Customer Review: A masterpiece!
I bought this TV as an upgrade to a Sharp Aquos 32" and I am extremely pleased with my purchase. First of it has a great design with an extremely thin profile and is lightweight. The picture quality is exceptional with almost perfect deep blacks and saturated vibrant colors. It also has some extra black level controls. The HD channels look amazing even with rabbit ears on a good reception and I suppose I don't need to say anything about how great the Bluray movies look on this set. The preloaded content is great, there are songs, stories and games for kids. It also has step by step recipes with hi-res photographs, fitness programs and slide shows of beautiful scenery and artwork. When you start running the slide show it almost feels like the TV itself is a live picture frame. There are other features such us plugging in and viewing content from a USB device, also it has internet connectivity. There are some things which I didn't like though. Firstly the Auto Motion gives a 3Dish look to the image and it feels like the foreground subjects are floating in front of the backdrops. It can also create stuttery motion with the camera pans which I had noticed while watching a TV series. So I ended up turning the Auto Motion off. And I haven't really noticed any difference with the 120hz when compared to my old 60 hz TV. Although it is depicted like it has a glowy strip of red color(touch of color) in the pictures if you don't backlight the TV, it is barely visible. The audio felt weak at first but with the Surround turned on, it was amplified to a nice level. Not the greatest sound but I guess that is acceptable for such a thin profile TV. The thin profile has some more disadvantages as the inputs on the back are not recessed so you need to keep the TV away from the wall almost double the thickness of itself if you decide to mount it without cutting through the wall. The biggest issue for me was the clouding(light areas over a completely black background) on the screen which most of the people think that this is a common issue among the LCD screens, not just in Samsung. My TV has it slightly at the lower right edge and some on the upper right. Doing a lot of research on the web, I have come to think that it might be caused by the tight screws on the back cause the lower clouding aligns perfectly with a screw hole in the back. I had seen people in forums suggesting loosening the screws but that could void warranty. Some people even claim that there is a break-in period and the clouding might go away but I have been using the TV for about a week now, it is still there. The only solution I had found which seemed to help a bit was to lower the backlight to 0 but you can still see it on the dark scenes of a movie or on the PS3 XMB background if you have a good eye. I would have given a 5 out of 5 if it weren't for this clouding issue.
Customer Review: Review of features, comparisons, pros/cons and gaming mode
I recently owned a Westinghouse 37" HDTV that I purchased 3 years ago and finally decided it was time to upgrade. I looked at all major brands such as Sony, Pioneer, LG, Panasonic and Toshiba. Of all the aforementioned brands, I found Toshiba offered the best features at a sub $1500 price point (10-bit panel, 120 hz etc)and went with it. Unfortunately the Toshiba suffered from severe flashlighting (a term that is used to describe the CCFL light showing from the corners of the television which is usually pronounced during night time viewing) and clouding. Also, the matte screen offered on the Toshiba meant the contrast would not be as good as an ultra clear panel offered by Samsung. I ended up returning the Toshiba for a refund. So I began my search for an HDTV again and this time I went to Best Buy and looked around at different television's and one set that instantly caught my attention was the Samsung LN46A850 - it had vibrant life like colors, deep blacks, and the 120 hz AMP completely blew away what I viewed on the Toshiba. The aesthetics of the Samsung are second-to-none, a thin 1.9" profile and the red TOC is simply beautiful. Although the Samsung caught my eye right away, I wanted to look around at other competing brands so I played with the Sony XBR series, LG and the much revered Pioneer Kuro. Of all those, only the Sony came close to matching the quality of the Samsung. The infamous Kuro did not impress me at all, the plasma picture was far too soft for my liking and the brightness in a well lit room was very lacking. What stopped me from purchasing the LN46A850 from Best Buy was their $2300 price. I shopped around online and was fortunate enough to get a gold box deal from Amazon for $1702 shipped! I received the TV a week later and couldn't be happier! It has uniform lighting (though some people have had issues with clouding), a myriad of options to adjust the picture to one's liking and best of all, the ultra clear panel does not reflect much light even during very sunny days (I live in Florida). The biggest complaint I have about this TV is that the sound could be better, initially it sounds like a tin can out of the box but fortunately it has an EQ feature which lets you adjust it to acceptable levels. As for gaming, many people are weary of input lag and as someone that has played games for more than 2 decades, I have yet to notice it. For those that are sensitive to input lag, the television offers a game mode and HDMI-PC mode that virtually eliminates input lag. The downside to both of the aforementioned modes is that picture adjustment options are greatly reduced and the resulting picture quality is not as good as standard mode. I will reiterate though, as a life long gamer, I don't notice the input lag at all and I think the vast majority of gamers would be hard pressed to see it. Samsung's newer LN46B750 does offer a more robust gaming mode and I wish Samsung would offer a firmware update for all their "older" models such as the A850 to have the same options but I suspect due to marketing, they will never do this. So as a gamer, if you are prone to input lag sensitivity and absolutely must have a television that has little to none, a Sony may be more suitable to your needs or an IPS based HDTV such as a Sharp (keep in mind the Sharp's PQ does not approach a Samsung). Or as I mentioned, the newer LN46B750 may be worth giving a try. Overall, I give this TV an 8/10, it would've received a perfect rating from me if it had better sound and the gaming mode was more flexible.
There was a time when finding a decent wireless router was a big challenge. Just a few years ago, you'd have to go through a few bad routers until you struck gold with a decent one. WRT54G was the most popular networking device back then. It seemed to be the only device that allowed you to install your own firmware (linux), and it performed as expected. Fast forward a few years, and we have the second generation WRT54G . The Linksys Wireless-G Broadband device is really three devices in one box. It's a WAP, which lets you connect both Wireless-G (802.11g at 54Mbps) and Wireless-B (802.11b at 11Mbps) devices to the network. You can also use the built-in 4-port full-duplex 10/100 switch to connect your wired-Ethernet devices together. There are four slots available which you can use to attach hubs and switches to expand your network.
This router is great for creating your own shared network. If you have multiple computers at home, you can share your files among them fast. All your computers can print on a shared printer connected anywhere in the house. And your computers can share all kinds of files--music, digital pictures, and documents. That's much easier than having to transfer files among your PCs using a flash-drive. This device comes with WPA2 connection that protects your data and privacy with up to 256-bit industrial-strength encryption. WRT54G2 can serve as a DHCP Server, has a powerful SPI firewall to protect your PCs against intruders and most known hack attacks, supports VPN pass-through, and can be configured to filter internal users' access to the Internet. You can also put DD-WRT on it if you prefer (make sure you model is compatible).
Overall, WRT54G2 is a cool networking device that allows you to create your own home network fast. And best of all, it won't crash on you like many other networking gadgets on the market.
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