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| Samsung TV Review Samsung UN32EH5000 Reviews Samsung UN32EH5000 Reviews |
If you're anything like me you see that this TV is labeled as LED; then you look at the picture and see a lot of fat for the usual Samsung LED depth. Make no mistake this is an LED TV. I got this for my bedroom to replace my 23 inch Samsung Syncmaster. I use this TV mostly for 1080 mp4 movies and blurays (I download what I want to watch instead of waiting for it on cable), and my Xbox and PS3.
I learned 2 things about the TV right off the bat. If you have Comcast, you cannot fully customize the TV's picture. An essential feature called HDMI black levels actually looks much better when its set to low. I have 2 different Comcast HD boxes and since neither of them broadcast at 1080, this feature is locked out. Long story short, Comcast had me thinking I purchased my first dud from Samsung. Seriously, the colors look washed out and none of the channels really had that crisp clear picture I was hoping for. If you plan to use this solely for Comcast, I can't really recommend it. In fact, I've always found blu ray quality to be so much better than cable that I've stopped using cable for anything but football and cartoons. Movies MUST be in my PS3's blu ray player or my own 1080p files.
The second thing I learned about is what the depth is for. Samsung didn't advertise this (or maybe its just my TV), but I have absolutely NO BACKLIGHT BLEED. When Black Ops goes to the loading screen on my Xbox, it gets so dark that I think the TV is off! The only indication that it is on is the Black Ops logo in the corner spinning. There isn't even the SLIGHTEST inkling of white anywhere! I'm not exaggerating. The obvious second reason why this TV is fat for an LED is that Samsung made an effort to improve the sound. When I turn on the HD surround coupled with the movie option, there is much more bass than I thought it would be. THe explosions in my games and the soundtracks in movies sound vastly better than I thought they would. Granted, I am not the type to go out and spend 600 on some Bose speakers, but the sound is NOT a con for me this time around.
NOW ON TO THE PICTURE
As I said, I was not exactly thrilled with the picture RIGHT off the bat. It looked like my old 23 inch Syncmaster, just a lot bigger. Let me tell you, this is not one of those TV's that look great right out of the box. You have to toy around with the settings a bit to get the optimal picture. I wanted sharpness coupled with colors that pop like crazy.....and I got it. Dynamic is the brightest setting, but I coupled this with the HDMI black levels set to low (option not available for Comcast cable box) and voila, moving photographs! I'm not a pro but this is my setup:
Mode: Dynamic
Backlight: 18
Contrast: 85
Brightness: 50
Sharpness: 80
Color: 70
TInt: G/R 50/50
Standard color tone with screen fit in the additional options, with HDMI black level set to low.
My games and blurays look AMAZING. The picture is easily better than my mom's 46 inch Samsung up front. REMEMBER that some of the good options are cut off from Comcast and the use of component cables. In games, I do have to up the brightness or gamma a little, but it ends up looking BRILLIANT. I am going through my entire library of games and they feel like entirely new experiences! There is a 32 inch 720p option as well, but I just was not comfortable with 720p max. The new game consoles are gojng to have native 1080 so that's what I wanted. BTW did I mention I'm a big gamer?
THE CONS
Well I saw this TV up on Amazon before it was on Samsung's website. Yeah, WOW. Sometimes I wanted to see the TVs specs from Samsung directly before I made my buy. Make no mistake this is NOT a 120 HZ tv although it is labeled as one. I have no idea what clearmotion 120 is, but it makes my TV much darker. The feature is entirely useless and does nothing to the picture or add the "soap opera" effect like I had hoped (it looks great for games).
WITH A COMCAST CABLE BOX I could see no difference between HDMI and component. I kept switching back and fourth, but since the max output is 1080i, there were no differences in picture.
The last iteration of this TV had 4 HDMIs. What happened?
VERDICT
With a lot of tweaking, I got the picture to look beautiful. I will use my Comcast box sparingly, but I might move to FIOS if the support full 1080. Watching movies on my PS3 and playing games on my Xbox stopped me from returning the TV. I will not be surprised if this set gets bad reviews from Comcast users (even though Its not Samsung's fault). I'm a "videophile" and this passed my personal test with vibrant colors.
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