» Samsung PN50A550 50-Inch 1080p Plasma HDTV

Samsung PN50A550 50-Inch 1080p Plasma HDTV Reviews

Customer Rating:
Summary: Great Display for the Money!!!
Comment: I have owned a 3rd generation Pioneer plasma for about 7 years. This replaced it in my main HT room. My HT is heavy on the sound side as I started out in life as an audiophile. I am very detail oriented and discriminating when it comes to all electronics.

This TV is all it was said to be and more. The first thing that just blew me away were the black levels. Compared to the "old" Pioneer, it was just simply in another world all its own. The Pioneer had a beautiful picture but I had no idea what I was missing in black level. I do not own an HD or BluRay yet so I am feeding with component for the DVD and come straight out of the wall with TWC feed.

The picture was great out of the box but got better with some fine tuning. The anti-reflective coating is actually very good. Yes it will show some reflection because it is flat and smooth but the AR coating is definitely there and working.

User interface is well laid out and intuitive to use. Settings are good except for choices of screen size/type. There could be a couple more choices that would really be useful to reduce the horizontal bars without distorting the picture so badly. The remote is excellent! Made like all remotes should be... with a backlight. The choice of gloss black is questionable but it doesn't affect its function.

This thing picked up most of the digital feeds from TWC all on its own once set to do an automatic scan and channel setup. The HD channel feeds are just awesome!!! I will not be paying for a converter box in this room!

For the price, this thing is just a steal. But, I would say that taking into account I paid $4,500 for the Pioneer 7 years ago and it had no tuner functions. If you have been considering a large screen and have been making excuses, you now have no more excuses left. Amazon had this for $400 less than the local discount stores... plus, no friggin taxes!!!!!

No issues with delivery at all. Came 4 days before it was estimated.

Amazon rocks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Terrific HDTV - Definite 'Wow!' Factor
Comment: My review title sez it all. Delivered 3 days earlier than estimated (And I'm way out here in the middle of the woods). Delivery fellow helped me unpack, set up on cabinet and made sure the TV was working properly. Nice guy!

I've had a Sony 42" rear projection HDTV for 6 years, now, and it has worked just fine... good picture, too. But this Plasma blows it away! The detail (using my Panasonic Blu-Ray disk player) is amazing... and even regular non-HD cable looks great.

I will mention that there is a substantial screen reflection/glare due to it's 'gloss'... but my theatre room is dark, and I shade the windows, so I have no problem with it.

I'll let all the other techie reviewers go over the specific settings and details. I just wanted to chime in with my rave.

100% satisfied! (I don't even mind the little blue power light ;-)

Thanks Amazon! And Thanks Samsung!

-s

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Highly disappointed with CEVA delivery system
Comment: I haven't yet received my TV, so this review doesn't really reflect on its quality. I hope to write on that once I get it. When I made the purchase 11 days ago (June 16th), the promised delivery time was 3-5 days. I made the purchase hoping to get delivery by Friday with the plan to start watching the important games of Euro cup and start early on Wimbledon. First Thursday, then Friday, and finally Saturday came and went and there was no sign of my TV on this website's tracking system.

This was all I was seeing twice a day:
Date Time Location Event Details
June 19, 2008 06:04:15 AM San Francisco CA US Arrival Scan
June 17, 2008 04:00:00 PM Reno NV US Shipment received by carrier

