Samsung UN55ES6500

Pros: + Picture is beautiful
+ Sound is good enough for TV speakers
+ 3D feature is good
+ Web browser is awesome

Cons: - Stand is ugly

Summary: I have many Samsung products, including a 40 inch LCD TV which has served me well for six years. Hubby has been wanting a larger TV for our living room and has coveted a Smart TV. We decided on this one. He wanted 55 inch; I thought that was too big. I went along with it. We bought the 55 inch model of this TV. I still think it's a bit too big for the room, but I'm getting used to it. Shipping was fast and flawless, as usual. The picture is beautiful. Is it a whole lot better than the picture on our 40 inch LCD? It's better, I'll say that, but not incredibly better (both are very good). The sound is good enough for TV speakers.

The Smart Hub? Ugh. I can see that we'll never use it. (to be fair, I really didn't think we would). We have a Samsung Blu-Ray DVD player as well as a ROKU. There's not one app that we'd actually use on this Smart Hub that we can't already access via said Blu-Ray player or the ROKU. I'd never use a TV for Skype or web browsing, at least not this one. Too time consuming and clumsy when I have my very fast desktop sitting ten feet away. But, I digress....

That firmware upgrade took away the option of choosing the type of picture you want and changed it to "dynamic", which is not what I want and is not able to be changed.

I immediately took to the Samsung Support page on Facebook (a wonderful and responsive page, by the way) and asked for an explanation. They answered within minutes and acknowledged that the functionality to select picture mode was indeed taken away with the firmware upgrade. They said they would escalate it to their tech folks. I'm still waiting to hear something about it, but I fear I'm stuck with it as the firmware upgrades cannot be undone. Maybe the next upgrade will fix it. In the meantime, the picture is still very good, but I'm a bit ticked about the picture mode decision being made for me.

The stand is ugly. Our old LCD had a beautiful, oval stand. I question who designed this four-pronged stand, but that's not a huge deal. The TV is so thin. I'm amazed by this! Hard to believe they fit all the "stuff" in there!

So all in all, if I had it to do over again, I'd skip the SMART TV function, skip the 3D (another concession to hubby--I can't watch 3D--it gives me a headache), and get a regular non-smart LED TV, then tweak the settings to my liking and wait to install ANY firmware upgrades until they are fully vetted by others and I am sure they won't screw anything up. (The same way I won't let Chase Mobile Banking app automatically install upgrades on my android phone until a week or two has gone by and I check the reviews!) Then, by all means, hook up the Blu-Ray and the ROKU, and if you must stream something from your laptop, just hook that up to the TV via the HDMI port. Save yourself the extra money.

*Note, for low price guarantee of this TV, I suggest check at: ledhdtvs-discount.blogspot.com/p/samsung-un55es6500.html

This was an uncharacteristically impulsive buy for me. Thus the buyer remorse. Don't make the same mistake.