10 responses so far ↓

• 1 Earl

  First off let me say Plasmas are much better picture than LCDs but yes they do consume more electricity than any 50″ LCD. I compare the newest Viera 600hz and this side by side (actually two 600hz Vieras and this one). This one is clearly better picture. The Panasonic 720 and this 720P are actually higher than what is advertised. They are actually not 720p, 1280×720 but 768P or 1366 x 768.

  “Brief Notes”:
  * Of what is not true anymore: At 600hz, this is faster than even the newer generation of LCDs so retail store use to push LCDs (esp. gamers) since the refresh rating.
  * Burn in is not so much a factor any more. The screen saver kicks in early and Samsung has better technology to counterbalance the burn in effect that was in older generations.The 720p Viera X1 Series.
  * TC-P50X1 clearly shows blacks better but not quality of picture. The X1 does not have that good of rating as you see from Amazon and other review sites.

  If you have the money for a 1080p than go for it but I would go with a Plasma 768P, rather than spending about 40 percent more this is the greatest bang for the buck even though labeled as a 720p.
  This generation of Samsung Plasmas rule. Samsung LCDs are professionally reviewed as the best but I have not seen a better looking TV than a Samsung whether it be a 768P or a 1080P.

• 2 Ulbrich

  First let me say that I own a Samsung 40″ LCD 1080p, and I am very happy with that one and really like Samsung for home electronics. I found this deal from a Google search because Fry’s had the PN50B450 on sale for 1,099.00. I found it cheaper through Google shopping at Best Buy. Though we had some very questionable service at best buy (make sure they don’t set the plasma it on it’s side, they know better!).

  This TV is just a great TV. I am viewing HD Clear QAM channels through the basic cable line and they look AWESOME. The only thing I ran into is the HDMI ports require the cable to be HDMI 1.3, so my DVD player has yet to work because I have to get a new cable. It says this in the manual though, so I wasn’t alarmed.

  I looked for reviews like this, and I especially liked the one from the guy who used to install Home Theater Systems. This is a great TV and if you can find it at a good price, buy it!

• 3 Bennett

  I bought the Samsung to replace my 3 year old Sharp Aquous 37″ LCD. All I can say is wow. The Sharp still has a very good picture, but next to the Samsung, it’s amazing how good the new TV is. Great value for the price, and mounted to the wall with a Cheetah mount, looks outstanding. Absolutely no complaints.

• 4 Gatti

  I just got this TV yesterday and I’m are still in shock! It is truly amazing! I don’t even have HD programing for it and I’m almost afraid to get it because the SD programing (from DirecTv) is such an awesome picture. I mean how much shock can I take, lol. It takes less than 5 minutes to set up and the only adjustment I have made so far is to turn the color down a little because the reds were so red they hurt my eyes!
  The sound is perfectly fine and I feel no need for a surround sound setup. I love the remote too, but since I have a DirecTV remote I don’t even need it except to adjust settings on the TV. The size of this TV is perfect if not almost too big although I’m sure I’ll get used to, lol. I watched a movie last night and could almost count the individual hairs on peoples heads. I sit about 11 feet from the tv. Amazing, just amazing. Delivery was even two days early and the man brought the TV in, unwrapped it and discarded the box. He set it up where I wanted it and even turned it on to check that it worked. That left me with the only thing left to do was go through the easy on screen setup. I had been afraid that TV would be difficult to set up what with all the new technology, but it was so easy that even my 80 year old Mom could do it! No need to look any further, this is the TV you want! The delivery man also said that he has NEVER had anyone return this TV! Enjoy.

• 5 Quisenberry

  I’d like to share my thought of process in buying this TV.
  First, I wanted at least 46″ for viewing at 10′ under $1300. My first choice was LCD with 1080P of course since it seems like everyone is going toward the LCD. I primarily watch sport and movie, not really plan for gaming. From reading from many resources (Amazon’s user review, [...].), watching at different stores (Fry’s, Bestbuy, Sears) in more than 10 visits, I concluded that plasma is better way to go in many reasons. From my eyes, I think plasma produces a better picture quality than LCD. Image quality from plasma looks more natural and not flat (don’t know how to explain). Comparing color, plasma generates better skin tone (in photography or flesh tone in (probably) videography???) and a lot cheaper.

  I was worried about power consumption and dimmer picture comparing to LCD (when viewing in stores). Both of them are not really major issues at all at home. First I tried to find that how much it’s gonna cost me for watching this big screen TV. I looked at the back of the screen and found that the maximum power consumption rated is 360W. That’s one-quart of my portable oil radiation heater, not a big deal. For your information, 300W will cost you 3cent for an hour of usage. For the dimmed picture (like the picture is under-exposure in photography), I thought it should be ok in my apartment.

