Price Paid:  $1700.00 from eBay

Summary:
We enjoyed the picture size of our Hitachi projection set yet were not happy with either the picture quality (of all big screens) or the room space it demanded. Upon deciding to downsize, we chose to go with a HDTV ready set. The Samsung is definitely priced better than all others and happily, we found it's picture and sound quality to be as good as my sisters Sony Wega. The set allows for zoom functions so a regularly transmitted picture can be viewed as a "formatted for TV" picture, displayed on a 32" diagonal screen, or can be viewed using a panorama setting, giving it the feel of a widescreen. It's normal format, however, is 16.9, making it excellent for DVD viewing. We recommend this set to anyone wanting to ready themselves for HDTV without incurring the high cost in todays market. As we have not yet purchased the HDTV receiver/decoder, we cannot comment on that important functionality.

Strengths:
Compact,lightweight, visually appealing, excellent sound system easy to understand menu, great picture, aspect (zoom) capabilities

Weaknesses:
Only an HDTV ready set, not an intergrated model.

Similar Products Used:
Hitachi 50" projection.

Summary:
THINK TWICE BEFORE PURCHASING A SAMSUNG PRODUCT!!!! I decided to ignore warnings posted by other Samsung buyers and I am now experiencing first hand the TOTAL LACK OF SAMSUNG CUSTOMER SUPPORT!! when something goes wrong.

Summary:
I had a particular problem as I looked for a wide-screen...
space. I had to work around a 100 year old piece of furniture to place the set in and my area was only 16" deep.I found this set after hours on the internet and I was nervous about buying something of this magnitude on an "unseen" basis. I read a review at Digital Connections that convinced me that it was worth a try and since I use an LCD panel display on my home computer I was had at least seen DVD on LCD and liked the effect. I was not prepared for what I got as I watched this set for the first time. The progessive scan and the line doubler with an LCD texture simply floored me. More suprising was that even off the air television was the best I'd ever seen. I use DSS through one s-video but all local stations come from an antenna in my attic and the results are the most life-like I've encountered. The picture has depth and perspective that puts you in the scene. Colors are good out of the box but I suggest you use Video Essentials (or comparable) to get the most out of this set. These adjustments will make the veiwing experience not unlike looking out your window. The hook-up for DVD with component was even better after these adjustments but s-video is nearly as good. I won't spend time listing all the features for input as that can be gotten elsewhere. I will point out the weaknesses I have found with the programming of the set. No discrete input selection means toggling through the five inputs each time you want to go to the input before the one you're using and this makes programming a macro on a universal remote very tedious- a big minus if this is part of home theater set-up that doubles as your audio entertainment as well. The menu items get in the way when you are fine tuning the set for color, contrast, etc. Some wished for functions do not operate in the component mode (pip). The remote is fairly useless for anything beyond the set itself. Despite these flaws (and one or two others that I've learned to work around, I find this set remarkable for this price range. I got mine for less than $3000 but bought a DVD to make mine
a $3000 investment. I should mention that the set has an SVGA input so it could pull duty as a moniter and I suspect would be a fine one but I have no experience using it as such. I never give anything five stars because you can't spend enough to get there but I will give this set four and a fraction for the the package. It does improve a few things over the PLH as far I've read and nothing I've or read about can give you this much in as compact a size as this RPTV.

Strengths:
Lightweight,compact,easy to use,great veiw

Weaknesses:
no discrete functions for input or aspect- makes programming a universal remote a pain

Similar Products Used:
none