Customer Rating: 
Summary: Sweet HDTV For The Money
Comment: I've been lusting after a HDTV for years and after getting some money back after closing the construction loan on my new house, I decided it was time to get one. After throughly researching 50+ inch LCD TVs in my price range, an older discontinued 52inch Toshiba REGZA was the only one that really appealed to me. But when it arrived three weeks late and damaged, I decided against having a replacement TV shipped to me (which would likely be shipped and delivered by the same morons who broke this one) and asked for a refund. I went back to researching TVs and eventually decided on the Samsung from amazon. The specs were better than the majority of others I'd looked at and it was $172 cheaper than the REGZA I was returning. Plus, it came with amazon's white glove service, which I would have gladly paid more for after what I went through trying to get the REGZA delivered and returned.
The guys from Eagle called me the day before they arrived to set up a time to deliver and then arrived 15 minutes earlier than expected on the delivery day. They unpacked the TV and asked where I was going to put it. I explained that my dad and I were in the process of repairing one of the legs on the TV stand when they arrived or I'd have had them put it on the stand, so they set it up on the floor. I looked over the TV while one of the guys put the batteries in the remote so they could make sure it worked. The TV came on so we knew the remote and the TV worked. I've read good and bad things about Eagle's delivery service in other reviews, but I have nothing but good things to say about them. They were very professional and I wouldn't hesitate recommending them to others based on this experience.
I've heard the original Xbox doesn't look as good on a big HDTV like this, but I have to disagree based on my experience. I've been playing Dead Or Alive 3 and the gameplay looks and sounds great. I knew there was a game mode, but hadn't read the manual enough to find out how to get there, so I just played in standard mode. My Wii was still connected to my 26-inch Vizio LCD at the time, but I didn't feel like disconnecting it and setting it up on the Samsung, so I decided to see how it looked with movies.
I had an old Cyberhome DVD player I'd been given after installing a new DVD player over the weekend, so I borrowed some RCA cables and set it up... I'm in the process of moving so the majority my A/V cables and equipment are in boxes, at my old residence, or in use at the new house. Again, I've heard regular DVDs don't look very good on a big HDTV like this, but I have to disagree based on this experience. I popped in The Matrix and skipped to the "I Know Kung Fu" scene. It played beautifully, apart from a few skips which had to be the player because it was brand-new-just-opened DVD. It was during this scene that I switched between the various modes and noted that game mode was a bit brighter than the standard and cinema modes. After the Neo/Morpheus fight ended, I ejected the disc and put in a Philips DVD cleaner disc to run the cleaning program, knowing the DVD player lens probably hadn't been cleaned forever. Once it was cleaned, I popped The Matrix back in and selected the "Lobby Shootout" scene... one of my favorite movie scenes to test how well the display can process and render the scene because of all the bullets and debris flying around. I got chills watching the action unfold onscreen and thinking if it looked this good with just the standard RCA cables, just imagine how awesome it'll look with an HDMI connection on an upconverting DVD player (which will arrive any day now), Xbox 360 Elite (which I'll probably buy this weekend now that I have a nice big HDTV to play it on), and eventually Blu-Ray. I continued watching and when the sentinels start attacking the ship, there is a close-up of the sentinels that looked better than I remember it looking. Have watched a few other movies since its arrived and they've all looked really good. One movie didn't look quite as good as the others, but it was cheap B-movie where the production values weren't much to begin with. Movies on the upconverting DVD player look awesome, especially movies with high production values and movies from the major studios.
Finally had a chance to test the Wii on the TV over the weekend and it was sweet. The biggest problem was figuring out where to put the sensor bar for the best control. Played House of The Dead 2 and 3 Returns and a pinball game my roommates gave me for my birthday. The colors and flashing lights on the pinball game were bright and colorful while the bigger screen made the different environments in HOTD feel more expansive. Bought a 360 Elite for the TV and games looks sweet as well.
I haven't messed with the colors, hue, contrast, and other settings, but so far, the flesh tones and colors look great right out of the box. The various picture modes are fun to play with depending on what you're in the mood for. Full-frame DVDs fill the screen while widescreen DVDs have the usual top and bottom bars, but you can use the 16:9 zoom mode to have it fill the screen. I love widescreen movies, but its been fun to watch widescreen movies in 16:9 zoom mode.
HD and SD channels look great, though obviously HD channels look better than SD channels, but SD is still watchable.
Right now, I'm inclined to give it 5 stars. I bought it mainly for video games and movies, both of which look and sound great.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Samsung 550 series HDTV
Comment: My recent purchase of a Samsung 550 series LCD TV has been a fantastic buy. I debated on purchasing the 550 series or one of Samsung's 600 series. After viewing both TV's side by side I could not distinguish the difference. I viewed fast action scenes and could not detect any edge blurring. The 550 performs fantastic in my room that has a great deal of sunlight. Amazon is the only way to go. They had great pricing, very professional delivery, and the TV showed up at my house in half the time they promised it would. I'm very pleased with the product.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Good so far (3 days)
Comment: I'm neither a videophile nor an audiophile, so my review is necessarily limited. I also don't watch broadcast TV, so I'm only using it as a monitor and speakers for a Samsung BD-P1400 Blu-Ray player (HDMI), Wii (component), PS/2 (composite), a computer (VGA).
The TV basically plugged in, turned on, and works fine. Not a lot to say there. The picture looks fine, certainly competitive with anything in its class.
A few complaints:
- The first time I tried to use my Harmony remote to power up the system, it crashed the TV. Black screen, wouldn't respond to any controls. Had to unplug it. Hasn't happened again.
- My receiver is out for service, so I'm using the TV as a switcher and using its speakers. It didn't seem to accept the idea of an input with no video, so I can't play music from my Squeezebox.
Customer Rating:
Summary: The best TV I've ever purchased.
Comment: Holy crap, this TV rocks! I had reservations about ordering via amazon, but the delivery was awesome. the TV is flawless and they have even credited back 116.00 since the price dropped to 17xx.xx after I purchased it. I saved over 600.00 buying from Amazon instead of locally.
Check out AVSForum for picture and sound settings.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Nice TV
Comment: I have nothing to add about the TV that already hasn't been written by another reviewer. It's a great TV.
I will write a little bit about the delivery though, I ordered my TV from amazon on 7/20 and I got the call from CEVA on 7/28 to schedule delivery. They would only offer a delivery window of 10-2 on Tuesday or Thursday, and I am not able to sit around at home for 4 hours in the middle of a workday. So I asked about picking the TV up at their warehouse, and they are extremely flexible about that. I was told to show up anytime between 8am and 7pm. The warehouse is just a couple miles from me so that's what I did and it worked out great. The dock attendant unboxed the TV to show me that it was undamaged, then helped me load it into my vehicle and off I went. For me, this was far more convenient than me having to wait around to accept the delivery at home.
Overall I am very pleased with my purchase from amazon.
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