American Express-Savings
- Average user rating: 3.5 stars out of 30 reviews Back to product review
- My rating: 0 stars
Full user review
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13 out of 14 people found this review helpful
5.0 stars
"Truly Amazing!!!!!!!!!!"
Pros: Performance, Price, Looks, Expandability, Functionality
Cons: Sound, Remote
Summary: This plasma rocks! I have had it for two weeks and every time I turn it on it amazes me. I will start with the looks. The frame is a shiny black that looks wicked on the wall next to my home theater. Friends always comment on how nice the Samsung looks. Even though Samsung does not have the same antiglare feature the Pani has, but the Samsung has Firebright 2 which seems to keep all glare away from the plasma screen. Before I purchased this plasma I was trying to decide between this and the Pani TH-50PZ700U. All I have to say is go to a few stores and compare the pictures. If you are fortunate enough to have friends with either of these plasmas go to their house and check them out. The Samsung had much deeper blacks and a brighter screen which I liked. The Samsung was hands down the winner for me. Also if you compare inputs the Samsung has one more HDMI input which was important to me. The Samsung Anynet feature is really cool. It makes everything so simple. When I turn on my DVD or plasma it already knows what I want to do and changes the input and powers on the other devices. All I have to do is sit down and watch. One other comparison you may want to look at are the tuning functions. The Samsung could be confusing for someone who does not know what all of the adjustments mean but I really liked how many fine tuning functions are on the Samsung compared to the Panasonic. As far a picture quality during a movie goes, WOW! I am using a Samsung HD 1080P up-conversion DVD player until they decide if blu-ray or HD will be the future format. This DVD is pretty good but I am sure there are better. This weekend I watched a few movies and I noticed the details were so good I could see black heads in peoples pours! Gross I know but just describes the amount of intense detail. The color is so vivid in outdoor scenes I feel like I am there in real life. As far as sound goes this is where the Samsung sucks! It is not an issue for me because I have a high end home theater connected to this plasma. I don't know why anyone would buy a nice plasma and not connect a home theater but I just want to let you know in case you plan on not using a home theater. The remote has decent functionality and lights on the channel, volume and inputs but that's it! They could have done better here. I use a Harmony remote so it takes care of this issue. The instructions were great. It covers everything from basic setup with pictures to wall mount instructions. If you plan on using this tv or any HDTV with SD forget it! It sucks! The built in HD tuner display is great though. The only issue I am encountering is picking up FOXHD during the auto scan. This is more than likely because of where I live. I gave this plasma a 10 out of 10 because it meets or exceeds all of my needs. I also paid only $2100 on sale at Circuit City. This price was amazing compared to anywhere else near me. Most places are selling this plasma for $2600+. I did not want to buy online because if I have an issue I want to be able to take this plasma to the store for a new one and not have to ship it somewhere. I am sure I paid a little more but it was worth the piece of mind for me. I highly recommend this plasma. I will update again soon.
- 1 reply to this review
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While I certainly won't argue that the Samsung is a good Plasma, I'm going to have to disagree with you on the fact that it's better than the Panasonic, especially the TH-50PZ700U. I sell both of these TV's and have watched each one extensively over a large number of content -- blu-ray 1080P sources, 1080i DirecTV football games, etc. The Panasonic clearly displayed better black levels hands down, where the Samsung's color seemed off. Also, the Samsung has problems with banding, and it's evident in a number of sources to the TV. The Panasonic blends colors much more accurately, and for this reason, also looks much more natural. In one particular scene watching football, there was dead brown grass mixed with green. The Panasonic was much more defined whereas the Samsung had large blocks of brown and green colors mixed together -- not good.
Panasonic has been making Plasma's since the beginning, and still continue to be a leader in the Plasma market. I would buy a Samsung LCD any day of the week, but if it was a Plasma I would definitely go with a Panasonic, no question.
