Comment on Samsung UN50EH6000 50-Inch 1080p 120Hz LED HDTV (Black) by Jason.
Worth every penny,
Let me first state that while I didn’t buy this product from Amazon, I felt it was worth leaving a review for this TV since buying a new set can be a complicated process, and I hope this review will make your buying process easier. Also, I happen to be primarily a gamer, so if you enjoy video games as well, this review might help you. To start, I’ll give some general information, then dive into a more detailed discussion of the various settings and how I calibrated my TV.
I’ll get the obvious out of the way first: this TV is BEAUTIFUL. The first words that literally came out of my mouth when I turned on my Xbox 360 (even before I calibrated the video) were “Oh my God.” Granted, I’m upgrading from a 4-year-old 720p 32″ 60hz Sanyo, but even so — the picture quality was notably impressive. Even a non-videophile (like myself) can appreciate this set. Blacks were black, whites were white. (Although looking back, I can see that my non-calibrated set looked non-ideal — more on this later.) The audio, as to be expected with this sort of set, was somewhat disappointing — the speakers are on the underside of the set, and I could tell right away that the sound was off. Calibrations to come!
The set itself is easy to set up. Four screws put the base together, and another four connect it to the TV. I will say, though, that the set is VERY wobbly. A slight bump can make your set rock back and forth, so make sure to be VERY careful around it. As another downside, there are only two HDMI ports and one (!) slot for component/AV cables. What this means is, you can have component OR AV cables attached, but not both. The ports are surprisingly limited, so it’s worth taking into account. If this isn’t a problem, though, the TV definitely impresses. It’s very lightweight, so you probably won’t need to buy a new stand.
So, on to the technical stuff. Again, if you’re a gamer, these settings should help you get a spectacular picture; keep in mind, though, that everyone’s different, and my preferences may not be the same as yours. Either way, these should be a good starting point.
The TV has three main video settings: Dynamic, Standard, and Movie. The TV starts out at Standard, and you can change it to the other two. Dynamic greatly brightens the screen, and at first I thought I’d found my ideal setting. Upon closer inspection, however, one can see slight problems with colors — some greens seemed too blue, even on the “Standard” color setting (not the same Standard as I listed above). Which brings me to my next issue — Dynamic offers no option to manually tweak red, green, and blue levels, making it difficult to adjust. It’s almost a case of “what you see is what you get.”
The audio also has several “preset” options: Music, Movie, Clear Voice, and Amplify. Clear Voice and Amplify seemed too muted, so I never even bothered with them. Music and Movie, on the other hand, increased sound quality (and volume) but, like with video, do not allow you to manually adjust the equalizer.
Finally, we have the Samsung Auto Motion Plus. This setting controls the quality of the image during fast motion, and like everything else, it requires some tweaking to get just right. For example: say you’re playing a first-person shooter. When moving the screen from left to right (or vice versa), this setting controls how smooth the motion is. On one setting, you have nice, smooth motion, but the top of the screen “tears,” creating very noticeable graphical glitches. On the other end of the spectrum, the graphical glitches are removed, but the motion is back to blurry — almost as if the TV doesn’t have 120hz.
Now then, I think it’s worth noting the few problems I’ve noticed with the set in the months I’ve owned it:
1. Video jittering. This is the biggest thing, and I’m actually noticing it right now as I play Fallout 3. When moving through certain parts of the world, the screen will “jitter” and parts of the picture will become uneven. I’m not totally sure how to put it into words…there’s no discoloration, there’s just horizontal lines that move up and down across the image, making it look uneven. It only happens in certain situations, and only in certain games; I’ve never noticed it in Battlefield 3 multiplayer (I do see it sometimes in campaign, but only when scanning my screen across images that are large and close-up — like buildings — which is curious in and of itself), and I’ve never seen it in Halo 4, Enslaved, Mass Effect 3, or most other games either. It may be an issue with the AutoMotion Plus, but I’m not sure if it is, and it doesn’t bother me enough to worry about too much.
2. Black levels. Black levels are difficult to get just right; sometimes you think you’ve got the right level of black, and then you notice certain scenes are too black, or too grey. I’ve noticed this quite a bit when calibrating the set for my Xbox 360 and PS3. In…
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