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Samsung LN46A550 Review
The Samsung LN46A550
Samsung’s powerhouse lines of HDTVs are omnipresent in all price ranges, from the lower tiers to the highest end of the spectrum. Among the notables in the Samsung’s vaunted arsenal is the LN46A550, a mid-range LCD that holds a nice balance between performance and affordability.
Design
Lacking the Touch of Colour style of its high-end cousins, the LN46A550 nonetheless looks elegant in its piano black glossy finish that blends quite exceptionally with most modern home décors. The unassuming design features a quite wide frame surrounding the screen, with the lower part wider than the other sides and accented with a chrome strip and a strip of blue light at the centre (that can be toggled on/off). The downward-facing speakers are also concealed by the bottom part of the frame, with a swivel stand that matches the finish of the frame.
The new remote is a welcome change from older Samsung clickers. It is fully backlit, has large, well-spaced and colour-coded buttons, and features useful dedicated keys like the ‘Tools’ button that gives easy access to picture and sound modes, and ‘P-Size’ that toggles aspect ratios. However, the clicker lacks dedicated picture-in-picture key and the glossy black finish attracts fingerprints like magnets. The icon-based on-screen menu is easy to navigate, with helpful text at the bottom that explains each option.
Screen/picture clarity
The LN46A550 equals or even bests some of the more expensive LCDs in terms of picture clarity and black levels. Colour accuracy is good to begin with, and with additional tweaking, could be even better – well-saturated greyscale, primary and secondary colours that delivers crisp and vibrant pictures. The black level of the LN46A550 is just slightly inferior to the inky blacks of the top plasmas, but definitely superior to many other LCDs in its class. Even the near-black and shadowy areas on-screen are impressive – with discernible details that is often not seen on other LCDs.
Video processing of this Samsung is just average, partly due to the 60hz. refresh rates that reveal some motion blur on test materials. With 1,920×1,080 pixels native resolution, the TV resolved superbly 1080p and 1080i sources, though for some standard-def materials, some softness were observed. Noise reduction, off-angle viewing and attenuation of bright lighting were also good. Finally, the LN46A550 handled PC inputs from both VGA and DVI excellently, with no observable artefacts.
Features
The LN46A550 has three independently adjustable picture modes; five colour temperature presets; ability to hone colour using the white balance option,; three choices for noise reduction; and numerous other controls that allow settings for gamma, contrast, black levels, and colours. Connectivity for this set is more than adequate, with three HDMI ports, two component-video inputs, VGA-style RGB input PC input, USB port and a headphone jack.
In test conditions and actual viewing, the LN46A550 performed superbly, showing that it’s truly a well-rounded LCD TV that is useful in more ways than one. And with its comparably affordable price, the LN46A550definitely is a winner.
<< Click HERE to Read The Latest Samsung LN46A550 User Reviews >>
We’ve had this about a year now and have never had a single problem with it. Good picture, but I miss the analog channels - we are in the country and digital is NOT a good thing here as we are always losing the signal (not the TV’s fault).
I have purchased this 46″ Samsung LCD TV set (LN46A550) in August 2008 and its power supply failed last month exactly 3 months after the warranty had expired. My problem is described on Samsung website as “My TV Is Turning Off And On By Itself (Power Cycling)”, in the “LN46A550P3F Troubleshooting Guide”. The issue is clearly well known by Samsung but they would not pay for the repair anyway, not to mention that they are not recalling this product in the first place. It costed me 300 USD to fix the power supply (including labor) for a 1000 USD (current value) LCD TV. So, this product is poorly constructed and on top of that, Samsung has definitely the worst customer support service ever. I would strongly discourage anyone to purchase a Samsung TV. Good luck if you already purchased one…
We have owned this TV for over a year now and we are amazed at the quality of picture EVERY time we turn it on….(couple times a day!)
Have not seen a better picture yet!
Great for Sports, cartoons, and everything inbetween. I highly suggest this TV. We are 100% satisfide with the picture.
