Samsung UN32EH4003 32-inch 720p 60Hz LED HDTV (Black)
So I took the plunge and finally upgraded my bedroom TV to a Flat Panel
Samsung LED 720p 32" (Model UN32EH4003). I bought it during the Black
Friday time frame directly from Amazon for $247.99 (Free Shipping,
14-Day Price Guarantee). I went in knowing that I was buying the
cheapest 32" Samsung Flat Panel that you could buy and knew that I
wasn't getting every bell and whistle, which is fine with me. My goal
for this TV is to use it as a bedroom TV with a Verizon FIOS cable box
and a media player (Ethernet connected, not WiFi) and watch it from
about 8 feet away. No gaming, minimal DVD, etc. That's basically it.
Just
for some background, I'm upgrading from an old 20" Generic Tube TV in
the bedroom. I do have an HDTV in the living room, but it is also a
Tube TV. There I have a 34" Sony widescreen Tube TV that I bought about
7 years ago that was basically the biggest widescreen Tube TV made that
I know of. Back then a Tube TV picture was much better and cheaper
than Flat Panel.
First Impression - This TV looks nice. Clean
front. It is extremely light. The base feels sturdy and big enough to
support the TV without risk of falling over. It was simple to put
together with 8 screws in the base.
Setup - It has 2 HDMI's and
then some regular RCA and Component hookups. My setup consists of
Verizon FIOS Cable Box and a WD Live TV Media Player (to be replaced by a
Boxee Box within the week, but that's another story). Plugged the
Cable Box and the Media Player into each HDMI port using new Amazon
Basics HDMI cables. The TV on-screen setup was easy enough to figure
out without pulling out the instruction manual. Everything came up
perfectly the first time with just a press of the Source button.
Picture Quality - I tested the TV out with several different types of media and sources.
1)
First with SD Cable. A little blocky up close, which may just be the
source, but from a normal viewing distance, I the quality was just fine.
The kids' cartoons were fine.
2) Second with HD Cable. This
picture seemed really nice. Didn't see any kind of distortion. Seemed
nearly as good as the HD Tube TV that I have downstairs from an 8 foot
viewing distance. I was happy with what I saw.
3) Third with a
normal 720p Video file via the Media Player. Picture was really nice in
this case also. Everything seemed crisp. Very happy.
4) Finally
with a fast motion 1080p Video file via the Media Player. This is where
I expected the worst, but to my surprise, the fast motion scenes seemed
fine also. I only tested a couple of files, so we'll see if other
scenes have a problem, but so far so good.
Overall I was very
happy with the picture quality. The colors on the default setting were
pretty terrible, so I tried "brilliant" which was too yellow, and
finally settled on "movie" which was pretty much perfect in all
instances. The "movie" setting was much brighter than the default, but
not too crazy. Looked pretty natural.
Viewing Angles - Side
viewing angles seemed really good. This was one of my pet peeves and
most of my reluctance to move to a flat panel TV in the first place.
Many flat panel TV's look terrible when you aren't watching it straight
on. This TV seems to have much better side viewing than many of the
competing TV's out there.
Screen - The screen edges do have a few
very faint white areas that I have noticed, but they are barely
noticeable and only when the screen is completely black. I don't notice
it at all when there is any kind of picture on the screen. I probably
only see it because I am looking for it after reading a few comments
about backlight bleed. For me, it doesn't seem like anything to worry
about. I always buy SquareTrade warranties with all my electronics, so
if the screen does have a problem, I will be set.
Sound Quality -
This is where I had the most trouble. Granted, I'm upgrading from a
old TV, but out of the box, the Samsung sounded very hollow and words
were hard to understand. It seemed to be completely missing any low
end, not talking about booming bass, just lower frequencies seemed to be
missing. I tried every sound preset that they had and all were pretty
bad. I finally gave up on the presets and used the included 5 band
Equalizer which finally did the trick. Per request, I posted a picture
of the settings in the customer images section of this item. [THIS
SECTION HAS BEEN UPDATED BELOW: I basically maxed out the low and high
frequencies and made a bell curve of the middle frequencies, raising the
one that controlled voices until I has happy. This seemed to do the
trick just fine and I am now happy with the sound.] Granted, if you are
expecting a booming surround sound feel, you're shopping for the wrong
TV, but for what I think this TV is meant for, it sounds just fine.
