Samsung HL-S4666W 46-Inch DLP HDTV
Please be gentle -- my first HDTV
This large HDTV from a reputable manufacturer came in at a price that made me wonder -- what's wrong? Is the screen made of Saran Wrap? Does the remote control periodically burst into flames when you attempt to change the channel to Lost?? Was the user interface created by Franz the Designer of the \\"more is better\\" school of design? <br /> <br />Nope. Pas de problem. Well, except for the remote control that I'm fairly certain was indeed designed by Franz. So, basically, this is TV that delivers a very high quality viewing experience, but has a mildly klunky interface (managed from the remote) for selecting inputs, adjusting the picture, etc.etc. More on that later. <br /> <br />Keeping in mind this is my first personal HDTV, and I'm mesmerized by the picture quality, I'm quite pleased. Easy to set up, oh, a big thing -- it is deceptively *light*, for all its size and apparent heft. I was able to get it out of the box, move it around and set it on its stand pretty easily by myself. By the way, I installed it on the same stand that had previously held a 27\\" tube TV. Not only did it fit laterally, but it was so much shallower than the tube TV that I was able to make cable connections behind the set with the greatest of ease! Score. <br /> <br />The set is bountifully supplied with inputs. I was able to connect my DVD to one of the component inputs with a few random RCA cables I found in an old file cabinet -- nice! Seemed to work just as well as the rather expensive specialized cabling I returned to Best Buy the next day.  <br /> <br />Samsung sez they use a *really* fast DLP chip,and a specialized digital signal processor that manages such things as motion, edge clarity, contrast and other visual elements.  <br /> <br />After watching many different kinds of video, I believe them. There's very little artifacting or blurring with fast motion on screen. Hues and saturation seem very lifelike, and there's essentially no flicker (at a proper viewing distance). I have it set up in a room where viewers are approximately 9-12 feet away, and that appears to be about right. The picture is bright. As an experiment, I manually turned up the brightness and contrast to 100%, at which point, it took less than 2 minutes to toast a cheese sandwich held with kitchen tongs a few inches in front of the screen. <br /> <br />The screen does take a few seconds to spin up to full brightness, but I do mean a *few* seconds. I have seen a few HDTVs where the extreme clarity of the image appeared almost unnatural, overly optimized, somehow unreal. To my eye, this set doesn't have that problem.  <br /> <br />My wife initially deemed this purchase a \\"grotesque and unnecessary acquisition\\", asking me to explain what was wrong with our old 13\\" tube set that had worked so loyally for us since 1936. Or so it seemed. Now, she actually watches TV. She basically *never* watched TV before except for Mariners games and public television pledge drives (don't ask), so I'm not sure whether this is a good thing, or whether I've somehow turned her to the dark side of passive entertainment.   <br /> <br />Overall, I'm giving this set a four because of a minor issues, primarily related to the complexity of using the remote to manage image appearance, aspect ratio, enable/disable features, etc. It seems to take about 5 \\"clicks\\" of various oddly located remote buttons to accomplish almost any task. For example, if I'm watching a DVD on component input 2, when the DVD is done, the simple act of switching back to input 1 to watch cable takes, let me see, press menu, select inputs, press the right arrow twice, press the up arrow once, press return. That's six \\"clicks\\"! Bad Franz, bad designer. I have trained my cell so I can say things like \\"Text\\" or \\"Home\\" and the phone immediately performs the sequence of actions that lets me (in this example) send a text message or call home. Why can't I do that with my TV remote?? If somebody made a decent voice programmable TV remote, I'dbuy it in a heartbeat. <br /> <br />OK, even with the bad ink I'm giving the interface, to me this isn't such a big deal. It's just that I'm a fan of good design and this remote is not good design. It makes it too complicated (and, thus, annoying!) to do things that are part and parcel of everyday viewing. <br /> <br />So -- a four. But -- I am still utterly mesmerized by the picture quality!! Oh, and the price.  <br /> <br /> <br />