Pros: Easy To Set Up, Energy Efficient, Good Remote Control, Great Picture Quality, Great Sound Quality, Reduced Glare
The TV is aesthetically gorgeous. It powers on and off quickly. The setup is a breeze and the HDMI hand shake between TV and receiver is solid. It comes with surprisingly good speakers, giving off a rich, smooth sound that can easily be heard over my ridiculously loud air conditioner. This allows me to use my receiver less. Colors are vibrant, actual and true, and the picture, depending on the source material, can appear to look 3D though it's a 2D TV. Put on the Blu Ray movie 'Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole' while using this TV and you will be engaged in one of the most breathtakingly beautiful cinematic experiences ever. Sports shows are equally spectacular. Be sure to tweak the TV first so that whatever you watch is sure to be at its' best.<br ><br >Things That I Am Grateful For!<br ><br >The remote control is a nice size, has a sleep button on it, is easy to use, and is backlit. This TV has the ability to receive any needed updates that Samsung offers via a USB port, yet, thankfully, it is not a smart TV and thus, cannot access the net and the net cannot access you. Ha! It is NOT Edge Lit Technology, rather, offers the LED backlights spread throughout the whole of the back of the TV. The TV comes WITHOUT the ARC (audio return channel) function. For me, these are all really, really good things!<br ><br >Here Are the Changes I Made to the Settings!<br ><br >My goal all along was to get the clearest, most stunning picture that the set had to offer without comprising the beautiful blacks, nor the brilliant colors, nor the outstanding 3D like effects you can sometimes perceive, all while never having to change the settings, no matter what the lighting of the room. I believe that I succeeded in this endeavor. Using 'Standard' viewing mode settings for everything, I made the following changes. Under the 'Picture' setting, I changed the contrast from '100' to '85'. Under the 'Advance Settings', I set the 'color space' to 'native' the Dynamic Contrast to 'medium' and the Black Tone to' Dark' and turned the motion lighting 'Off". Under 'Picture Options', I have the color tone at' standard', digital noise filter at 'auto', HDMI Black level at 'Low', Film Mode at 'Auto', Auto Motion Plus at 'Clear', and turned the LED Motion Plus to 'Off'. These changes made all the difference in the world and now all source material have the necessary uniformity. Movies, be it a Blu Ray movie or be it broadcast from cable TV, primetime cable shows, and cable news, all look the way they were intended and at their best.<br > <br >Why It Took Me So Long To Write This Review!<br ><br >I had a dickens of a time tweaking this set and I am willing to bet that I'm not the only one. The TV, depending on the show or movie, gave off a bright, reality, soap opera type look. While others in my circle thought that this was the coolest thing in the world, I hated it with a passion and spent the last two weeks trying to get rid of that look. I don't know about you, but I watch TV to escape reality. First, digital music technology with its' continual huge swings of bass range, forced upon me an audiophile's ear. The FCC could EASILY fix this by regulating ranges for bass and volume in general. I don't know about you, but I need my eardrums. Add to this some new mess. Given the various forms of lighting used to broadcast HDTV prime-time shows, cable news, HD movies, as well as Non-HD format shows and commercials, add to that the lack of basic rules and regulations regarding uniformity of lighting amongst these multitude of networks, and I'm left with a new, keener, more vexed, eye. I find that, because of the various forms of visual media available on any given channel and, or movie, TV sets are becoming harder and harder to tweak. Again, the FCC can fix this. Anyway, I had some serious tweaking to do. I finally got it right and am now SUPER IN LOVE with this set.<br ><br >FYI!<br ><br >I'm writing this review because I actually HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS TV and think that it is a fantastic TV and it is being offered at a fantastic price. YOU JUST GOT TO TWEAK IT. I'm also writing it so that the next person doesn't become discouraged and want to immediately send it back. They would be making a HUGE mistake. I was about to return it myself because of that crazy REALITY look that it had on certain stations and formats. To my mind, the tweaking that I initially attempted should have fixed the lighting problem. It's my fourth HDTV, one being a Sony XBR full array set, so I'm no stranger to this. Where the changes were eventually made was just counter-intuitive hence, it took me two weeks. I don't have a college degree, but it seems to me that, if it took me two weeks to tweak the TV, Samsung could have, and should have; done it themselves before they put it out on the shelves. They know, or at least they should know, about the various swings regarding lighting amongst the various media sources. It just shouldn't be rocket science.
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