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Great Picture and Sound - Port Selection was interesting

This is a new model (out March 2009), and is the just released ‘B’ version of the popular, judging by the many reviews, samsung ‘A’ version 32 inch TV. I wanted a TV with an excellent value for a 32 inch TV with a good 720p picture and sound. The picture is actually fantastic and looks good on the standard setting and really stunning at the dynamic setting (if the room is light enough), and in the store looked slightly better then Sony Bravia S-Series KDL-32S5100 32-Inch 1080p LCD HDTV, Black even though that TV is a 1080p one. I did a visual comparison of the two for a while in the store becuase I was trying to justify going 1080p but couldnt since this picture seemed better even at 720p. If I could, I would have gone for the Sony BRAVIA XBR KDL-32XBR9 32-Inch 1080p 120Hz LCD HDTV which looked the best though for a 32 inch overall.

720p vs 1080p:
I couldn’t understand why a 1080p TV would make a difference with this size of TV, since I sit about nine feet away and at that distance I don’t think you could tell - at least the PC input is small enough and sharp enough that I can read web pages comfortably from my couch but if it were any smaller it would be too small/detailed. I dont think I would use more than 720p detail unless I wanted to see more web page content on the screen and planned to sit about 4 feet away. The TV has exactly the same resolution asToshiba Satellite U305-S2804 13.3-inch Laptop (Intel Core 2 Duo T5450 Processor, 2 GB RAM, 160 GB Hard Drive, Vista Premium) which is what I plugged into the PC input and looks identical to that screen. Also, most Hi Def inputs to my TV aren’t more than 720p anyway. I think one over the air station is 1080i.

Standard DEF Input Handling:
For 480i or standard def inputs at a non wide screen resolution, such as those from my cable box, it handles it extremely well. However, I have a digital cable box (verizon QIP6416-2) with an HMDI, component, svideo, and RCA even though the signal I get is only standard def. I didn’t want to use up an HDMI port on the TV so I tried connecting the component but the color didn’t work. This is an issue with the cable box, not the TV. I had to use the HDMI in the end since there was no s-video (a small negative for this TV) and didnt want to use the RCA. On the plus side, this TV has a great setting called wide fit/move that slightly streaches and zooms a 4/3 picture to fit the 16/9 widescreen. The move comes into play if you have channel that has scrolling text that becomes cut off at the bottom, so you can nudge the picture up a bit (which chops off the top more but you need to make a comprimose somewhere).

Shines with HD inputs:
When I hooked the component connections up to an HD upscaling DVD player Samsung DVD-HD860 Up-Converting DVD Playerthough that worked perfectly with the component connection. My beloved Roku Roku Digital Video Player box is using the 2nd HDMI connector which looks great, and the over the air antenna CLEARSTREAM2 Antenna brings in over the air free HD on about 20 HD channels. All the HD sources (laptop, antenna, roku, upscaling DVD) really shine. Sound is good and I don’t feel I need to get add on home theater sound since I dont turn the TV up loud. I guess an extra HDMI connection would have been nice, especially since there was no S-video, but I still give the TV 5 stars as it is a new model and is thus forward looking.

Update (2/9/2012): This item is currently on sale here for the lowest price I’ve seen. I also found some auctions for this item here.

The featured review for this product, Samsung LN32B360 32-Inch 720p LCD HDTV Electronics, was written by B. Hoak.

The average rating for this item is 5 out of 5 stars, according to 3 reviews.