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Date: 2008-10-29 Delightful TV We bought this 32" for our small media room and are delighted with the result. We coupled it with an inexpensive Coby 5.1 DVD player and the cheapest 5.1 speaker set here on Amazon and built an ace home theater system for ¢¢¢ not $$$. Perfect for the 200 sq foot space. We also coupled it to a Linux box (a recycled Dell Dimension 2300) and it gives crystal clear DIVX movies and general images, web-tv, BBC iPlayer - everything we've thrown at it. MPG and AVI movies are fine too. Note that it requires a male-male video cable rather than a standard computer to monitor (male-female) cable - that cost us a $12.00 trip to Staples, and it also needs a male-male (plug-plug) PC stereo audio cable - another $8.00 trip to RadioShack. The delivery service to CT was perfect. Guy delivered it to our house, connected it up in the kitchen - did a power and cable check before he left. I couldn't have asked for more. Date: 2008-10-28 Vibrant Colors, Awesome Price, Samsung LN32A450 After much research, we bought the Samsung LN32A450 for our breakfast/kitchen area. Other LCD brands we looked into were Panasonic, Toshiba, and Sharp. They're all very close and comparable to each other but there's something about the image in Samsung that's different from the others. This is after extensive side-by-side comparison from the big box stores. Our viewing distance from the TV range from 8 feet (breakfast table) to 12 feet (kitchen island). It definitely looks very nice and ample size for those distance. It was our first time ordering an LCD TV online thru amazon.com and the various reviews on CEVA was definitely a concern but we decided to give it a try anyways. We have to say that the product arrived 2 days before the expected delivery date (arrived on 10/28 instead of 10/30). Aside from the 8AM to 3PM delivery window, CEVA was great. They came in opened up the box, and set it up in front of you. Setup was very easy; from the box, it asked for language preference, and source of image feed, then VOILA, you can start going through the SD channels. It took CEVA about 15 minutes between unpacking the box to setting up the TV. After they left, we went through the Setup menu and had the TV look for HD signals (the TV is plugged to the wall, e.g. we don't have an HD box) The search took about 20 minutes, and now, the TV shows both SD and HD channels. Best 20 minutes you can ever invest. Both SD and HD images are spectacular. Sound is also clear, vibrant and loud. We have it in the 30s range (out of 100) for a 23'X13' kitchen/breakfast area. We do have it mounted on the wall which eliminates the base, and therefore may have reduced any obstacles from the speakers since they're facing down towards the base. The wall bracket we used was the Chief MWR-VB. Amazon.com shows that TheNerds.Net as the store that actually sells the item. TheNerds.Net also gets the product from another vendor. Item took about 2 weeks altogheter to arrive. The mount is actually a bit overkill for the TV, but the mount provides certain advantage such as, the "I" frame structure, which allowed us to install the electric and cable outlets to the left side of the "I" (when mount is facing you). This minimizes any wires that may stick out. The middle of the frame is also adjustable to provide you with a perfect center of the TV on the wall. The overall depth between the wall and the outer-most tip of the screen is 6.75 inches. Overall, ordering from amazon.com for the price and CEVA's white glove service worked well for us. Date: 2008-10-28 Purchase confirmed as best in class I did a lot of research before purchasing this television, but chose it because it was consistently rated as one of the best. Fortunately, that turned out to be the case. The colors are vibrant, analog channels look good, and digital SD and HD channels look great. I was a bit concerned about how the television would handle reformatting the screen size/ratio, but it consistently handles it correctly. Date: 2008-10-25 Wonderful TV, Great Value, BUT getting it was a pain... This is a wonderful TV. I've had the TV for about 3 months so I think my opinion of it has stabilized at this point. Over all I am very happy with it. I have found a few things to be annoying. Bottom line first: great TV that I'm very happy with. Had a bit of trouble with Amazon getting the TV here, had a bit of trouble getting the TV setup and found Samsung unhelpful in the process. Since getting everything up and running I've been extremely happy with the TV save a minor annoyance with the way it powers up. Pros (+): +The picture quality with an HD signal is amazing. I live in an area with great over the air HD and the picture quality is just spectacular. It also looks wonderful over my digital cable. On a 32" screen I think you'll have a darn hard time splitting 1080 from 720. I'm lucky enough to have a friend who is a video professional who was able to prove this to me in an 18% gray windowless room with a blueray signal. +Looks amazing and works very well with my Philips DVP5982 1080p Upscaling DVD Player +It's a great value. While you'll find many cheaper 32" TVs the quality and feature set on this TV make it a wonderful value for your money. +The remote is