MY CHRISTMASS WISH LIST (2011) PART 2

With standard-definition TVs, the rule used to be that viewers would feel comfortable watching a set from a distance of 3 to 6 times the screen size in inches. With HDTV, the resolution is so much better that you can sit closer to a larger TV without noticing the pixels. So with HDTVs, the rule tends to be you can sit anywhere from 1.5 to 3 times the screen size (in inches) for the best experience.

If you know the size of the room you have already, where you want to sit, and where your new HDTV should go once you get it, you can figure out the size HDTV you should get.

• Minimum size = Viewing distance/3
• Maximum size=Viewing distance/1.5

Its football season and what better way to celebrate than with a super TV! A great gift for the whole family, the Samsung LN40C630 40-Inch 1080p 120 Hz LCD HDTV is an awesome and affordable viewing machine! It offers incredible color and rich clarity, all on a 40-inch screen. Add the power of Samsung's Wide Color Enhancer, for a picture that optimizes a given color's hue, resulting in more natural rendering of colors and lifelike action. Samsung HD TVs are also ENERGY STAR compliant, helping the environment by using less energy while saving you money

From the Manufacturer

(March 2010)
The Samsung LCD 630 HDTV is a smooth operator: 120 Hz Clear Motion Rate technology allows you to see fast action with a smoothness that’s clearly ahead of the competition. The AllShare feature even allows you to sync up your entire household: A wired or wireless DLNA connection lets you stream your PC audio and video files to your HDTV using your remote. And Samsung’s Touch of Color design combines texture and color that will complement any décor.

• TV without stand: 38.5 x 23.4 x 3.2 inches (WxHxD); 31.3 pounds
• TV with stand: 38.5 x 26.0 x 10.0 inches (WxHxD); 38.8 pounds

•  

• Screen Size: 40 inches
• Full 1080p HD resolution: Enjoy the powerful picture quality, vivid colors and stunning clarity of Full HD 1080p resolution.
• 120 Hz clear Motion Rate: Samsung 120 Hz technology allows you to see fast action with a smoothness that’s clearly ahead of the competition.
• Touch of Color: Exclusive Charcoal Grey Touch of Color design combines texture and color that can complement any room.
• ConnectShare Movie: Connect a thumb drive or digital camera quickly and easily. User-friendly interface allows access to videos, a music
  playlist and pictures via the remote.
• Exceeds ENERGY STAR Standards: Up to 43% more energy efficient than ENERGY STAR 4.0 minimum standards.
• Game Mode enhances dark areas, sharpens the picture, speeds up the image processing response and enhances the sounds of your games. Picture and sound quality optimized for the special needs of gaming systems at the touch of a button.
• Wide Color Enhancer Pro delivers the entire spectrum of color and luminance for rich, saturated images with intense detail.
• BD Wise: Automatically adjusts all your componets for the best picture and sound quality.
• AllShare: Sync up your entire household. A wired or wireless DLNA connection lets you stream your PC audio and video files to your HDTV using your remote.
• 10 Watts x 2 audio power stereo broadcast reception: Supports multichannel sound (MTS) and second audio program (SAP) with 181-channel capacity.
• DNSe: Delivers high-quality sound with more natural effects than conventional methods by reproducing the “genuine” stereo sound.
• Warranty: 1 year parts and 1 year labor warranty (90 days parts and labor for commercial use), backed by Samsung toll-free support.
• Swivel Stand

     Comes with:

2010 LinkStick: Connect wirelessly to a world of digital content from Samsung. The LinkStick wireless LAN adaptor eliminates the hassle and cluttered look of wires.

 By being ENERGY STAR compliant you are assured that my Samsung model is helping the environment by using less energy while saving you money. ENERGY STAR is a joint program of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy promoting energy efficiency

 Delivers the entire spectrum of color and luminance for rich, saturated images with intense detail. Whereas blue and green shaded areas of the picture are washed out on conventional screens, wide color enhancer lets you experience more brilliant colors. Simply imagine a wider range of colors than you ever thought possible.

 Here's what some of the owners have to say.

This review is from: Samsung LN40C630 40-Inch 1080p 120 Hz LCD HDTV (Black) (Electronics)

                         Picture Quality 

Pros - The picture on the Samsung c630 looks very good right out of the box. Watching Avatar on Blue-Ray is simply amazing. Playing PS3 on this TV looks equally amazing and with no noticeable input lag. Watching standard DVDs through an up converting 1080p DVD player also look very good. You can see some graininess if you're within 3 feet or so of the TV but any further than that and the picture looks crisp and clear 9/10. Blue-Rays just look phenomenal, no other words to describe it really. 10/10. This TV has plenty of video adjustments to tinker with make the picture suit your taste. I actually turned the contrast and backlighting down a hair on my set because it was a bit too good. The TV will also save your picture settings for each input device.
Cons - One of the main reasons I went with the c630 model was for the 120 Hz capability. The 120 Hz feature does indeed give the picture a clearer almost 3D like appearance, however the soap opera effect caused by it unfortunately makes watching movies very distracting. You feel more like you're watching a live stage show than a film. It's good for watching sports and some other live broadcasts and events but bad for pretty much everything else. Another comment i have about this TV is with the viewing angles. While the picture remains clear even at the widest angles, the colors get a little washed out when viewing from the sides...although not to a huge degree. Overall the picture looks great from all angles but you will probably notice a slight difference in color saturation depending where you're viewing from. Color Reproduction overall on this TV is very good. Colors are accurate, whites look white, and blacks look black. If I had to pick a weak point however it would be with the grayscale. Some grays may appear fuzzy or grainy if you look very closely. This should be unnoticeable however from normal viewing distance.

