Lcd & Flat Panel Televisions

Compare Prices and Read Reviews on Samsung LN-S4041D 40 in. HDTV LCD TV Great Set! I have been looking at HDTV's a lot lately and finally came to the conclusion that I wanted an lcd, primarily because of the low maintenance...

Compare Prices and Read Reviews on Samsung LN-S4692D 46 in. HDTV LCD TV I Should be Watching my new Samsung Like I said above, I should be watching my Samsung LN-S4692D instead of writing this review. I purchased the set through Amazon and recei...

The short version:

Great LCD TV for watching movies! A little ghost-y sometimes, non-HD (or ED) programming looks kind ugly, but the picture quality is great; the unit is pretty; easy as pie to set up myself. Good price makes this a great value!

The Tolstoy version:

For some time I’d been wanting to get rid of our old, bulky, ugly television. When it started to develop a red spot on the right side of the screen, I started doing my DreamTV homework. I’d wanted to buy a flat TV for years. It was part of my five-year-plan after grad school. (No, really!)

Our existing TV was heavy (200 lbs; no joke!); old, ugly & huge (early 1990s CRT); developing a red spot; intermittent crackling speakers; and a handmedown from somebody’s parents. I did a lot of my research in November and December 2006. My simple requirements were (in no particular order):

1) light (not heavy),

2) good picture,

3) good sound, and

4) good price

Most of the tube options out there did not pass the first requirement. I live on the top floor of a 3-floor building with no elevator. Anything that requires two people to carry up two flights of stairs is too heavy. I was aiming for a TV in the 30″ range that weighed at or under 100 lbs. All the tube TVs I found (CRT & DLP) were out because of that.

With tubes out, the question became, “LCD or plasma?” There are pros and cons for both. In the end, it came down to a matter of power consumption. If you ever go into a store, hold your hand over a plasma TV that’s been on for a while. They get (and stay) awfully hot! For the same size (42″), an LCD TV consumes 50% less power than a plasma TV! (According to specs that could be found on manufacturer websites. In one case, it was 60% less!) That’s important to me and my wallet! (And to some rainbow treefrogs somewhere, too, I suppose.)

Once I had a size range (about 30-36″) and technology (LCD) in mind, the number of options available became more manageable. Next on my list was picture quality. With an LCD, that generally means three things: resolution, latency, and contrast ratio. Resolution in LCDs is often going to be tied to screen size; almost every LCD I examined in the 30-36″ range boasted a resolution that put it in the HD range (>720p), which is more than I really need (I don’t have HD cable) but, man, watching DVDs over the component feed is a completely different experience!

Latency is the time needed for a pixel to change from white to black or vice versa. LCDs with higher latency often suffer from “ghosting,” an effect where the leading white (or black) edges of an image seem to linger and fade on the screen for a split second before changing. Imagine the rolling credits at the end of a movie - white text on a black background. On a non-LCD monitor, the letters are fully formed and all edges (top & bottom) move together at the same speed making the lettering clear and unsmudged. On an LCD with a higher latency, you would see trails below the credits. (Higher latency, longer trails.) The moral of the story is a lower latency rating is desirable. The Samsung LN-S3251 has a latency of 8ms. Respectable, but not great. In practice, this means there are some ghosting effects, but none so dramatic that I can’t igore or grow accustomed to them. Lower (”better”) latency often translates into higher price.

The third quality for pictures, and this is arguably the most important for LCDs, is contrast ratio. In a nutshell, you want the highest contrast ratio you can get. The larger the contrast ratio is, the deeper the blacks will seem. A poor contrast ratio will mean the image seems washed out, difficult to see in a bright room. The LN-S3251D has a great contrast ratio of 4000:1. Higher contrast ratio often equates to higher price.

The sound quality of the built-in speakers is quite good, I think. I’m not an audiophile and don’t have a home theater system, though. Nonetheless, the sound maintains its quality without distorting noticably even when I have the volume up high.

And lastly, PRICE. There are a number of respectable electronics companies that manufacture and sell LCD TVs of the size, resolution, and quality that I was interested in. Some were cheaper (I think LG had a model of similar specs at a lower price), but many were more expensive ($200-$500 more). I probably could have saved another $200 off the end sale price ($1250, incld. tax & 3-yr in-store warranty) if I’d bought from Amazon or another online retailer. But I wanted it NOW and I wanted to be able to take it back immediately (and deal with a human) in case something went wrong.

There have only been two quirks that I’ve had to adjust to. One has to do with the power on/off time. When you turn the TV on (out of standby), it takes a couple of seconds to actually turn on. There’s a red power indicator LED that blinks as it’s coming up, but there is a delay (maybe 1.5-2 sec) that can disturb the unprepared. (And the TV makes a neat bleedeeDeeBLOOP! noise when it actually turns on, and a BLEEDEEDeebloop! noise when it turns off.)

The second has to do with the remote control. I still haven’t been able to figure out how to program it to control my cable box or DVD player. But whatever. If I care that much, I’ll buy a universal remote.

The bottom line is this: The Samsung LN-3251D is a superb LCD TV at a good price making it a great value. If you’re considering a TV of this size and in this price range, you can’t go wrong with this one.

Sources of information quoted in this review: (no HTML for you, for some reason)

http://www.samsung.com/Products/TV/LCDTV/LNS3251DXXAA.asp?page=Specifications

http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-LNS3251D-Wide-Integrated-Tuner/dp/B000ELSY0I/sr=8-1/qid=1171317735/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-5935016-9548955?ie=UTF8&s=electronics

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