Bells,
Whistles and Other Stuff - I haven't toyed with this TV too much yet.
There are lots of menu settings to go through. The power button on the
bottom of the TV seems pretty cool. It is like a combined
button/joystick that pulls up a menu when pressed that you can use the
button to move through, or just turn off the TV. I won't use it much
since the Cable Box remote will do most of the work, but it is a nice to
have since the actual TV remote will probably sit in a drawer once
everything is set up. It does have a USB port that is supposed to play
pretty much any type of media format. If this works well, it is a great
feature. For me, I plan on continuing to use a dedicated Media Player,
so I probably won't use this much, but for anyone else, it would save
you $100 on having to buy a media player if you have a use for it.
I've only had this TV for one day, but this is what I think so far for a pro/con list.
Pros:
1) Great price ($247.99 at the time I purchased it, put a camelcamelcamel price alert on it for when the price drops again).
2) Great picture quality, especially for the price.
3) Very good side viewing angles.
4) Easy setup and connection to Cable Box and Media Player.
5) Enough picture and sound settings to get the quality you want for your individual preference.
6) Fast motion scenes seem ok so far.
7) Energy Star cost of $6-$12 per year to operate. That just sounds crazy, but I'll take it.
Cons:
1) Sound presets are terrible, but can be adjusted manually.
2) Concern about possible backlight bleed, but covering myself with an inexpensive SquareTrade warranty.
In
conclusion, I'm giving this TV a 5 Star Rating based on how great it is
for it's low price. I've only had this TV for one day, but I love it
so far. I will continue to update this review as I use the TV more and
learn more about it.
=========================
ONE MONTH UPDATE (12/26/2012):
So
I've had this TV for about a month now, and I still love it. I am very
happy with the video performance and I have continued to refine the
audio settings. The picture is great. The viewing angles are great. I
haven't had a single instance of any kind of motion blur from any fast
motion scenes yet. No change in the very minor backlight bleed which I
still think is no big deal. Its working great with the Verizon FIOS HD
DVR and the HD Media Player (now upgraded to a Boxee Box).
The
one negative regarding this TV is the sound. I posted a customer image
and talked about my manual Equalizer settings in my original review.
Since then, I had found that those setting were still not quite right.
During many scenes, the background music seemed to overpower everything
and voices were becoming impossible to understand in many instances. I
kept tinkering with the Equalizer and finally settled on updated
settings. It seems that the 300Hz setting was the one that was
controlling most of the background music, so I dropped it way down and
words became much clearer. I have now been using these updated
Equalizer settings for a couple of weeks now without messing with them,
so that tells me that they sound pretty good to my ears. Again, for the
low price of this TV, I'm not expecting the best sound, so it hasn't
had any impact to my 5 Star Rating now that I have fine tuned the
settings.
Long
story short, I still highly recommend this TV for the price. It seems
to hover around the $250-$300 mark and it is a great deal at that price
point.
I don't know much technical information about this tv, but I really like
how light it is and think that the picture is very clear. The speakers
are not the best when playing music through my blue ray player, but
having it connected to my stereo solves that problem. I am very happy
and satisfied with this purchase!
This is a great TV for the price. It's only 720p and not 1080p, but I
don't notice a difference. It doesn't have a ton of bells and whistles.
The remote is simple and there aren't many real features to speak of.
Also, there are only 2 HDMI inputs, and no separate audio channels,
which is a point of contention for some.
Bought this TV to replace a 32" Sceptre that was on sale for $180. I
bought the Sceptre thinking you cannot lose on a 720P HDTV for $180.
This is incorrect, I mostly use the TV for PS3, 360 and HD cable and the
Sceptre was giving me flickering lines, which in games such as COD will
hinder your gameplay. It got to the point where I return that Sceptre
and bought this Samsung and I am very happy with the purchase.
Although you still get flickering lines it is BARELY noticable, the
picture is beautiful and I cannot complain about the sound. At the price
of bout $330, it is a budget TV, Yes you can buy another brand of tv
the same size for under $200 but Samsung is a reputable brand in TVs and
I am satisfied with this purchase.
There is only one con and I
know most people already mentioned it, there is no audio output! For
some, that may be the breaking point but for me the speakers on this TV
is decent enough where I don't need extra audio hookups. So keep this in
mind when considering which TV to buy.
