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2/11/04: I initially added this review (in late Nov. '04) under the wrong TV model (HL-P4674W). I deleted it a few days later when someone pointed out my mistake, but didn't find the correct model until now (two months later!). Sorry about the confusion!
Our television has continued to perform beautifully with no problems (knock on wood!) whatsoever. In other good news, our cable provider (Adelphia) like so many others has continued to expand upon their HD offerings (notably adding PBS! Yipee!).
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HDTV: here we come
After spending last holiday season admiring my brother's new Sony rear-projection big screen in all it's high-definition glory, my husband and I hotly anticipated making the jump to HDTV. And of course, why buy a new TV if it's not at least twice the size of the old, my husband asserted? So with our new house shaping up and the living room complete, save for a really big TV, we began shopping.
Shopping begins online: rear projection takes an early lead
We wanted a big--bigger than 40"--television. Because we're not buying pricey plasma (for it to die in 5 years) and we're not taking out a second mortgage to buy an LCD, we knew we were headed toward projection TVs. (About rear-projection TVs: http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-6463_7-5023901-4.html?tag=prmo1.)
From my reviewing a couple articles, it seemed CRT projections still very much had their place, and their lower prices certainly were attractive. Unlike my brother, however, our big screen wouldn't be in an easily light-controlled basement, nor a room in which it could take up as much space as it liked. Rather, it would be in our rather bright living room, the layout of which also demanded a wider viewing angle than many CRTs provide. We were definitely headed toward the more expensive, lighter, brighter, smaller, and wider-viewing-angled LCD and DLP projection TVs.
My spouse was quite eager to do much of the pre-store research, and I was more than happy to let him. He poured over CNET's TV buyer's guide, read articles, and checked discussion boards; the research definitely was worth it, but there are a lot of hotly debated issues, so it was still up to us to go and stare at TVs for a couple hours to really make a decision.
Shopping hits the street: Best Buy
When we finally hit up Best Buy, our three main contenders became the Samsung 50" version of the TV we got, the Mitsubishi WD-52525 and the Sony KF50WE610. (We were initially shopping for the larger TVs.) The Sony is an LCD projection, and the Samsung & Mitsubishi DLP projections. (For the pros and cons between the LCD and DLP, I'll refer to CNET again: http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-8900_7-5122462.html.) There are some Toshibas, RCAs, and LGs which we probably would have considered if we hadn't already started leaning toward the Samsung (and if Best Buy had had more of them on display when we went).
The Mitsubishi immediately had an unfortunate problem: a shiny screen protector that created a lot of glare. We've since read online about how many people do view this as a bonus: especially people with kids. Supposedly, this protector has some great qualities (blocking certain light colors to get a truer picture, etc), but we were too distracted to notice. If we were putting this in a home theater, with easy to control lighting, it would have been a stronger contender. For our purposes, however, the glare was too much and the Mitsubishi was the first to go off our short list.
Left to battle with the Samsung was the Sony LCD rear projection. In its favor was a good Best Buy sale price of nearly $500 less than the Samsung. Additionally, our first sales guy (or sales kid, as the case may be!) was completely enamored of the Sony. He claimed it was the best deal in the store and a great TV. It was very sharp, and I felt for a moment that text seemed crisper than on the Samsung, but a lot of edges of shapes (there were jelly fish swimming when we were looking at them) definitely seemed sharper on the Samsung. In the end, they both seemed equally sharp. The main thing we couldn't get past were the grays that were supposed to be blacks on the Sony. When our sales kid asserted the Sony had better blacks, when they clearly weren't, we opted to call it a day and return to shopping later.
We started up again at a different Best Buy in order to check out a larger variety of options. Frustratingly, the Samsung there was not hooked up particularly well, was not on an HD channel, and was showing a fair amount of static in the signal. We took this opportunity to check out a few of the other televisions, but kept returning to the Samsung, even in its miserable, static-y state. The Sony here was set up better at this store, but despite this additional help, the "blacks" were still gray.
About now is when all the discussion board information my husband had read pushed us over the edge in making a decision. The true blacks, excellent brightness, and the pure beauty of the picture we had seen before coupled with our online reading pushed us toward the Samsung. Another tidbit from online: supposedly, the DLP doesn't suffer from burn-in, like its CRT counterparts (supposedly doesn't, but it still seems controversial in online discussions, so I don't want to say this definitively).
(As an aside: we did hit a couple of other electronics stores, but in the end, went with Best Buy because of their financing; we wanted the ease-of-returns and a service policy available from brick-and-mortar stores.)
Decision '04: Samsung
We opted on the Samsung and chose to save a few hundred dollars (not much really, considering the price of the TV) by going with the 46" instead of the 50". We applied this savings to a Best Buy extended warranty for two reasons 1) we were spending a lot of money and we want someone to come to us to repair it if necessary and 2) we've read a lot of horror stories of the bulb burning out 60 days into ownership (returns only possible for 30) and they're a couple hundred to replace. The four-year warranty covers bulb replacements within that time and thus would pay for itself should the bulb blow.
