Samsung LA46A550 - brought it home today

Hi All,

Got the Samsung LA46A550 today. Purchase price was 79,000 with free wall installation. I think I could have probably talked down another 1000 or so, but my wife was getting impatient and he sensed it....

Got a factory sealed box straight from the warehouse. Very nice TV, but a bit too bright and vibrant out of the box for my taste. I used some calibration settings I found on avsforum.com and tested it with 1080p rip of "Fifth Element" from my PC and the picture was simply astounding. But every one else felt that the picture was dull and made me reset it back to factory default of "movie" mode. Anyway, I plan to do my own calibration using a Spyder and the DVE calibration disc soon.

a) 1080p HDMI input from Philips upscaling DVD player - very nice from 8ft and farther.
b) 1080i Component input from LiteOn upscaling DVD player - very very nice (to my eyes this seemed better than the 1080p above. Maybe the LiteOn does a better job of upscaling than the Philips).
c)1080i HDMI from Canon HD camcorder - simply amazing. Now all our home movies are theater grade
d) 1920 x 1080 PC input from laptop - excellent. Really superb. I am now seriously considering getting the Samsung 32" FHD to replace my 23" HP as the main monitor for my work PC.
e) 1920 x 1080 HDMI input via HDMI from my PC's DVI port..... lets just say that I am completely satisfied with the purchase. No buyer's remorse here.

A few negatives:
- de-interlacing is not good, I could see zaggies. Good thing I only plan to feed it true HD from a dedicated HTPC.
- No tilt in the stand, only swivel. I would have preferred tilt instead of swivel as horizontal viewing angle is quite wide, but vertical viewing angle is good downwards but not upwards.
- Remote is too glossy, will be a fingerprint and grime magnet.
- Sound sucks.... real bad. Not something you expect in a 1 lakh TV

So that is all for now. I have taken my first step towards building my home theater. Next up is building the HTPC, sound proofing the room and, the most agonizing of all, assembling a good sound system Needless to say I will be a frequent visitor here in the coming months.

Thanks for all your help & advice (past & future).

Cheers
Teja

Attached Images

	DSCF4349c.jpg (13.4 KB, 156 views)
	DSCF4353c.jpg (10.5 KB, 149 views)

Congratulations Teja. Some times it is great fun to look at the sealed box of an expensive it for a few days before opening it.

Keep us informed of your progress in HTPC.

Cheers

congrats on ur purchace TEJA.


@venkatcr
LOL me too "it is great fun to look at the sealed box "

Great Teja, congrats

Iam also looking for it and got the price of 85k here in chandigarh, At 79k its a great buy. Please provide some more information on picture quality. Thanks in advance.

85K is a tad expensive - are you sure that's the absolute final price? Because 83K to 86K were the initial quotes I got on first enquiry. Upon prodding they usually drop it to 80K - 82K. And there are usually some free gifts (junk glassware or headphones or cheapo DVD player etc) and a free TataSky box. I rejected all those and insisted that I just wanted the price for only the LCD itself. I would say hunt around and visit as many dealers as you can. I am sure Chandigarh has better choice than my town. Ask the dealer if he will match my purchase price (no harm in asking), I can scan my receipt and send it you to show as proof.

As for PQ, I already posted my initial observations above. I want to let the set run-in for a couple of weeks at default factory settings before I start tweaking it. I do not expect to watch broadcast TV (satellite or otherwise) on this LCD so didn't pay too much attention to that. But I will tell you that the picture quality of some of the TataSky channels seemed really poor on this TV - on the flip side, some channels were really good too - especially the local Telugu channels. This LCD will be a dedicated screen for my HTPC (currently in planning stage) exclusively for watching movies and other wide-screen content, and in that respect the PQ is excellent. If I had to nitpick, I'd say I would want deeper blacks and less halo-ing (I keep the sharpness at or near 0 to minimise it).

I will post more impressions and maybe, time permitting, a complete review once I have had a chance to spend time with the unit and calibrate it to its optimal performance.

Cheers.

Congrats Teja.

Congrats Teja...tata sky not looking good is tata sky's fault, their channels are all badly compressed......you will notice that the least compressed images are on their own "Help Channel"

Hope you enjoy your really big screen experience

Congrats Teja. Have a blast with it.

Hi folks,

This is only to seek an information. Nothing related to tech stuff.
Mod - If its irrelevant do remove this post.

I just got a Samsung LA22A450.

Looking to write a complaint to the customer care head. Its apprx 15 days, no one turned up for installation/demo of the product. Samsung professionals did call couple of times, but never turned up.

Neverthless, i had myself done the installation. But i want to point the dereliction of duty on the part of samsung professionals.
(A "World Class Company" is what they advt, but even does not turn up
for the first step of installation/demo)!!!

Can anyone give me the email address for the customer care head? Calling customer care is only the first step. I want it to take it to the higher level.
Not worth-while to keep calling customer care professionals!!

(NOTE: Earlier i had problems with one of the banking institutions, and i mailed directly to the VP of the bank, and the next 5 minutes i got a call from bombay and issue was resolved in 2 days).

thanks

Hi folks,
Thanks.
The samsung pro came in today.
You can ignore my earlier post.