PLEASE READ POST NO 64 BELOW BEFORE ANY DECISION MAKING ON THE TV IN DISCUSSION.
I'm sorry I don't have the time right now to post a detailed report/review. Thus for now I am posting my initial observations. In any case I don't have time to watch the TV enough to be able to do justice to a detailed and indepth review.
First of all let me explain why I chose this over the Panasonic 50" V20. The TV I bought is not intended as my primary display for critical viewing, i.e. I don't intend to watch any movies (Blu-rays or DVDs) or any special events available in HD on it, for that I use my projector. This TV will be relegated to being used only for watching regular TV and some PS3 gaming at most. Therefore spending Rs. 42,000 (60%) more to get the V20, seemed like a waste of money. Having read about how good the Samsung 50" B550 from last year was, I spent a lot of effort to track down a store that had this in stock. Honestly speaking, in a few minutes of watching the TV with a couple of Blu-rays and some programming from 'Sun Direct HD' my mind was immediately made up to buy the C550.
Brief 'initial' impressions/observations of the PS50C550:
Price: MRP Rs. 85,000 | DP Rs. 80,000 | Retail Rs. 69,500 (Paid Rs 550 for transportation from Delhi to Gurgaon, to have the TV delivered right away) Thus total cost for me Rs. 70,500.
Looks: The TV is simple and elegant, with a black frame. Although I would have preferred a matte finish, the glossy finish is not as bad as some other TVs with Piano black finishes. In fact with lights out, the frame totally dissapears, leaving only the picture in view.
Screen: A deep dark grey with very low reflectivity compared to most plasmas. This is one of the things that I am very picky about and even I am satisfied and with no complaints in this regard. In normal conditions with average room lighting, one would be hard pressed to see any reflections at all with the TV on. Even with the TV off, there are very little reflections. In comparison, my old Philips CRT rear projection TV had atleast 'FIVE' times more reflections.
Inputs/Outputs: Ample set of inputs. 3+1 HDMI, 2 Component, 1+1 Composite, 1 Optical out, 1 audio out for an external set of speakers, 2 USB, 1 LAN. The TV senses signals input into the connections and only those inputs that have an active signal are displayed in the 'Source' menu. Very, very convenient.
GUI: One of the best in the industry. Very intuitive and easy to navigate.
Settings: A very in depth level of picture and audio controls available, allowing for quite a bit of fine tuning.
Audio: Not anywhere comparable to my old Philips 55" CRT rear projection TV. But definately quite decent in comparison to all the LCDs I have heard so far and comparable to most Plasmas. In any case I have found a reasonable solution for decent audio. Samsung has a Soundbar with a wireless active sub-woofer, capable of decoding Dolby Digital and which produces a reasonably decent enough sound for regular TV viewing. The price is MRP Rs. 17,000.
Video: The picture quality ranges from very very good to moderate, depending on the source and type of picture. The blacks are maybe not as good as the Panasonics, but they are definately better than most, if not all LCDs that I have seen. For watching HD material, the TV is a no brainer and even with SD material the picture looks quite satisfactory. But truth be told, I don't expect much from SD TV available via DTH operators in India anyhow.
Remote: Very nice and intuitive layout of buttons and lot's of function specific buttons available on the remote.
Extras: DLNA compatible. Streams media from PC via networking. WiFi compatible. USB input supports media playback.
Nice surprise: TV does not lock into the 16:9 (Full) mode even with HDMI input and or HD signals. A feature that is extremely useful when you have technically challenged companies such as 'Dish TruHD', who lock the aspect ratio of the output signal on their boxes to 16:9, even on the regular 4:3 SD channels. Thus if your TV locks into the 16:9 (Full) aspect ratio, which many many HD TVs do, you are stuck watching a distorted squished picture due to the incorrect aspect ratio.
Overall: Excellent value for money. Specially considering that you would have to pay substantially higher for the Panasonic V20 plasma.
My recomendation:
HIGHLY Recommended. Specially if budget is limited. Personally I think, that it makes far more sense to buy this for only Rs 5,000 more than buying the Panasonic 42" V20. The wow factor from the extra 8" on the Samsung 50" C550, is far greater than the benefits of the higher black levels and or picture quality of the Panasonic 42" V20.
Negatives: The only negative issue that has stood out so far, is that I noticed quite a bit of 'image retention' issues, but they seemed to be gradually reducing with usage time. I believe this is normal and is part of the run in process that lasts for approx 100 - 150 hrs.
Note: Avoid the ugly 'Dynamic' preset like the plague. The 'Movie' preset provides the most natural looking picture and color tones. Based on my brief experience, I would recommend that one use the 'Movie' preset as the starting point and then further fine tune the TVs picture settings from there.
PS: I checked for any unusual 'buzzing' sounds from the panel, but for the life me I cannot hear anything from up close, far off, to the right, to the left, in the front or from the back of the TV. Yes, I turned of everything that made any noise in the room, including the airconditioning.