The only complaint I have is the sound quality. But it is an easy fix with a additional speaker system (most people have with a tv of this quality)
We have a very in expensive speaker system that does the trick when we need it. For most of the time we use the tv sound. Its not super bad but it is annoying when there is other things making noise (ac dishwasher ect…)
If you are looking for a flat screen LCD. Dont look any further… I did all my research and any other bells and whistles are unnessesary
We’ve had this about a year now and have never had a single problem with it. Good picture, but I miss the analog channels - we are in the country and digital is NOT a good thing here as we are always losing the signal (not the TV’s fault).
I really like the picture and numerous options built into this system. However, there are two major problems.
1) SOUND: TERRIBLE! The built-in speakers are terrible. No matter how you adjust the built-in equalizer, everything sounds like it is in a coffee-can, very “tinty”. I did also buy a home theater to go with it so I’ve been using that exclusively.
2) SIGNAL INPUT: Only ONE! I have a couple of other smaller HDTVs by Sanyo & LG, and both of them allow more than one signal source (Cable & standard antennae). This model only allows for one signal source.
It appears that the sound issue is related to this model. I have a friend that bought a 40″ Samsung and the sound in that unit is great. Apparently, Samsung figures if you have money to buy a unit this big, then you can afford a home theater…
I have since placed a service call with Samsung…
Pros:
Crisp Picture, Fast Response Time, Very stylish, Lots of Menu Options, Non-HD Channels somewhat clearer than other TVs I have seen.
Cons:
Nothing with the TV itself. After the first week I had the tv, the picture began blurring with red hues all over. The customer service for Samsung was absolutley horrific. After a month of calls and repairs I finally got the tv back. Since I live in a smaller town they had to use a third party repair party which is the worst experience I have ever had with electronic repair.
Once I got the tv back however I am very very pleased!
Okay, our LN46A550 TV was purchased in August 2008, we really liked it up until about 2 weeks ago. The TV started clicking when it turned on, and then you had to turn the power on several times to get it to turn on. Now the TV doesn’t turn on at all. So here we are with a thousand dollar TV that is just 3 months out of warranty and it won’t turn on. So we googled Samsung TV problems and found this wonderful site [...].
There are hundreds of complaints about Samsung TVs that stop working just after the warranty expires. Samsung is doing nothing to help the customers except telling them to go to the repair shops, which in many cases the repair will cost more than the original cost of the TV. I read the Amazon reviews when I bought this product and there were a few that had problems right after they purchased it, so I figured the warranty would cover it. I just wanted to make sure I added my review since I have had the TV for over a year and now the warranty definitely won’t cover any repairs. Stay far away from Samsung, they definitely DO NOT stand behind their products!
I love this TV. I bought it for $700 during the customer vote in 2008.
I use this tv with Dish Network HD, Playstation 3 gaming and blurays, and a Nintendo Wii.
Dish- Picture is great. I have the dish set up to broadcast in 720p, because I watch mostly sports and the progressive looks better than interlaced, a little smoother. I rarely see any motion blur. Even in baseball, the video always looks crisp. All of the HD content looks great. The SD leaves much to be desired, but why watch SD when HD is available?
Playstation gaming and blurays- Gaming looks great. The video is smooth. Blurays are unbelievably crisp. They are absolutely stunning.
Wii-For a non HD device, the video is very good.
Sound-Just terrible. It is painful to listen, and the two weeks it took for me to get surround, I rarely used the tv. It causes alot of ear fatigue. Part of the problem may be TV placement in a corner, but it still shouldn’t be this bad. Samsung really dropped the ball with their sound.
I purchased this HDTV about a year ago and I’m still very happy with the purchase.
This TV is not worth buying I bought mine in March 09 3 months later their was a problem with the TV. It was not working so the repair person came and changed the Mother board. Now again the TV is not working it power on of automatically every few seconds, their is no picture all I see is lines. Called Samsung again now they can’t come out until a week. I plan to buy a new TV this week for my room and its not going to be a Samsung.
Fantastic product. No issues since purchase, Amazon white glove delivery actually got it to me a day early. Granted, sound quality is subpar, but I’ve never heard any other built in speakers that were any better, and honestly if you buy a TV this size, you have room for a receiver and speakers too. Primarily used as a PC monitor, no issues with gaming on PC or console. Text can be a little hard to read @ default resolution. I think a really nifty idea for all televisions of this kind would be to have a small lamp in the housing to illuminate the I/O panel.