GREAT PLASMA !!!

samsung-pn63a65000-20


Great Plasma!!!1080p-2 yr warranty-deep blacks-good anti-glare,

December 2, 2007

By	E. Carne (Atlanta, GA) -

I purchased the Samsung 58' plasma in mid October. Since the item was only a few weeks old when I purchased it I had trouble finding reviews. I went to best buy where the Panasonic th-58pz700u and the samsung fpt5884 were set up side by side. I could not see any noticeable difference in the picture quality. The pioneer pdp-6010fd was in a different area of the store so it was hard to compare it to the other two. I had read reviews that the panasonic had possibly taken a step backwards this year with their plasmas, and that the 5,000:1 contrast ratio was a inadequate. The Pioneer seemed too expensive for miminal improvements over the samsung and panasonic. The 24 fps (3:3 pulldown) film mode would be nice, but I don't watch that many movies and when i do I don't notice any visual defects. The 2 year warranty made it an easy decision to go with the samsung. The pioneer would have been nice, but to me unless I'm looking at both sets side by side everyday, I'm not going to know I'm missing anything. My Samsung 58' looks great to me and that's all that matters. I also own a Hitachi 55hds69 plasma that I use in my basement. The hitachi was praised for it's connectivity and accurate color reproduction. The hitachi's downside was a weak black level. The samsung's black level is incredible, especially when compared to the Hitachi. Samsung's color reproduction seems to be pretty good too. The Hitachi has a native resolution of 1366x768. The difference in the 1080p vs 720p is noticeable on hd dvds and blu-ray movies, and night and day when viewing digital photos on the tv. The samsung's anti-glare coating is pretty effective too. My only two real complaints are the 1.)fact that you have to cycle through all the inputs to get to the one you want, and 2.)the tv will not send the sound out in 5.1 dolby digital only analog stereo (with the exception being direct input sources like a cable through the coax on the tv). That's really not a big deal since you will probably use a separate receiver, but with the hitachi I can just leave my receiver on one source and change only the input on the tv since the hitachi will send all outgoing signals in 5.1 dolby digital. The input selection thing is quite annoying, because when I wall mounted the tv I ran a set of component input wires and a set of rca av wires for future use so I would not have to take the tv down if I ever wanted to use those inputs. Now the tv always cycles through those inputs. I unplugged those wires and it still cycles through them. I called samsung tech support and they were of no help. They suggested turning the tv off for 2 minutes and then transferred my call to level 2 tech support. Level 2 told me that those inputs had always showed up and that was the way the tv functioned when I bought it. That is not true, and I even asked the guy "if that's true then why aren't all the input options showing up?" He didn't know. Also the picture in picture is pointless. It can only be used with analog sources. Please do not use the pic in pic as a factor in buying this tv.

If you are on the fence as far as plasma vs lcd I would like to dispell some of the misconceptions and myths associated with plasmas. Burn-in is always the first thing you hear when it comes to plasmas. I have owned the Hitachi for 11 months and I can honestly say that I have never had any problems with burn-in or image retention on either tv. I don't watch a lot of programs with side bars, but even when I do it has never been a problem. A friend of mine has a 42' LG which I did see image retention on the side 4:3 black bars on after he played a playstation 2 game on it for about 2 hours, but even that went away. I have an xbox 360 and a playstation 3. I have played a-lot of games on both sets and have never had any problems with burn-in from gaming either. Normal viewing of programs like espn hd where there are commercials to break up the side bars changes image enough to avoid the problem. If you're watching a-lot of standard def stuff and you're not willing to live with the zoom views, then I really don't know why you would buy a HD tv anyway. HD is meant to be 16:9 aspect.

The second issue with plasmas is the glare off the screen. My hitachi is terrible. Although it is really only evident when gaming or watching movies with a-lot of dark scenes. The samsung 58 seems to do a-lot better job with the glare issues. The only time I notice it is when I watch a dark movie at night, I will get some glare from the lights in my breakfast nook area. None of the other lights in the room produce glare on the set so I simply turn those lights off and use a different light source. The other thing to remember is that the plasmas are so much brighter than conventional tube tvs, crts, and even dlps that most glare is eliminated anyway. I can watch football or baseball all day long and only notice the sunlight shining onto my screen when I turn the set off. My previous tv in my family room was a 60' hitachi crt. The glare off the plastic screen protector was horrible, and the image wasn't bright enough to overcome the problem. Oh and speaking of that 60' crt, when I bought it 10 years ago they told me never to play video games on it because it could burn-in. Thousands of games later, no burns what-so-ever in the crt screen either.
Plasma tvs have an awesome viewing range, easily handle fast motion, and easily produce deepest blacks. Lcds have a more limited viewing range, have difficulty with fast motion, and struggle to produce deep blacks. To me it is a shame that lcds seem to lead the market only because of a couple of misconceptions associated with plasmas that are widely overstated.