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"Rock solid picture with amazing brightness in any light" on by Piglet4243
Pros: Beautifully bright, colorful, great contrast. Handles analog signals well, even seems to correct imperfections like "ghosting" over 10 secs. Pure HDMI input and various inputs/outputs. Sleek design.
Cons: If left one for more than 3 hrs, a little warm.
Summary: Picked this up as my first venture into HD as a secondary set for the bedroom. Did a lot of viewing at Tweeter, Best Buy, Gramophone, and a few other retailers. At least with my experience with Samsung's DLPs and other LCDs, the picture is clean, there's no pixelation, images don't seem washed out or beveled, and the edges are very well defined. I took a DVD with some high quality PNGs that were converted down to JPGs to the retailers to have them run through their sets to see what kind of image differences I could pick up, and the 268W seemed to have the best LCD picture. Since it's under 27", Amazon has a good deal with their guarantee, and 20% cheaper than most of the retailers (which you can use to pick up an OTA tuner, a good wall mount, or an HDMI/DVI cable). The on-screen menus are very straightforward, and Samsung provides all the shortcuts on the remote for the primary items within the menu (so you don't have to navigate). The picture sizing is really good, and I've also noticed on analog signals, after 10 seconds the TV seems to adjust and get a really clean, crisper image, even if the signal is poor. Just hooked up the Samsung SIR-T451 terrestrial tuner for OTA, and a Terk HDTVi, and the brightness is unrivaled on any LCDs I've seen thus far. Do yourself a favor and leave the "brightness sensor" auto-adjuster off -- even in some natural light, the picture looks so much better. My only complaint is that I didn't nab a bigger set, but for a bedroom, it's perfect.
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"One of the best LCD HDTV values on the market!" on by jimmcnab
Pros: Vivid, bright, clear picture
Cons: None discovered as of yet
Summary: I bought this LCD tv to go in my bedroom. I currently do not have an HD receiver yet, but one is in the works. The system gets as good and as clear a picture as my Sony 51" LCD tv in the living room. These tvs are capable of so much that it is really a shame that the HD broadcasting is currently so limited. One of the primary purposes for this television will be to use for an Xbox 360, a high-definition home gaming system. Once I connected the 360 to the tv, and loaded a game in 1080i, the picture definition and clarity were unreal. This system has an excellent contrast ratio of 3000:1. Black actually looks black on this LCD tv ( a bit of an Achilles heel for other models ). I basically narrowed down my choices between this Samsung and a high end Sony. The Sony had an excellent picture and, to be honest, I believe it edges the Samsung out. I think the Sony's color and clarity were perhaps better than the Samsung, BUT the Sony was about $1000.00 more than this television. This Samsung was the next best thing to the top of the line 26" Wega Sony. For the price (a little over $1000 purchased at BH Photo Video online), you can't beat the value in this Samsung. This is a well-built, intuitive machine. It has an outstanding picture (especially when receiving a true HD signal or a DVD input via component video source). For the money, it is easily the best value in the 26" LCD HDTV market. Two remotes up!!!
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"Solid picture, quality construction, good feature set..." on by deadguy11
Pros: Solid picture once calibrated, great build quality, excellent brightness and contrast...
Cons: Cheap stand, picture aspect ratio change requires menu tunneling, slow tuner...
Summary: I purchased this TV for my bedroom, where I use it as a computer monitor as well. Tuning the picture with a test DVD really seemed to help and now the picture looks great in both dark and light environments. I don't use it because I have a surround sound system, but the audio quality from the TV itself is top-notch. The build quality of the unit seems to be great, and the fit and finish look good as well.
I only have 3 significant complaints. First, the stand is obviously where Samsung saved some $. It fits nice and looks ok, but is un-adjustable. Secondly the tuner is a little slow, with a mild screen blackout between channels. This isn't a major issue to me since I am using a HD cable box and it's tuner to control the channel changing. Lastly, to change the aspect ratio you have to tunnel 3 clicks deep into the menu system, make your change, and then make 3 clicks out to exit. It would have been nice to have a dedicated button on the remote to get right to it.
Overall, I would recommend this TV rather highly. It has a wonderful picture for the money, and its few flaws are not fatal by any means.Updated
One of my above complaints about this TV has been resolved by a 3rd party. Specifically the issue of having to tunnel through menus to get to the aspect ratio control. I have since programmed my universal remote (Kameleon) to work with the TV. The universal added the very key that I wanted on the OEM remote. Now I can change the aspect ratio with a single button. Big improvement... -
"One of the best 26" LCD TVs out there" on by BoxsterB
Pros: Sharp picture, fantastic design, and sounds great too
Cons: Wish there were HDMI inputs, remote is a little on the cheap side
Summary: How could you go wrong with a tv that has a 3000:1 contrast ratio (4000:1 on the new ones)
I wall mounted it and short of it sticking out too much, I can't find anything bad about this tv... I love mine! -
"Best Value for an Very High Quality HDTV." on by mamyint
Pros: Excellent Picture Quality, HDMI input + 2 component video inputs, stylish, very bright screen because of impressive 3000:1 contrast ratio
Cons: ONLY 1 HDMI port, not 1080p compatible.
Summary: I went to Best Buy a couple of months ago looking for an HDTV priced between $1000 and $1500. I was looking for something between 23 and 32 inches. Something that had an HDMI port, widescreen 16:9 aspect ratio, and LOTS of inputs.
After checking out all the TV's available, the choice came down to a Sony Bravia and this delightful Samsung model. I'm a HUGE Sony fan, but when the two models were side to side, there was no comparison. This Samsung model has its more expensive Sony rival beat with respect to image quality and brightness HANDS DOWN. It was also $300 cheaper...Hello Xbox 360...
I'm a college student and I wanted an HDTV for my room. This set is a wonderful value and in my honest opinion, it is one of the best models that can be found for about $1000. Honestly, if you want a good HDTV with a pretty respectably sized screen you're going to have to pay about a G. I looked at the 23 inch model of this TV and the 32 inch version, but settled on the 26 inch because it felt just right for my room.
My personal opinion is that if you're going to go with an HDTV 32" or bigger, you ought to get something that is 1080p compatible. What a shame though, at the time I purchased this TV, there were NO 1080p models on the market for less than $2000. Now I believe you can find a 1080p model of a very similar Samsung model for about $1800 MSRP?
What does that mean? It means this TV has probably dropped in price to around $1000. I paid $1300 with a 4 year warranty and I think I got a good deal.
Simply put: This TV is beautiful and for the money, the image quality is stellar. You can't even compare this TV to a CRT model because this TV takes up absolutely no space. It's like an inch and half thick AND VESA compliant so you can mount it to a wall or arm or whatever you want.
Check this TV out. Words don't do justice to describe how great I think this TV is. There are HDTV's with better specs, but I don't think there are any with better value.
BUY THIS HDTV!
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