Customer Reviews: Read 45 more reviews...
 Excellent TV for a good price May 1, 2008
Steven V. Viscido (North Carolina)
351 out of 353 found this review helpful
Pros: Outstanding, crisp HD picture; excllent color contrast; solid response time
Cons: Slight pixelation with poor quality SD signal
"After doing a huge amount of research, I finally settled on this set. I was actually interested in the slightly lower-priced Toshiba Regza, but every store in my area was out. While shopping around, I noticed that this Samsung in particular seemed to have a top-notch picture. Finally I decided to take the plunge 3 days ago, and I have not been disappointed at all. In the past I have had several issues with LCD TVs, which is why I had been hesitating up to now. I know these issues are on many people's minds, and so I will address each one:
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Motion Response
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First, and most important, is response time with fast motion. I am driven absolutely nuts if the TV can't "hold" the motion (that is, if the image smears, or fractures, when high speed elements are zooming across the screen). The element you are looking for in an LCD monitor that tells you about this is "response time", and you want something 8ms or below. I believe this TV is 6ms (the specs say this on Sammy's website, but several stores have it listed as 8ms). In any case, this TV "holds" the motion of even fast images extremely well. In the store, it held motion best of all comparably priced models, including the Sony Bravias around $1k, and the Sharps around the same price. When I got it home, I tested it out with Star Wars ep. 1 and the battle sequence from Narnia. Both looked outstanding using a regular DVD player with HDMI upconvert to 720p. You will not see ghosting issues with high def images.
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Color and contrast
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Color fidelity and contrast are also important to me, and LCDs have been known to have issues producing deep blacks and bright whites. This is not a problem for this set. It produces excellent color, and did so right out of the box with the factory pre-sets. I have not had to fiddle with it at all. I did try switching to "Cinema" mode, which has some nice characteristics, but even without that, everything looked amazing.
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Standard Def rendition
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Another major issue with LCDTVs and monitors is that anything not displayed at the native resolution tends to look blurred or "fractured". I was very concerned about this because I have lots of old DVDs of shows like Seinfeld and the Simpsons, which I know were never broadcast in HD. Also many TV stations have not yet made the switch (though most have). Here the TV was about as good as I have seen, though it is not perfect. The good news is that upconverted SD sources like the Seinfeld DVDs look excellent -- every bit as good as on a regular TV, if not better. The bad news is that your VHS tapes are going to look blurry and pixelated on a set like this. I don't have a lot of VHS tapes left, and so this isn't a huge deal. Regular SD sources with this set vary in quality. For example, the SD version of Animal Planet had a special on the other night that almost looked HD. At the same time, flip channels to CNN, and it looks terrible. I suspect this is the broadcast quality and NOT the set... otherwise all channels would look awful in SD. So when you get a nice SD source being broadcast, it looks fine.
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I would highly recommend this set. After connecting my HD cable box today and watching things like CSI:Miami, Vegas, and Miss Congeniality, all in widescreen HD, I can say that I am totally blown away by this set's HD performance. I don't think you'll be able to find a better HD TV set for the price."
Samsung 4 Series 32" HDTV - Good value & good quality April 13, 2008
Ed Hill (Atlanta GA)
98 out of 101 found this review helpful
Good image quality watching local HDTV stations, DVD movies and video games. This 32" LCD HDTV has 3 HDMI inputs, S video, composite video in, component video in and optical audio out.
The HDTV is easy to set up, with an automated feature that finds all the HDTV channels on air or your local cable. The black levels and contrast are quite good. This screen features 720P progressive scan.
The remote and menu software are well designed, so that you don't have to go too deep into the menu to adjust settings. The prices in Atlanta area ranged from $800 at Fryes Electronics to $712 at HH Gregg. Prices online appear to range from $700 to $1000.
Since the Samsung 400 series was launched in March 2008 this is quite a range of prices. The Samsung 4 series is intended as Samsung's value line, compared to the more upmarket Samsung 5 series. However, this monitor seems to have better picture quality than some of the other 32" LCD TV's we reviewed in the $800-900 range. This price and quality makes the Samsung 4 series a good value for the dollar.
Amaze-on! June 4, 2008
Croft (Philadelphia, PA USA)
43 out of 43 found this review helpful
First of all I'd like to say that Amazon provides absolutely spectacular service.
I ordered this TV late on Thursday night and was already watching it on Monday. Amazing Amazon! The delivery company that they've used was CEVA, and I'd like to say "thank you" for the stellar and courteous service.
This TV is truly a gem. Number and variety of connections is very versatile and conveniently located. PC connection and USB port is a cherry on top. Picture is magnificent right out of the box, gorgeous deep blacks. Color accuracy is commanding, as well as video processing.
