Samsung LNS3241D 32-Inch LCD HDTV
Appealing picture quality, watching HD programming is niiice
This is the first TV I've bought in a long long time, and I really wanted something that was fairly close to the cutting edge of technology. <br /> <br />We (my wife and I) choose this model from a retailer storefront after deciding on LCD over plasma (don't need anything too big as we're in a 1 bedroom apartment) and over rear projection TVs (too fuzzy) and finding this price point acceptable. After this decision, we filtered out models to Sharp, Sony and Samsung based on looking at the pictures in-store. We looked not only at this model but at other size LCD TVs of the various brands and found as a general trend that we preferred the picture quality of these brands. I also liked the feature list although it's not quite as nice as it seems... <br /> <br />Anyway, the best things about this are <br />-The PICTURE! It does look great to my eyes and although of course this is subjective, I've really enjoyed watching HD programming and DVDs on this unit. I've never watched so much TV before. <br />-The black finish, so pictures appear clearer and with better contrast (I don't see why TVs are made with silver frames, who cares if the TV looks good if it distracts from the brightness of the picture). <br />-The built-in stereo speakers are decent. <br />-Finally, I haven't noted any broken pixels (my pet gripe). <br /> <br />The only problem of note we've had: With certain operations from our cable box there is a slight delay can confuse the TV and you pretty much have to do nothing for a couple secs before the TV stabilises. You get a large grey square on the screen during this time. I think its due to switching between channels/sources that are HD/SD (it think it autodetects the signal and adjusts the picture accordingly, and when you change too quickly the TV can't keep up). <br /> <br />Other gripes (all fairly minor): <br />Some features are not as full-featured as you might imagine, but you can't really tell without reading the manual. For example: <br />1. Picture-in-Picture only works with different sources. You can't watch two channels from the same source using PiP. This makes the PiP feature close to useless for general TV viewing. (Fortunately, your cable box may have this feature anyway - mine does.) <br />2. The computer input is limited to a standard VGA connector, not DVI. (There are HDMI inputs, yes, but these are different sources and the manual specifically states that these HDMI inputs can't be used for computers.) <br />3. There is only one component video input. This is a bit limiting because all of your a/v devices (e.g. DVD player) might not have HDMI connections yet. If you want this level of video quality from say, both your DVD player and cable box you'd have to get yourself a component video switch (or unplug/re-plug 3 cables each time). When I first checked the specs on this model I didn't expect to be limited with connections. <br /> <br />Overall, a very worthwhile purchase. I hope the lamp life is good so I can keep this TV for many years to come.