Samsung LN40B550 40-Inch 1080p LCD HDTV with Red Touch of Color

Review by pelagikos for Samsung LN40B550 40-Inch 1080p LCD HDTV with Red Touch of Color
Rating:
I was undecided between this 2009 model and last year’s LN40A550.

The features are substantially identical, but after figuring that the difference between best prices for the two, which I could find after extensive shopping around, was only $50, I went for newer one for its updated look and lighter weight.

In the reviews, one of the principal complaints for 2008 was the sound quality. I can’t directly compare 2009 and 2008, but found 2009’s LN40B550 to have perfectly adequate, if not excellent speakers, as far as TVs go.

Picture quality, menus, setup are excellent as expected.

One aspect that I did find puzzling is Wiselink not being able to recognize my old trustworthy USB Flash Drive. I even tried formatting the drive in various ways, unfortunately none of the tricks worked.

Perhaps, it’s the ancient drive not being comparable in some way, but it had never let me down before. Anyhow, I ordered a few different flash drives, and will try again, and then post an update.

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Tried four various flash drives, all of them work just fine in computers, all four freshly formatted same way (FAT32). Two of the drives are read by the TV with no problems, the two others are not recognized at all… Go figure… The slideshow functionality is nice, quite limited, but does the job.

Just for the reference, one of the drives that does work in this TV is Kingston Data Traveler 4GB.

Review by chinee for Samsung LN40B550 40-Inch 1080p LCD HDTV with Red Touch of Color
Rating:
Only the second night with this set and I can’t unglue myself from it. This is a great sub-$1,000 set that will please all but the most hardcore videophiles. This set is also very light, I tucked it under my arm to move it up and down the stairs. ToC is subtle, almost invisible, so those who don’t care for last year’s ToC, don’t worry, you can barely see it the color on this TV. The swivel stand makes it easy so access the rear of the TV to hook up the cables that it makes you wonder why other manufacturers make stands without the swivel feature.

I had originally purchased an LG, but the off-angle viewing was awful, but from the same seating position, the Sammy shines. As with all LCDs, some color is lost when viewing from off-angle, but this set always displayed a picture that was acceptable.

If there’s a weakness, it’s displaying standard definition, as in regular cable, but that’s a challenge shared by most LCD screens. SD does not look as good as I’ve seen on some other LCDs, but the picture is more than acceptable.

DVD’s showed great… Upconverted DVD even better, I was impressed… Blu ray blew my mind. The color depth, the dark blacks, the crisp picture… I was VERY pleased. I am sure you will be too!

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Update 07/13/09… Almost 3 months and I’m still happy. Had it hooked up to a Samsung BDP2550 bluray player and it’s awesome. Currently using the upconverting Samsung 1080P9 DVD player and it’s still awesome. I have to sit closer than 7 feet to see any difference between DVD and bluray. Also connected to my PC via an 18ft HDMI cable, streaming Netflix and using Windows Media Center to view the NCIS and Star Trek episodes I have on my hard drive.

Still a GREAT purchase and I recommend this set to anyone interested in a 1080p LCD.

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Update 10/31/09… Hooked up a PS3 Slim last month and started viewing movies on Bluray… it’s like I got a new TV! I’ve never been able to see a substantial difference between DVD and BD, but after a few months of just DVD, Bluray on my 40B550 is blowing me away once more! I think I just picked up another habit… no more DVD purchases, only Bluray. And with prices going down on flat screens, this set is a bargain at $849.

Review by Byron Hooper for Samsung LN40B550 40-Inch 1080p LCD HDTV with Red Touch of Color
Rating:
I had been eyeing upgrading to an HDTV of some sort for about three years. I had been researching and dreaming about it for the whole time. Samsung was always on the top of my list, and when they came out with this model, which has a lot of features for a comparatively reasonable price tag I finally decided to take the plunge.

I have the most basic Cable service imaginable, so most of the time I am viewing SDTV (480i) stretched to 1920×1080. Considering this enormous stretch, it looks pretty good. It is definitely a tad fuzzy, it looks as good as any other 1080p TV I’ve seen. Similarly, my Wii is pretty fuzzy if you get up close, but it looks fine from my couch, especially when I enabled Progressive output. The Wii isn’t trying to be a graphics powerhouse anyway.

On the flip side is my DVD player. It has component output and is capable of doing 480p, and holy cow does it look awesome! After watching the SDTV and Wii, I was a little worried my DVDs would be equally blurry unless I upgraded to an upscaling player, but with progressive output, holy cow, I do not feel that is necessary at all. I was very pleased because watching movies is what I do most.

As for HD picture, my options are limited currently, but I for some reason NBC does come in in 1080i over my plain non-digital cable and I also tested OTA HDTV and I’ve gotta say, it is GORGEOUS. So in my limited experience, the HD picture on this TV looks fantastic.

My Dell laptop has an HDMI out (video and audio) so I decided to hook it up to the side HDMI connection on the TV. At first it looked kind of terrible and I had to do a lot fiddling. It still didn’t look right though. After consulting the manual, I discovered that computers are really supposed to be connected to HDMI 1. Switching to that I also discovered that naming the HDMI 1 port “DVI PC” it disables audio input, so bear that in mind. Once I hooked it up right though, it is fantastic. Videos and games look great and surfing the web with a wireless mouse and keyboard is AWESOME.

There are tons of video options and tweaks so you can get the TV to look perfect in whatever environment it is in. Another great feature is that you can connect a Digital Camera or USB storage device to show pictures at the full resolution intead of 480i all streched out if you do it over composite video. It looks great, but unfortunately my Canon camera uses PictBridge instead of acting like a USB Mass Storage device, so I can’t do it. I’ve tested it with a USB Thumbdrive and it looks great though.

So, here’s a recap for the “Too Long; Didn’t Read” crowd:

+PROS+

+Great Price/Feature ratio

+Awesome HD Picture (as far as I’m concerned)

+Great DVD 480p picture

+Tons of Video Tweaking options

+USB

+Tons of Inputs

+Digital Audio Output

+Rotatable mount

%Neutrals%

%SDTV Picture is only OK

-Negatives-

-Auto Program takes FOREVER

-Front buttons are practically invisible… and therefore practically unusable.

-No Picture-in-Picture at all

As you can see, the negatives are pretty minor (except maybe the PIP for some people). All in all…. I love this dang TV!!