  The next thing was 720P or 1080P. I went to stores and checked by myself that I can distinguish the difference (I consider my eyes are pretty good at this). From less than 5′, I can see that the pixel for 720P is bigger than the pixel of 1080P. That means from less than 5′ you will see the 720P has less detail. However, I will be watching at 8′-10′ which is not a problem at all. The 720P set was located side-by-side to the $1700 Samsung LCD and I watched both of them from 8′ away and there’s no different in resolution. I thought that I’m not gonna pay extra $700 for that for sure.

  Next thing you’re gonna be worried was image retention (IR) and burn-in. If you understand how it works, you will know how to avoid that problems. From normal TV watching, there’s no way that your TV will have a burn-in or IR plus the TV set provides the pixel shift function to avoid the problem in case you play a game and sleep while the screen shows still image. If you feel sleepy, just turn off your TV and go to bed. Don’t waste your money of electric bill.

  Only one pitfall I see is there’s only 3 HDMI ports

  One thing that I don’t understand, the PN50B450’s response time is 0.001ms (way way shorter than regular LCD (4-6ms) and refresh rate at 600Hz which 5-time better than higher level LCD (120Hz), but when I watch Giants, I can see that it’s not fast enough when the comcast graphic is flashing (pixelette). There’s not problem at all for normal game play. So I don’t know how LCD or LED are going to handle this. Maybe it’s from the source (I subscribe to Comcast HD).

  [...].

  **Sorry for my English, it’s not my native language

• 6 Arquette

  I bought this about a month and a half ago and I am still excited about it.

  The TV is absolutely stunning when watching hi-def on DirecTV. DVD’s and videogames also look amazing! I have found myself re-watching movies and TV shows just because things look so great, and I have found myself stopping on many channels and programs that I am not usually interested in because of the stunning images. Non hi-def channels don’t always look as good, however, and everything on my basic (non HD) Comcast cable looks like total crap. But I only use that for one local cable news channel from time to time so it’s not a big deal to me. Hi-def rules!

  The price here on Amazon was better than anywhere else at the time. I first saw it during the Circuit City liquidation sales and came here to read reviews, but I saw that the price here was better than CC’s 30% off. Plus free delivery and setup from here, which CC wouldn’t have done.

  I don’t think I would call the delivery “white glove”, but they did their job so I can’t complain. I was skeptical about it at first because when I ordered it, the website gave me a “guaranteed” delivery date. However in the confirmation email, it said “estimated”. Since I had taken that day off from work, I wasn’t very happy so I emailed Amazon and they said that it would arrive on the date originally promised. But then I got an email from the delivery service and they said it would be the following day. I had to call them a few times and contact Amazon again, but in the end it did come on the date Amazon promised.

• 7 Tam

  I purchased this Television in September 2008. I have been using to watch DVDs, play XBox360 games and watch television channels. I use it for about 5 hours each day and have really enjoyed every minute of the high quality picture and sound. Totally recommend it!!

  If you are looking for a large television on a budget, this Plasma TV will most definitely work for you. All the rumors about the slow refresh rate are crap. I have been playing all sorts of games on this. Just use it carefully for the first 100 hours and you will enjoy every moment of it from thereon.

• 8 Irish

  This tv is phenomenal. Excellent picture even in a bright room that gets a lot of sunshine. More than enough inputs. I have it next to another tv and the picture quality and colors are just sooo much better on this Samsung. Can’t comment on the sound quality as I run the sound through a separate tuner. Buy it…it’s amazing and extremely cheap for this size and quality.

• 9 Kermani

  I waited till 6 months so that I could give real feedback. So here is the report.

  Pros
  1. The colors look bright and the pictures are good.
  2. I could hook up my laptop and watch almost all the movies in crystal quality. So definitely buy a VGA/HDMI cable.
  3. A much needed upgrade from a CRT I was used to.

  Cons
  1. The upscaling for regular low resolution videos may not be that good out of the box. But you could configure a video player/mplayer to output a higher resolution picture which looks good.

  Avg
  1. The sound is good.

  How much did I pay?
  I bought it on the wee hours of morning of Black Friday from amazon for around $900

  What about burn in?
  I was worried about burn in on a plasma but 6 months and watching tons of movies/TV have not seen sign of it yet. But a). I always have my video to fit the entire screen b) There was never the same picture played always

  720p vs 1080p?
  I am finding a hard time getting 720p material cheap and if you have a good upscaling converter the difference is minimal, at least for me.

  Installation?
  Amazon gave white glove service and they were very helpful installing it. If I had bought at a retail store I would have had to arrange for transportation and installation. Too big to carry around.

• 10 Freestone

  Setup is pretty easy, of course depending on what kind of stand you buy. Picture is excellent. You do not need a 1080 set as very few programs come with that resolution. I went from a 27″ magnavox standard definition set to this and I will say that if you don’t have HD, you completely lose all the great performance from this set. In fact, I would rather watch standard definition on my old tv. When you go up in size like I did, it just blurs your standard definition picture. Don’t even consider this tv unless you have HD.

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