excellent. The buttons are easy to sort out without looking. It feels nice and well built. I like the "TV" source quick select button. +The unit has an attractive case. The simple, under adorned enclosure blinds into the background nicely. +The HDMI port on the side of the unit is very helpful. Having a port free to plug transient devices into is really helpful on a smaller unit like this. +The on screen menu system is really excellent. Cons (-): (-) The TV is noticeably slow to turn on and dose in an odd fashion. You hit the power button and nothing happens for a second. Then the little red light on the case turns off. About a second or two later the TV makes an annoyingly loud chime and the red light comes back on. A second later the picture is up. Waiting 3-4 seconds for a picture and having the loud chime at power up is annoying. (-) The TV was shipped with a `defective' base. When I went to assemble the TV I found that it would not sit correctly on the base stand. After calling Samsung tech support I was told that they would send a repair person out two days later to have a look. Of course that was going to mean sitting at home during a 4 hour window waiting to have the TV fixed. After a little investigation I figured out that the locking screw on the pedestal had been over tightened at the factor. I was able to fix the problem in 5 minutes and cancel the service call. This can't be the first time this mistake has been made and the fix was amazingly easy. Tech support could have been more helpful or the TV could have been shipped in working order. (-) Amazon "White Glove" deliver is anything but. I'm a huge Amazon fan and this is the only problem I've ever had with them. White glove delivery was through some random freight company that did not deliver on the advertised promise. The freight company did not call me to schedule my delivery. Instead I had to hunt them down and use their tracking tool to follow my TVs progress. When it got close to me I started calling. Finally I was able to arrange a delivery (during a 4 hour window). The delivery man arrived, rang the bell, put the box by my front door and asked me to sign. This signature is saying that the TV arrived in good working order. Of course you could only say such a thing if the white glove delivery involved the setup that Amazon promised. I made the deliver person wait while I unboxed the TV to confirm it was at least physically intact before signing. Needless to say I was left to do my own trash disposal and setup. I wasn't unhappy about doing so, just unhappy that Amazon didn't deliver on their promises. Date: 2008-10-22 Great TV Bought this for our family room which has limited space, so 32" was max size we could go for. Price was excellent. Add savings with free shipping and no sales tax and the total cost was significantly under best local pricing (Think $100-$200 under big box store sale prices). Estimated ship time was 11 calendar days; arrived in 6 (4 business days). Have had it for about 3 wks now, connected to HD Cable via Scientific Atlanta 8300 HD DVR. Our viewing distances are about 4-8 ft with seating in about a 90 degree arc. The space is well lit with 8ft glass doors on the opposite wall and windows on adjacent and rear wall. Reflections off the screen are minimal; way better than the 27" standard tube TV it replaced. The LCD is very bright and has no problem coping with the room during daylight hours. Off-axis viewing is very good. At our viewing distances and at this screen size, 720P is all you need and I cannot imagine that I'd see a difference at 1080P in this size class unless you used it for high speed gaming up close. HD is spectacular and even std definition comes across well once the TV is setup properly. At some point, I'll take the time to calibrate the color, but right now I am just happy to sit back and enjoy as is. Connect it with an HDMI cable if your sources have that available. For one, it's easier - just one connection and secondly, it enables more automation for automatically handling different source signals. I bought my HDMI cables separately and didn't see a dramatic difference on video when I switched from the original analog connections, but I hadn't finished getting everything set up when I did the switch. The audio made a huge jump though in quality and I had to turn the volume down significantly on HDMI when played through the TV speakers. The TV internal speakers are just OK - They really expect you to run this through a good quality HT or other home audio system. If you use the internal speakers as I do most of the time, try the SRS setting - It's not bad. For movies, I pipe things through my home audio system which is incomparably superior. Don't spend a lot of $$ on the HDMI cables. $10.00 max is already pushing the boundaries. I'm an Audiophile with some $$ invested in my analog connections, but also a design engineer in the high tech world. Those high priced digital cables in the retail stores absolutely, positively, will not test out any better than the cheap cables under 3 meters long. My one complaint after 3 weeks? On its stand, the set is not perfectly level. From left to right it is tilted about 1/4". So far no one else who has been in our home has noticed.
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