I was also pleasantly surprised by its performance on Standard Definition channels.
Remote control is feature rich and among other things has a hot key for 4 available aspect ratios.
I am very impressed with the speakers (which you can hardly see) that produce very respectable and clear sound.
Initial setup is a breeze, no need for late night TV Manual reading, just turn the TV on and follow simple screens.
TV and the tabletop mount come separately. Putting it together takes under 10 minutes, you'll need a long thin philips screwdriver and 4 provided screws. The single leg mount is very slick and easily swivels side to side.
For wall mounting - the back of the TV is a standard VESA 200x200mm, so it is compatible with a vast majority of mounts.
So far I am very impressed and would recommend both the product and the seller (Amazon) to anyone.
Thank you!
Nice addition for a small room June 4, 2008
PB Addict (Indianapolis, IN USA)
23 out of 23 found this review helpful
We bought this to replace our 27", 20 year old, 125 lb Sony in our bedroom. While the Sony still had great color, we have just purchased a bedroom wall unit with an "entertainment top" that needed a television that was around 33" wide and not very deep, not to mention the desire to upgrade to HD.
The first joy is the Samsung weighs less than 40 pounds in its packing box, about the same as the cat litter I haul home. Out of the box it's under 30 lbs and very easy to move around. The stand was easy to put on and holds the unit very stable.
Per the performance, absolutely agree with the descriptions in the other reviews (We've hooked it up to a DirecTV HD DVR via an HDMI cable). Great viewing and since we are less than 10' away from the screen 720p is fine. One of the advantages of the 450 series (32" and 37") over the 330 when it comes to the entertainment center is the speakers on the 330 are on the sides of the monitor and make the unit wider. The 450 has the speaker under the unit. We could have gone for the 37" in the entertainment unit, but since this is a secondary TV and the 32" was on sale (Best Buy for $750) we went smaller.
Great little television (our primary unit is a 56" Samsumg 1080p), especially where space is a consideration.
Great Product, Great Delivery, Great Price, Great Warranty July 6, 2008
amanooensis (Flyover Country)
15 out of 15 found this review helpful
The Samsung LN32A450 delivers on its promises of brightness, color depth and accuracy, wide viewing angles, flexible connection options, and more. When you read the manual, and look through the setup screens, you'll find an amazing range of adjustments to the picture quality, operation, and features that should suit any application or personal taste.
I chose this model instead of the entry-level LN32A330, which has lower contrast and speed specs, and fewer connection options, but costs nearly as much (at the current Amazon price, anyway). What a great decision this has turned out to be.
I'll get to the viewing experience, but I have to comment on the Amazon "white glove" delivery via CEVA logistics, because I felt it was a big unknown factor when I ordered. Well, it was relatively painless to schedule -- and like other reviewers, the package moved much faster than originally predicted. On the appointed day, the delivery guy came to our home, carried the box inside, unpacked it and set it up. He'd have done all the work of hooking it up, if I had let him. Wow.
Speaking of hooking it up, I am very glad to have 3 HDMI inputs, since I've already got two of them in use and may want expansion options in the future. It has a full range of connection options on the side of the set, as well as the main bank of connectors on the back panel. I've already found the side connectors handy for plugging in a camcorder, etc.
You can connect legacy devices via regular RCA or S-video jacks, or even by the coax connector (whose main purpose would be for a cable box or over-the-air antenna). Other reviewers here have discussed the over-air reception of regular or HDTV; I haven't tried it yet.
I have an upconverting DVD player that puts out 720p from a conventional DVD, and when hooked up to this set, with a widescreen movie, the result is fantastic. Watching HD channels on cable TV is good -- I'm still getting over the "Wow" effect after upgrading from an old TV, so I'm slowly becoming pickier. But not about the TV.
My concern now is whether the cable signal is really giving me everything the set can handle. There are motion artifacts on cable TV shows that I do *not* see from DVDs, for example, which is why I blame the signal source, and not this set.
I have to say, the built-in speakers are pretty wimpy compared to our old TV, but it's not enough of a factor, for my purposes, to take off points for that. I generally watch movies through the stereo, and for regular TV shows the internal speakers are adequate. The set can feed other devices through audio-out connectors, including external amplifiers and speakers. This is just one more example of the amazing connectivity of this set.
Thanks to Amazon's 30-day price guarantee, I'm pretty sure that I could not have bought this elsewhere for less money, and certainly not with the level of confidence and customer support that I get here.
One last issue that is often overlooked. This TV comes with a one-year warranty on everything, not just parts. On the 32-inch model, the service is *in your home*, not carry-in. And if you use the right credit card, you can double that warranty to two full years. Many/most competing TV sets do not offer that kind of confidence in their products.
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