Which Samsung do I pick?

[Gibson486]

LN46B650 (normal LCD) vs UN46B6000 (LED backlight)....

They are both the same price (1299).

I saw them side to side....pictures are pretty close. LED back light did make things a little brighter.

LED is still new and some people complain about uniformity....I did not see that problem when I saw it in person.

Open to other suggestions as well. I looked at Plasmas at Best Buy...i was not impressed. They do not seem as sharp as LCD's, but I am willing to give it the benefit of the doubt since I believe that Best Buy just opens the box and does not bother adjusting the TV.

We also saw a 47" Toshiba Regenza 47zv650u. That would be our 3rd choice, but only because i did not like the Pannys. Oh...and the insignia brand did not look bad at all.

 

[Wreckem]

The LED model is edge lit so while its "LED lit" it doesn't get the full benefit of LED technology.

Quality plasmas have better picture quality and much better black levels. They have to be calibrated properly though which Best Buys doesn't do on their floor models. The Samsung PN50B550, which is a pretty good plasma, is a steal at $950. Keep in mind plasma sets have their quirks, they buzz and have issues with image retention and burn in but have gotten better at both.

If you are set on a LCD and are not concerned with space, Id say get the Samsung LN55B640. Search is on Bestbuy.com its $1499.00.

 

[Gibson486]

The LED model is edge lit so while its "LED lit" it doesn't get the full benefit of LED technology.

Quality plasmas have better picture quality and much better black levels. They have to be calibrated properly though which Best Buys doesn't do on their floor models. The Samsung PN50B550, which is a pretty good plasma, is a steal at $950. Keep in mind plasma sets have their quirks, they buzz and have issues with image retention and burn in but have gotten better at both.

If you are set on a LCD and are not concerned with space, Id say get the Samsung LN55B640. Search is on Bestbuy.com its $1499.00.

These prices are falling like rocks. I would splurge for a 55" one, but when the TV gets to big, it does not look as good because I would be sitting too close. I think 46" is the max.

When I go best buy, all the plasma look really dim and the images do not look sharp at all....it looks like pixels are really big.

 

[Wreckem]

These prices are falling like rocks. I would splurge for a 55" one, but when the TV gets to big, it does not look as good because I would be sitting too close. I think 46" is the max.

When I go best buy, all the plasma look really dim and the images do not look sharp at all....it looks like pixels are really big.

How big of room? 55-58" look great at 10-12' away.

Like I said it depends on the quality of the plasma set. Forget about LG's. Panasonic and Samsung make some quality plasmas. Samsung and Panasonic have better looking TVs at most price points when compared to LCDs. LCDs look good out of the box, typically plasmas need a lot of calibration to get them fine tuned.

 

[kalrith]

LN46B650 (normal LCD) vs UN46B6000 (LED backlight)....

They are both the same price (1299).

I saw them side to side....pictures are pretty close. LED back light did make things a little brighter.

LED is still new and some people complain about uniformity....I did not see that problem when I saw it in person.

Open to other suggestions as well. I looked at Plasmas at Best Buy...i was not impressed. They do not seem as sharp as LCD's, but I am willing to give it the benefit of the doubt since I believe that Best Buy just opens the box and does not bother adjusting the TV.

We also saw a 47" Toshiba Regenza 47zv650u. That would be our 3rd choice, but only because i did not like the Pannys. Oh...and the insignia brand did not look bad at all.

I bolded the problematic comparison here. One problem is that the Best Buy source is often total crap and will not show which TV is the best. Another problem with comparing TVs at Best Buy is that they're all in "torch" mode. This means extremely high brightness and contrast. There are two reasons for this. One is that they have to compete with the bright lights of the store. The other is that studies have shown that when comparing two TVs, people will almost always conclude that the brighter TV is better.

Therein lies the big draw to LCDs. People compare them to a plasma and the LCD looks "sharper" and has more "pop," whereas the plasma looks "dim." Neither the LCD nor the plasma will be run at max brightness in your home (unless you want a horrible picture and want to go blind), so the fact that LCDs have a higher max brightness is moot in your home, but makes them seem better at Best Buy.

If you want a valid comparison, try to audition some different plasmas and LCDs in a better setting. This would be a quality local place or a Magnolia Theater at Best Buy. You want the lighting to be close to what your TV room will be at home. You want to look at only one TV at a time (i.e. don't compare two side-by-side). You want a quality source like a BD. You want to ask them for a remote so that you can change it to movie or cinema mode. While that mode won't be perfect, it will be leaps and bounds better than "torch" mode and good enough for a comparison between the two.

Or you can do like I did and read a ton of professional reviews on different TV models. I did that and chose my Pioneer 5080 even though I didn't like the way it looked in the store. It was on a brightly lit wall of TVs at Best Buy getting a horrible feed (lots of artifacts, etc.). I just knew that the TV had to be good from all the rave it got from professional reviewers, and they were spot on. I've been loving my TV for 2 years, and that's not going to change any time soon.

Here's a side note. I've heard for years that Best Buy always had their TVs in "torch" mode, but I wasn't completely certain if that was how it came from the factory or if they set them that way. I just bought a 32" 1080p TV to use as my computer monitor. When I first turned it on, it asked if the display was for home use or store use. So, any store that gets the TV would just select store use, which translates into "torch" mode.

 

[Gibson486]

Yeah, I thought it had to do with how best buy did the set up. Also, the source is pretty bad. When you go to a Sony store, all the TVs are eye popping. When I go to Best Buy, the same TV's look horrible. I want to give plasma a 2nd chance because the 120Hz looks a little to unreal sometimes. There really is no place to look at TVs now, though. There is the place in Jordan's Furniture, but that place is a joke.