Television Reviews

I thought about getting LCD or DLP but I won’t discuss here. After I decided to get the plasma I started to do some research. I was out looking for a brand new plasma TV and I started to do some research.  After looking at Panasonic, Sony, LG and Samsung, it was pretty easy to narrow it down to two manufacturers: Panasonic and Samsung. Then the hard part: deciding between two very nice plasma makers. After days of sleepless nights I decided to get the latest offering from Samsung. Here are my reasons.

Design: This is probably my personal taste but I have to say this was the biggest factor. I just love the new design of Samsung plasma models. It’s just gorgeous to look at. Samsung has a nice glossy black profile, thinner than Panasonic. Samsung definitely looks better on walls or around modern furniture.

Picture quality: All-in-all, the picture on the Samsung had a good picture. Normal eyes probably can’t tell the difference between Panasonic and Samsung. For me, Samsung looked slightly more sharper and deeper blacks but I have to say it’s a tie.

Price: again, almost the same.

A/S: I have owned both Panasonic and Samsung products in the past. They both have pretty good customer support but I have to say Samsung has been more active in improving the overall customer service. Samsung is relatively a new comer compared to Panasonic, so Samsung tends to be more eager to help out and acts more quickly.

Samsung and Panasonic both are smart companies but this time Samsung wins by a slim margin.

Samsung HP-R5072 Plasma TV Features:

Samsung HPR5072 Descripstions:

The 50-inch Samsung HP-R5072 widescreen flat-panel plasma TV is the television of choice for the home theater elite. Featuring an industry leading 10,000:1 contrast ratio, it displays the deepest blacks and the most brilliant whites for an impressive level of picture detail. The 1376 x 768-pixel progressive resolution showcases 68.7 billion vibrant colors, and its 175-degree horizontal viewing angle provides a picture-perfect entertainment experience from anywhere in the room. It also features an edge-to-edge EMI glass filter with no bezel, creating a striking floating glass effect. The HP-R5072 has a panel life of approximately 60,000 hours (27 years at 6 hours per day).

The HP-R5072 features a widescreen picture aspect ratio (16:9; standard TVs have a 4:3 aspect ratio), which is the ideal screen format for viewing widescreen video from DVD players and the growing availability of broadcast programming off digital HDTV tuners (HD content is always widescreen), cable boxes and satellite receivers. It has a built-in analog/digital (NTSC/ATSC) tuner that will receive free over-the-air HDTV signals and is Digital Cable Ready, so you can enjoy digital cable without an additional box or remote. It also offers a good range of connections for DVD, DTV, PC, HDTV sources.

The Samsung Digital Natural Image engine (DNIe) Video Enhancer refines all analog NTSC and wideband video inputs for an overall improvement in picture quality. DNIe improves contrast, white level, picture detail and incorporates digital noise reduction to improve lower quality video inputs. The 3D Y/C digital comb filter constantly analyzes the three dimensions of picture height, picture width, and picture changes-over-time, to reduce dramatically edge image artifacts while improving transition detail.

The 60-watt stereo audio system (four 15-watt speakers) delivers ample sound for sports and movies and features SRS TruSurround XT surround sound capability. It features the following video and audio connections:

• Composite Video In: 1
• S-Video In: 1 Side
• Component Video In (Y, Pb, Pr): 2 Rear (480i/480p/720p/1080i)
• HDMI: 1 Rear
• RF: 2 Rear (1-NTSC, 1-ATSC)
• Analog Audio L/R Inputs: 1
• Audio L/R Line Out: 1 Set
• DVI Audio L/R Input: 1
• Digital Audio Out: 1 (1-Optical, 1 Coaxial)
• POD Slot (CableCARD): 1 rear
• PC (RGB) In: 1

Other features include:

• Fanless cooling design means low noise operation.
• PIP with Side-By-Side Split Screen enables convenient simultaneous viewing of TV programs and video or PC sources.
• My Color Control allows you to adjust the individual colors of your set without distorting other colors. The range of color adjustment includes Red, Green, Blue, Yellow, Red and White.
• Trilingual On-Screen Displays in English, French or Spanish.
• Aspect Ratio: 16:9/Panorama/Zoom1/Zoom2/4:3
• Integrated stand and speaker, with a detachable speaker grille

What’s in the Box
Samsung HP-R5072 DLP TV, integrated stand, remote control, two AAA batteries, printed instruction bookTags:50in plasma tv Samsung Samsung Plasma TV

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 22nd, 2006 at 10:50 pm and is filed under Plasma TVs 46-inch or more, HDTV Reviews, Flatscreen TV, Plasma TV Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.