Samsung SPR4232 42-Inch Flat Panel EDTV Plasma TV
Great Deal, Some Flaws though
I've had this TV for about 2 months now and I'm very satisfied.  <br /> <br />I'm not an audiophile, so the sound/speakers make little difference to me.  Regardless, to my ears, shows that are broadcast in HD/stereo sound very good when the volume is raised.   <br /> <br />This is not a TV on which to watch analog programming, and even digital cable doesn't do the HD capability of the set justice.  The only way to judge the picture quality of this set is with an HD signal.  Sports look the best, most notably football and basketball, and baseball (ultimate fighting and boxing are decent too).  Nature shows also look great -- especially red rock mountains or grassy plains.  Lakes and underwater scenes tend to get some banding around the edges, but some tinkering with the contrast can help.  TV shows (like sitcoms and crime dramas) broadcast in HD are usually decent, but skin tones are often flat.  However, I've learned that some such issues seem occur more often when a scene was filmed using low lighting, odd camera angles, or extreme close-ups.   <br /> <br />This TV is also good for viewing movies, and since most DVD players currenlty only output 480 lines of resolution, nothing is lost since that's all this set displays.   <br /> <br />There are a few presets on the remote control for color and sound and a bit of tinkering on each often yields better results depending on what you're watching.  The onscreen menus are easy to navigate for the most part, but the color adjustment submenu is clumsy and painful: whether using the \\"easy\\" mode or the advanced mode, you only get a static picture to look at when adjusting the color -- the normal show that you are watching goes away when you are adjusting the color. <br /> <br />The PIP feature is there, but cannot be initiated in the normal TV or antenna mode -- it must be initiated from another mode such as DVD.  And though the remote control provides a \\"shortcut\\" button underneath a sliding panel (on the remote) it only turns on PIP and does not move it around or swap it with the main picture.  To do that you have to go through 3 menu levels! <br /> <br />I opted to get a cable card from my cable provider, so it's nice not to have a set top box. There are a couple of problems with the cable card integration, though.  When my cable provider resets the cable card (and I'm not sure why or how often this is done) my channel list is reset and those channels that I have manually removed through the menu \\"reappear\\".  Since this amounts to several hundred channels being \\"put back\\" on the list, I've only taken the time to do this twice -- I couldn't spare the 45 minutes to remove those channels a third time. Also, when using the cable card, you cannot rename the channels as you can do in antenna or normal cable mode.   <br /> <br />There are some other issues that I cannot remember at the moment, but are mostly minor.  And overall, most of the issues that I detailed about this TV are indeed minor.  The thing to take away from this review is that, overall, this is a very good TV at a very good price.  It's a pleasure and a dream to watch, especially programs that are broadcast in HD.  If you're going to sit close enough to a TV to see the pixels, neither this nor any large screen will make you happy.  If will be sitting a reasonable distance away from the set, say at least 8 to 10 feet, then this is a fine choice.  In fact, even though it's ED, not HD, I doubt I'll ever know the difference.