy on the remote and there are customs settings if you choose. The remote is very well organized. In one day, I learned to feel where all the controls are - you know 'middle row on the bottom and three buttons up = aspect". I think we all do this and the remote makes it easy. However, there is a backlight on the remote if you need it.
The entire system has many setting that are easy to use and understand. The effects happen on the picture while you are in the menu, so you can see what you are doing to the picture and easily undo - very helpful. The contrast settings are difficult because they react differently to different channels, but there are decent automatic options. Nevertheless, don't expect your setting to be equally great on every channel. I find that DTV and analog seem to react differently.
One small gripe. I have a great old SVHS that I keep because we have some cassettes my kids like. It would have been nice to have one SVHS input on the back, not just on the side - just for aesthetics.
In summary; great picture, easy and functional controls, VERY weak sound (no joke). WIth my old 5.1 and big-xxx floor speakers (and the tweaks to the sound equalizer) sound is not really a problem.
I fully recommend this TV, but suggest you try out the sound at the store to understand for yourself - it may be a deal killer for you - I can live with it. I removed one star only because I feel that Samsung could have done something (anything) to improve the speakers. I'ver heard $20 dollar computer speakers that sound better and this is a $1600 TV. - 2008-05-10, 0 of 0 people found this review helpful, Rated:
