Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)**May 1, 2009 Updates at the bottom
**May 8, 2009 Updates at the bottom
**May 14, 2009 -- I've updated my final calibration
I just received my LN46B650 today so I may update this review in time. Feel free to comment with questions and I'll try to respond to them in later updates.
UNBOXING
The box for the LN46B650 comes is not too much larger than the TV dimensions itself. Sometimes you'll see a 32" TV come in a box that could easily fit one much larger. I wouldn't exactly call it environmentally friendly, but the box easily fit through doorways and into the elevator of my apartment building. The box is fitted with Styrofoam at the corners to keep the TV in its place and inflated plastic bags filling in all the empty space. There is the typical screen protective plastic in place and I found that the TV came in excellent condition with no noticeable shipping damage. I did not use Amazon.com's shipping company, the handling of other shippers may vary.
In the box is the stand (which comes with assembly instructions, though mine was already assembled), remote, 2 x AA batteries, a USB flash drive containing multimedia content and the TV instruction manual, a cover for the bottom of the TV in case you wish to mount it on a wall, a cleaning cover,screws for securing the stand to the TV, a power cord and a software CD for connecting the TV to a Windows Vista or XP computer via ethernet connections.
Moving the box by myself was a bit difficult as it is still quite larger, once I got it out of the box though, the TV is very light for a 23 year old male and getting it on the stand was very easy. Once on the stand it snaps in place, you can (optionally) insert screws to keep it locked into the stand.
Inserting the power cord and connecting my components to the TV was easy, but the cable management system for the TV is pretty much non existent -- cables pretty much dangle behind the TV.
DESIGN
There is a lot of debate about whether the Touch of Color Red Design is a good thing or bad thing. Also, you'll see on last year's models that some people claim it's barely noticeable while some people claim it's a major game changer. My TV sits on a black TV stand in a spot in the room that sits in the shade -- I can barely see the red color. However, I feel that if you were to shine a lot of light on it, it would quickly become very noticeable.
The bezel is not quite as thick as I thought it looked in the Amazon.com pictures (which are Samsung's official PR shots). There is a somewhat "fat" pointed chin which I don't think looks too terrible. If you look at the pictures you'll notice that the glass of the bezel extends about half an inch beyond the actual TV bezel, I kind of like it. The neck of the stand is a glass pillar and very nice looking. The stand itself is surprisingly deep compared to the TV stand, but, again, not a bad thing, it's just hard to see in the pictures.
The built in TV controls sit on the bottom right hand corner of the bezel and are impossible to see from more than a foot away. It's a good thing for watching movies, but when I told somebody how to lower the volume on the TV, they couldn't find the buttons. I should also note that the buttons are touch sensitive there's no tactile way to find them or get feedback when pressing them. To the right of the buttons is a red light that turns on when the remote is pressed or the TV controls are pressed. It is otherwise always off unless the TV is in standby.
I should point out that the TV is very glossy and during very dark scenes it is absolutely necessary to shade your windows. Even when the not in dark scenes, I found that the bezel reflects what the screen does not. When I closed my blinds, the TV looks absolutely superb. The bezel is no longer noticeable, dark scenes are fantastic.
The remote is fairly straight forward. The design is just a tiny bit red like the TV bezel, buttons are nice and large and easy to memorize. The backlight button for the remote sits in the top right corner of it and when pressed illuminates the keys fairly well.
There are a good number of connectivity options which are thoroughly explained on the Amazon.com specs or on Samsung's website.
MENUS/SETTINGS
Turning the TV sent me through a few welcome menus that I didn't particularly want. The first thing the TV did was begin scanning for channels -- but I have my cable box connected via HDMI so there was nothing to scan. Stopping the channel scan process was easy, though, and when I got out of the welcome menus and switched to the HDMI 1 source, the TV was easy to use.
The menu layout is not atypical of other HDTVs you may have had the chance to use. Pushing the menu button brings up a series of menus indicated by pictograms for picture, audio, antenna setup, general TV setup, input setup, Application (media/internet functions) and Help. One thing I don't like, is that one feature that I like to be able to adjust on the fly, automotion plus (or refresh rate), is buried in menu -> picture -> picture options -> Auto Motion Plus. It's a pain to get to if you're just trying to adjust the setting for one channel.