                          Features

Pros - The Media Play and AllShare features are quite nice. You can plug a flash drive right into your TV and play a variety of video files, mp3s, jpgs with easy to navigate menu's. Playing files from your PC works in the same way. You do have to download a file sharing server app from Samsung (it's called PC Share Manager) for it to work but it's fairly straight forward to set up. You just install the app and choose which files/folders you want the Samsung TV to be able to browse on your computer.
Cons - I was unaware of this before purchasing the TV since the product description says you can connect wirelessly to your PC but I have since found out wireless network connection is not built in to this TV. To connect this TV wirelessly to the internet or to your pc, you need a separate wireless LAN adapter from Samsung which costs about $60 on Amazon.
Another problem I have with the Media play feature is it can only handle a limited number of files. I have a 16 GB flash drive with over two thousand mp3s on it but the TV will only read the first 999 of them and the rest cannot be played. Also for playing music or video files there is no shuffle feature. You can sort files a number of ways but Samsung left out random playback ability.

                              Sound

Pros - Sound on the Samsung c630 is decent although not spectacular. It's about what I would expect from built in speakers which there is little room for in many of these newer and thinner LCDs. I haven't seen an LCD tv yet that had amazing sound quality right out of the box. There are plenty of Surround Sound presets and an equalizer to fine tune the audio to your liking.
Cons - To get the true movie theater experience with this tv, unfortunately you'll have to hook it up to an external home theater system. Built in speakers are adequate but certainly don't raise the bar for LCDs. I purchased the Phillips DVD home theater HTS3371D.F7 along with the TV and it sounds spectacular for only $160 extra.

                       Overall

For the $800 range the Samsung C630 seems to offer the best picture along with the most features and 120 Hz capabilities compared to other sets in the same price range. The internet capabilities and media player of the C630 are very handy and this set has easy to navigate menus with plenty of audio/visual settings to tweak. The casing of the TV also looks very sleek and stylish. The 120 Hz in my opinion seems like a limited use feature and may not be worth the cost over a 60 Hz set if you're not also looking to get the additional features many of the newer LCDs have as well. Although that and most of the other negative comments I had aren't even knocks on this TV set in particular but issues with LCDs in general. The only true complaint I have with the Samsung C630 is that it requires a separate adapter to connect wirelessly to the internet which is not what the product description would have you believe. Some of the features I might be nitpicking about aren't even offered on other TVs in this price range. Overall, unless you're willing to invest a couple hundred more to make the jump to the new LED backlit LCDs, this is one of the highest quality TVs you'll find for the price.

                       Other notes

The C630's Energy Saving features allow it to automatically adjust screen brightness to fit room lighting. Although it's not as energy efficient as the newer LED TVs’, the C630 doesn't seem to be generating too much heat.

The box that the Samsung LN40C630 came in was about half the size as the box for an LG 37" LCD I had bought my parents the year before. Not much packing in the box besides Styrofoam holders on the top and bottom end of the TV.

Received the TV one day prior to estimate delivery with the free super saver shipping. Was shipped via Pilot Freight and then transferred to another regional freight service which did not show up in tracking information. I only found out by calling Pilot to try and schedule a delivery time.

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Samsung LN40C630 40-Inch 1080p 120 Hz LCD HDTV (Black) (Electronics)

Samsung just released their new "C" series, and somehow they are remarkably less expensive than their pre-existing models! The majority of the websites are selling this HDTV for $800+, Amazon's lower-than-low price is less than the rest of the market. I purchased it here on Amazon, and received my HDTV in 5 days
     For those who prefer using TV stands, you do have to assemble it on your own. Extremely easy to assemble though! All it took was 9 screws (already in the box) and I recommend using a power-screwdriver. Directions said it required two people, I did it solo! I was just eager to hook up my PS3 via HDMI cable and experience the wonderful world of 1080P.

As for the quality and price of several HDTVs, the Samsungs 530, 550, 630, 650. The Samsung 630 is the best deal for your money, here's why: The 5 series is less expensive, but only offers refresh times of 60Hz as compared to the 630 which is 120Hz. This is a big difference, and means that your HDTV with 120Hz displays at least twice as many frames-per-second which makes movies, not only sports, very fluid and more realistic. Another difference is the response time, where as the 5 series has a 6ms response time, the 6 series has a 4ms response time. And if you are a gamer, a difference of 2ms can make a big difference. the Samsung 630 and not the 650? The only difference now is the contrast ratio. The 630 comes with an 80,000:1 contrast ratio which still creates an extraordinary depth to the display. TV contrast ratios are starting to become stable around the 70,000 - 100,000 range (or much higher for LEDs). This HDTV is very much future proof.
All in all, if you're not worried about price, go all out and purchase a LED HDTV. But if you want to shop smart, this HDTV is the way to go.

The (the one you bought) C630 actually has a higher contrast ratio of 120,000:   120HTZ

      So Santa, I'll leave some cookies (home made of course) and milk out for ya.  If you need some help with that TV don't hesitate to wake me up.