Our new sales guy was much more helpful than our previous sales "kid" and nicely but firmly recommended high-quality connectors for the cable (which we had read were well worth it) and a fancy-schmancy surge-suppressor that cost $80. Being as we were spending SEVERAL THOUSAND on a TV, I was more than willing to take an $80 add-on with little questioning. From what we've since read, a high-quality surge suppressor is a good idea and it should be replaced every two years (additionally, these surge suppressors come with their own warranty which could potentially replace your TV if an electrical surge caused damages).
Although we did price compare somewhat online, we wanted to be able to easily return the TV to a store, and lucked out that the price went down just before we bought it. (We paid under $3k; I can't remember the exact price, but once you add on all the extras and tax, the total was almost $4k.) Additionally, Best Buy has a two-year no interest financing deal that made it even easier to swallow the big price tag attached to the TV (and allows us to make a little interest on that moolah over the next two years). It should come with Best Buy's reward zone dollars, but I still haven't received any, so I need to look into that; although for all the money spent it was only $120 (but I'm sure I'd still be happy to see it!).
A leg to stand on
We never considered an armoire or entertainment center to house our television, as we didn't want it taking up any extra inches than its massive 46" already would in our relatively diminutive living room. Additionally, having had other problems with equipment that doesn't like extra heat, I would have been reluctant to close our projection TV up in an armoire for fear the extra heat would shorten the bulb's life; I have nothing to back that up, it's just my instinct.
We shopped for a TV stand at Best Buy, but found their selection limited for TVs our size. We ended up finding one online that Sears carried and with a coupon printed off Sears.com, saved a bit ($30) on the $300 stand. Another bonus of the DLP: they're lightweight. Our 46" TV, at 75lbs, weighs five pounds less than the stand it sits on. At only 13.3" deep (the 50" was 17" deep) and such a light weight, it should be fairly easy to find a stand you like that holds it. (FYI: Samsung does make a custom stand for their DLPs; our Best Buy salesman wasn't aware of this, so I don't believe Best Buy carries them. I found one online for ~ $400 but opted for the price and convenience of getting a stand directly from Sears.)
Baby comes home (and a little about HDTV)
It took just two short days for our television to be delivered (even faster than the salesman had promised). Cable had been ordered the previous week and we were very much looking forward to finally seeing the HDTV that our old TV couldn't display. We popped on the set (as the delivery guys had hooked everything up), sat back, and were more than disappointed. Everything looked blurry and watery (although I must say, the colors were immediately gorgeous); it was worse than we even expected regular TV to look. My husband said it must be the connectors and then spent the next hour disconnecting and reconnecting everything in different configurations. Finally, I called Adelphia thinking something must be wrong.
Sure enough, our cable guy had assumed that our puny 27" CRT was all we intended to use our cable on, and despite having ordered HDTV and an HD DVR, was having only regular signals piped to us (not a totally illogical conclusion, but, man, did he give us a fright!). Within a matter of moments, the representative on the phone made a few changes, we reset our DVR and
voila, glorious HDTV.
Ever since, our picture has been breathtaking. We have had it since Labor day '04 (it's now early November '04) and are immensely pleased. The brightness is outstanding, even in daylight (and even though we haven't hung the curtains on the window that is just behind and to the side of the TV). The viewing angle is very good, and--when the number of guests necessitates it--I have even watched from a chair that is almost immediately to the side of the TV (and honestly, it wouldn't much matter if the picture was perfectly bright at that ridiculously sharp angle!). We have not purchased the DVD to calibrate it yet, but plan to (we haven't even hooked up our DVD player, actually, since the HDTV is so spectacular), but despite this, the out of the box color settings seem incredibly true and vibrant without being oversaturated.
I am certainly no audiophile (although I'm thinking about a speaker set for my husband's Xmas present!), but I find the TV's speakers very good (again, this is upgrading from an old 27" CRT, so perhaps anything would sound better).
As an aside, so you won't be as surprised as we were, it is important to note that HDTV channels are somewhat limited, and depending on your cable provider (ours, as I said before, is Adelphia) you may not get some of the channels you were anticipating. Fox and PBS, for example, Adelphia--
in our area--doesn't carry in HD (so all those World Series games were in sad, regular TV!). You can get those stations if you get an HD receiver and an antenna, but the beauty of cable is a static-free picture devoid of effort, so we haven't gone that far. Fortunately, we do get CBS, ABC, and NBC in HD (among several others), as I've since heard from various friends living in different areas that they were missing one of those major network stations.
Conclusions
We are completely enamored with our TV. If there was any lingering doubt, it vanished during "movie night" last evening, when I turned out all the lights and watched
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets on CineMax HD (only so-so, of a movie, but in HD, somehow that doesn't matter). It was like being in the theater. We can no longer answer any questions about "do you wish you would have spent less?" "Should you have gotten something smaller?" There is no cost-benefit analysis possible. After two months, we are completely enamored of our Samsung DLP.
We worried our toughest question was going to be, should we have spent the additional $500 for the extra 4" (getting the 50" instead of the 46")? I can honestly say--and we are not afraid of having a massively big TV in our living room--that we don't miss those four inches. The size works great in our room. If you're waffling between, it
may be worth it to save the money since the size difference is barely noticeable outside the store; it was certainly worth it, for us, to put that money toward the warranty, which provides a certain piece of mind. Although, then again, I don't think an extra $500 on our Best Buy credit card bill could bring me down from our HD-induced high!
