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Date: 2008-08-28 Recommended Dealing with this firm was excellent. I am very happy with their service and the product. Date: 2008-08-26 Best yet After owning a Sony 36 wega 720p and another Sony 36 wega 1080i I thought I knew what to expect. I imagined the main difference would just be the thin screen and the bigger size. Man, was I wrong! This set is brilliant, delivering a sharp reality the other sets can only hope for. Like most others, I run a Playstation 3 through it and gaming has never been better. And Blue Ray movies? WOW. That's it, just WOW! I bought a hd antenna from Amazon also and currently get about 30 channels where I live in Oakland, Ca. Ceva free shipping arrive at the tail end of the two week window (at least it wasn't late!)and they carried the unit up four flights of stairs and set it up. Nice guys. We've had the tv since May and like it just as much as the day it arrived. Price went down a little and Amazon was very nice to credit us with the difference. Date: 2008-08-19 Awesome Plasma I needed a new TV and spent two whole days researching plasma's and LCD's to find out which were the best brands, best prices, best features, etc. I looked all over cnet, Amazon, and Best Buy. BY FAR the Samsung PN50A550 gave me the most bang for my buck. I purchased it and got 2 cash refunds thanks to Amazon's 30-day price match policy. As for the TV...I narrowed it down pretty quickly to Samsung and Panasonic Plasmas. After reading reviews on cnet.com I discovered that the Samsung PN50A550 beat the Panasonic Viera TH-50PZ800U in several categories. I even went to Best Buy and looked at the tv's side by side and thought the colors and picture on the Samsung were better...and for $600 cheaper! I don't care about deeper black levels. It's not worth an extra $600 for something I can't notice. So I bought the Samsung. The TV has 3 HDMI, the HD picture is amazing, comes with 1080p (and I haven't even watched Blu Ray on it yet) and the standard picture quality is good too. Be sure to read the comparison between 1080p and 720p The TV volume is just fine but we hooked it up to an Onkyo 7.1 surround sound system (the best surround sound for the money IMO) and now it's just unbelievable! We also mounted the TV on the wall and it looks really nice. I checked out the Samsung's with the "Red Touch of Color" and didn't like it. The PN50A550 looks like a sleek black TV and even the on/off, channel, and volume buttons on the right side are camouflaged into the TV and aren't really buttons but seem like sensors that once you lightly touch the TV turns on/off. The TV is just awesome! No matter what TV you buy, make sure you don't spend $100 on the monster or other expensive HDMI cables as it's all just a marketing ploy. A simple $5-$10 HDMI cable will work just as well (after all...it's a cable!) I bought a 15ft HDMI cable for $10 and it works perfectly. Date: 2008-08-18 Plasma Samsung PN50A550 50" This plasma samsung 50" gives a beautiful picture. It arrived in perfect condition thru amazon. The delivery people set it up which was very helpful considering the fact that it is quite heavy. I have only had it one month, but so far I am very pleased. Date: 2008-08-17 My first HDTV; nothing short of amazing! After nearly a year of intensely researching not only the top market contenders, but also the fundamentals of LCD/Plasma HDTV technologies themselves, I arrived at the conclusion that this was the right television for me. I'm a technophile and gadget lover but am rarely an earlier adopter, opting to let the bleeding edge consumers play "beta tester" before spending my hard earned cash. I took my time stepping into the world of HD, the end of the format war and overall high-def content availability increase being the final event to push me toward purchase. And so, after much reading and even more deliberation, the decision was made to purchase this Samsung PN50A550. The folks over at avsforum.com were beyond helpful in explaining their experiences and comparisons with higher-end models in detail - I highly suggest visiting that site if you haven't already. On to the TV. First, shipping. It was shipped extremely fast, and was delivered by CEVA several days sooner than the expected delivery date. I was called beforehand by a friendly staff member to schedule a time. The delivery men were quick and courteous and arrived at the beginning of the time window I selected. They unboxed the set for me, placed it on my TV stand, turned it on and let me inspect it both physically and functionally. They suggested I keep the materials for a few days to rule out any problems. Very happy with the shipping! Next, the TV itself. This is my first HDTV, upgrading from a 27" Sony Trinitron I purchased in 2000. Needless to say my jaw dropped when it was unboxed and placed on my television stand. This set is just absolutely GORGEOUS when it's off and standing on it's own. I was worried about it seeming ominously large, but it's perfect! I don't have cable (yet) so I hooked up my PS3 via HDMI, which I purchased for this occasion and threw in a Blu-Ray demo disc... Now, I would say that I was blown to bits by the image - and I was - but there seemed to be something 'off' that was distracting me. I knew that the set needed to be calibrated a bit but I couldn't place my thumb on what seemed strange. I waited until later that evening when the sun went down (I have lots of windows) and put in BATMAN BEGINS on Blu-Ray to scrutinize. I used the CNET suggested settings and began to criticize the picture. BATMAN BEGINS is a pretty dark film and probably not a good movie to use when criticizing black levels, brightness, etc. However, after tweaking the settings to my own liking I started to realize what I was perceiving; it was the very same perceptual shift that occured when I switched from CRT monitors to flat-screen LCD monitors. It's just a whole different type of light, and a very different experience overall. One of my first revelations happened when I played a game in HD (Devil May Cry 4), which is only 720P but showcases the sharpness, brightness and color this set is capable of. Ratatouille on Blu-Ray even more so! Since then I've watched numerous films on both DVD and Blu-Ray and am continually blown away by how great this TV is. For the price ($1700 when I purchased) there is nothing that comes close. The black levels are excellent, the calibration controls are suberb - everything about it from the menus to the exterior just spell quality. I'm really turning into a Samsung fanboy! I still find myself tweaking settings here and there (I never move from "Movie" mode, as all the others seem to blow the image out too much and lose detail) and am debating having it professionally calibrated, but I've arrived at some overall settings that work beautifully for everything from downloaded HD content, to video games, to blu-ray and DVD (from drama to anime). Even though I've had the set for one month, I'm still under my first 100 hours of use so I always stretch everything to Wide-Fit and am careful not to leave anything up on the screen. I have had some slight IR that had me a little worried initially, but realized that only stays there until an image is displayed or the burn protection features are used (example, if you use the TVs menu for a number of minutes, then view a pure black screen, there is slight ghosting. Playing a few seconds of a movie washes it clean away). All in all, I have to give this 5 stars - for both Samsung and Amazon.com.
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