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★★☆☆☆
Great if you like flashlights
I never write reviews, but I am aways waiting for other peoples reviews, so I figured it was only fair that I start contributing. Especially since this is a new 2011 model and I am sure people are curious. This TV was replacing a 5 year old Philips Plasma. Picked up this TV a few weeks ago from Best Buy. Great picture. Good color and decent blacks for an edge lit LED. Great design also. The apps were cool, but my Blu-Ray player already has the same apps so that didn't interest me. I also have no interest in 3D, but most of the 2011 models all have it so it is what it is. The picture was crisp and as usual very bright with an edge lit LED and very easy to view in the daytime or in a brightly lit room. However, once the lights go out it's a different story. Let me preface the next few sentences by saying that I did my homework and knew that this could be a potential issue. I just wasn't expecting it to be this extreme. The lights emitted from all four corners and extended about 4 to 5 inches towards the middle of the screen. It was worse on the bottom than the top, but extremely noticeable in all corners. Watching a Blu-Ray with any type of black bars was almost impossible. It was also noticeable in any type of dark scene. Harry Potter and Sherlock Holmes were unwatchable. No matter how hard I tried, my eyes were drawn to the white torches in the corners. I tried adjusting the backlight down to zero which helped but it didn't get rid of it and created a very dark picture. Oh, and before someone tries to scold me for not knowing how to properly calibrate a TV, I didn't have it on the factory setting of Vivid or any other overly bright or unrealistic setting. Not to get off topic but I find it ridiculous that these places expect people to pay more money to have their $2000 plus TV professionally calibrated. For that kind of money, the service should come with it, but I guess that would be in a perfect world. Anyway, I was keeping the back light down along with the brightness because I didn't want an overly bright/washed out look. The backlight goes up to 20 and I had it at 10 before dropping it to zero. On a side note my wife didn't notice it at all until I pointed it out to her so maybe some people won't notice or they may not even care. If I am spending almost $2000 on a TV, I expect it to not have flaws like that. The viewing angle was pretty bad also, but I expected that from an edge lit LED so I don't count that against them. 5 inches of flash-lighting coming from the corners, that's a big strike. Called Samsung and they said to wait 3 or 4 weeks and the problem should "correct itself". Sure. Wait another few weeks until my return period runs out and I am stuck with it. I wasn't taking the chance on it going away because I've never heard of that going away and who knows if they would have even attempted to fix it. I am not trashing Samsung's customer service because I didn't have a chance to really work with them, but it seems to me that telling someone to wait 3 or 4 weeks to see if an issue goes away is not the best advice. I have read other reviews about this TV and other edge lit LED's so I know it can be a crap shoot. Some people get what I got, while others get a perfect panel and some other people get even worse ones. I didn't want to get into the hassle of returning sets until I got a good one so I will go with my original gut feeling and that was to get a Plasma. They both have their advantages, but as a current Plasma owner, I believe it is the superior technology. Just an opinion though. I just wanted to get this information about my experience with this TV out there since so many other people have been kind enough to put their reviews out there for me so I could make an educated decision over the last few years. Thank you for that.
May 2011 · Electronics