The Euro was gone and I was on track to lose the first round of Wimbledon too. I get an email on the 25th to contact CEVA for delivery from some [...] address, and it lands in my Junk folder as expected. I see it by the end of the day and call the number at a bit past 6 PM and it goes strainght to a voicemail. Work requires me to be in important meetings sometimes pretty much from 9 to 5, so I don't leave a voice mail. I called the next evening a bit before 6 PM to catch someone on the phone for to schedule delivery for Saturday. The biggest shocker came when the guy picks up and tells me "the truck comes to your town only from Monday to Friday between 10 AM and 6 PM". Worse still "you be home eaither from 10 to 2 or 2 to 6 to receive the delivery. We can not call you 15 minutes before as we do not provide our drivers with cell phones". How convenient? I live in the middle of Silicon Valley in CA, and that's the worst delivery schedule I've ever heard of (apart from the cable and electricity guys of course). By now I was almost losing myself as there is no way I can skip work for half a day to get my television. I would never go to a local store to buy a television for half a day on a weekday. But do I really have a choice now? Probably not! I tell him I will call back when I arrange a backup for myself at work. I call him in 30 minutes but it's past 6 and I leave a voicemail to have my TV delivered on 27th between 10 and 2 (that's today BTW). WHen I call them again in the morning around 8:30 AM they said TOO LATE! The trucks have left for the day, call us one day in advance! Voicemails don't count!! IF YOU BOOK NOW WE CAN DELIVER BETWEEN MONDAY AND FRIDAY NEXT WEEK! PERFECT!! Another weekend up in the smoke.

Now I'm walking around wearning a big L on my face for spending almost two grands on AMAZON. What amazes me more is not the lack of service from a bunch of CEVA guys in my town. I wonder if AMAZON ever realizes that their biggest weekness against the local stores is the amount of time it takes people to get the stuff they buy. If they do, why would they pick such a loser delivery company? Is this the only way they could afford to deliver cheap enough to compete? If yes then I will be very scared the next time I make a purchase here.

Maybe some of you wonder why wouldn't I go pick the damn thing from the CEVA place. If I pick it up myself and it is damaged or it doesn't work, I'm on my own. I'm worried looking at their service standards that i will have bigger problems to deal with in that case.

I hope to add more in the next few days! Until then take care and good luck everybody!

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Everything I hoped for!
Comment: OK, so like several other reviewers I was a little hesitant about making such a major purchase on Amazon. But after a few good reviews and Amazon's unbeatable price I decided to give it a shot and am very pleased. The TV was delivered exactly one week after I clicked purchase and was in perfect condition. I understand that CEVA is not required to do anything more than unpack it, but I asked if he could help me install it on the mount and he did. He spent probably 30 minutes helping me unpack, remove the TV stand, and mount the TV. Then he asked me to hook it up, turn it on and verify that the picture, sound, and remote all worked. I was completely satisfied. Also, the price has already dropped and Amazon issued me a credit so I can verify the price match guarantee works!

Yeah, the TV is awesome, too. I upgraded from a standard def tube TV so maybe anything would look awesome to me, but I did plenty of research online and standing in front of the Wall 'O TVs at retailers before I made this purchase and I think the TV looks even better in my house than it did in the stores.

My main concern/paranoia (other than buying it online) was image retention (IR) or burn-in but from everything I've read burn-in is something of the past and IR is temporary. So I decided to turn down the brightness and contrast a little but opted not to use a break-in DVD or anything like that. I'm still careful to watch as much as I can at full screen rather than letterbox but only once was I able to see a dark line on the all-white screen where a scoreboard was. My girlfriend never saw it and thought I was crazy and the next time I checked the all-white screen it was gone. So, I feel much better about this now.

All in all, I couldn't be happier with this purchase and everytime I look at my puny 36" tube I wonder how I even survived . . .

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Just simply fantastic
Comment: I'm not a TV expert. I bought this TV because it has many good reviews and I am
very happy with this purchase so far.
I only want to emphasize that my purchase from Amazon has been very pleasant.
My delivery was slightly faster than estimated. It was part of the deal that they
delivered and set up the TV, let you examine the TV, made sure the TV work
before they left. If you noticed something wrong with the TV, you could refuse the
shipment.
Amazon is also very good with post price match policy. I noticed that this TV had
a lower price within 30 days of my purchase, so I let the customer service know
and they gave me the refund of the difference with no hassle. I don't know
any other online retailers who do this !.

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