The menu gives you very simple descriptions for each setting that you're adjusting. Sometimes they're fairly obvious but I imagine for some people it clears up some ambiguity. For an example, when I highlight "color" the bottom of the menu reads, "Adjusts the color saturation of the picture using the bar on the screen. The closer to 100, the more saturated the color."
I connected my TV directly to my computer network via ethernet cable. I had absolutely no issue in setting this up, the TV detected my network settings without any problems.
One nice feature is that you can rename the sources on your TV to pre-designated alternates. For an example, I named HDMI1 "Cable Set Top Box" and HDMI2 "Game" and Component1 "DVD." It makes things easier for non-technical people. Picture settings are always retained based on the source, if you keep your HDMI source on "movie" mode and adjust the picture settings, every time you watch HDMI these settings will be restored.
FEATURES
I need to start out with my favorite feature on the TV: Customized Auto-Motion Plus. For those of you not familiar with the feature, it's what Samsung calls their 120hz capabilities. If you look at older LCD TV screens you might find that the picture tends to look blurry or judders in fast motion sequences. This technology, found in most middle and high-end LCD HDTVs in 2009, adds in extra frames to smooth out the motion.
On my old XBR4, I could adjust the 120hz to either off, standard or high. On the LN46B650, I can adjust the blur from 0-10 and the judder from 0-10. It's a great feature, I'm still toying around to figure out what I like most for which content.
Other unique features not in other brands is the Internet Content which includes a series of Yahoo Widgets. I must point out that these features are VERY slow regardless of your internet connection. It takes about 20-30 seconds to start them up initially after you turn your TV on and then take about 5 seconds to load from that point on. There is a significant lag when switching through the widgets content. The built in widgets include weather, news, flickr and finance. I've heard there are more widgets coming out soon -- possibly a Netflix widget? -- but as of April 30, 2009, there are none available. I'm praying that future firmware updates to the TV fix some of the slow speed. cnet.com provides a more thorough review of these features.
The TV also comes with a fair amount of material stored in its internal memory and Samsung also includes it on a flashdrive which you can tweak on your personal computer. Pushing the content button on the remote closes whatever your watching and offers you a photo gallery which has pictures of art in slide show form (accompanied by adjustable music), a few recipes (why? Do people actually want to read recipes off of their TV screen? Is somebody putting a 46 inch LCD HDTV in their kitchen? I must say, though, the pictures of the food looks good), games (haven't tried these yet, I don't know if I ever will), children (a bunch of stories that look like flash cartoons with subtitles for kids to read along with), and wellness (a bunch of nature audio tracks and a few piano pieces). There is a total of 189 MB on the TV set aside for this content, you can download more of it off the internet or load it on via USB flashdrive or hard drive. It's really nothing too exciting, I have no intention to use it. But, I will point out, that it's far easier to use and faster than the Yahoo Internet Widgets.
The TV hooks up to an external hard drive or flash drive. I connected my 4 GB flashdrive with a bunch of movies formatted for my iPod on it. The TV played them without any problems, but the stretched content did not look too good -- that's no surprise considering the iPod screen is less than 3 inches in size. Eventually I might try to move some saved HD content to my flash drive.
The Help section of the menu is fantastic for those who are not familiar with HDTV settings.
There is a "product guide" which pretty much explains how to use most of the TV's internet and content features, an explanation of how HD picture quality varies and works -- pretty much a powerpoint presentation -- and how you can use the TV's settings to get the most out of basic features and an explanation of how to save energy with TV settings.
A self-diagnosis section brings up a sample HD picture or audio track to test to see if there is a problem...Read more›
Click Here to see more reviews about: Samsung LN46B650 46-Inch 1080p 120 Hz LCD HDTV with Red Touch of Color
It features a 45.9" screen (measured diagonally) with a widescreen 16:9 aspect ratio. The Touch of Color high-gloss finish is black with red accents. There are built-in digital (ATSC) and analog (NTSC) tuners for over-the-air TV broadcasts (antenna required) and built-in QAM cable TV tuner, which receives unscrambled programs without a set-top box (cable service required). The Ultra Clear LCD panel (1920 x 1080 pixels) provides clear resolution.
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