The perfect HDTV for the modern home.
Written: Feb 23 '05 (Updated Mar 22 '05)
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Pros: Sharp picture, beautiful design, many great features.
Cons: cheap remote, long delay switching sources and resolutions, expensive accessories
The Bottom Line: This TV offers one of the best displays with many features. It also gives great value for its price. Perfect for a home with a modern theme.
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| Thorin's Full Review: Samsung HL-P5085W 50 in. HDTV-Ready DLP TV |
I have to say this first, this TV is awesome.
There are many great features so let's start there.
The TV uses the latest DLP chipset. It's one of the clearest and most crisp displays I've seen. I like it better than Plasma because the color will not fade overtime. I like it better than LCD because when I watch sports shows, there's no lag or ghosting because the screen refreshes faster than LCDs.
The display supports 480/720/1080 resolutions. ABC uses 720, my ps2 uses 1080 and 480p. Playing GT4 on it is superb. However switching between different resolutions is rather slow. The TV will detect whether or not a show is in HD and will change the resolution to fit the show. It takes about 5 seconds to change between HD and non-HD.
The TV also has many inputs in the back. 2 component in, 2 antenna in, 2 RCA in, 1 DVI-D in, 1 PC in, 1 HDMI in. It has 1 RCA out and 1 antena out. This means that you can use the TV as a splitter for the cable. But this is where it falls short. The TV is a monitor and does not have a built in tuner for HDTV signals. So you will either have to get an external tuner or go to your cable/satellite provider and get a HDTV box. Changing between different sources takes a long time, I would say about 7-10 seconds.
HDMI is the for the future. It carries 5.1 channel sound in the cable so you won't need extra audio cables. It also carries full digital video. So you will not lose any clarity.
The design of the TV is great. It is a one piece design, the TV sits on a pedastal and that sits on a glass base. Just make sure you don't stand on it or break it. I cannot imagine how much it would cost to replace that piece of glass. The front stand is a touch screen LED display. I think it's LED at least or maybe OLED. You can go up to it and just touch the panel and change channels, volume, sources and the like. There's also an information circle in the middle that tells you what the tv is doing, if it needs service or a bulb needs to be replaced. I kind of wish that there's a timer that tells me how many hours the lamp has been on. A nice touch from Samsung is that the information display shows a smiley face when you turn it on. Really cute.
The sound is pretty good as well. Granted it does not have any type of great 3d sound but for regular TV watching, it's good. The TV uses what's called SRS TSXT(TruSurround XT). Supposedly it "solves the problem of playing 5.1 multichannel content over two speakers". I would use a real home theater system to show movies and other things.
The Picture in Picture is good as well. It allows antenna, AV1, AV2, component 1 and component 2 as different sources. You can resize the 2 pictures to be side by side in either wide screen or regular tv size. So you can watch 2 shows at the same time and each will have its own 25" screen. Well, the math doesn't quite work like that, but you get the idea. However you can only listen to 1 sound source at the time. Duh!
The TV also has DNIe (Digital Natural Image engine). "This feature brings you a more detailed image with 3D noise reduction and detail, contract and white enhancement." (Straight from the manual) You can choose different colors to enhance and everything. You can definitely see the differences in the before/after with it switched on.
The manual is very comprehensive, it shows you all types of setups available.
I have mentioned a few things that I didn't like, mainly it's from the time it took to switch between resolutions and sources. The only other thing that I had a problem with was taking it out of the box. The box it came in was about 160 pounds. Make sure you have someone to help you carry it in and set it up. It is a very wide TV. The box cover was about 6ft high and you're supposed to lift it over the tv. Well my ceiling is 10ft high and that wasn't possible.
When the picture is in 4:3 mode, the sides are not straight like a CRT or plasma tv. This could be because it's a rear projection tv. It's concave on the sides. That may bother some people. I've grown used to it now.
Update: I went to Ikea for the TV Stand to put my components. The stand that is built for the TV costs like $400. I just found out that samsung offers to sell it for $389 at http://www.samsungparts.com So if someone tries to sell it to you for more than that, don't buy it.
My pictures
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/thorin78/album?.dir=9557&.src=ph&store=&prodid=&.done=http%3a//photos.yahoo.com/ph//my_photos
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 2700
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Epinions.com ID:
Thorin
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Reviews written: 20
Trusted by: 0 members
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