I've finally ordered an HDTV. After years of thinking about a Toshiba REGZA, then more recently the Sony 32XBR6, I finally ordered the Samsung LN32A550 tonight. The Sony costs more, isn't as highly rated at Consumer Reports, and is out of stock at my favorite vendor, so the choice was fairly easy. I briefly considered the LN32A650, but it costs much more and its claim to fame - 120 Hz - seems to annoy many people (it causes the "soap opera effect").

I ordered it from B&H for $759 with free shipping. (I also decided to get the 3 year warranty just for peace of mind.) It's supposed to be here Thursday. I mainly chose B&H because (in addition to the good price) they have a 15 day return policy for TVs smaller than 37" during which a full refund is available. Many other LCD vendors don't.

I also got a wall mount for it as space in our bedroom is at a premium. We decided to try this atdec mount: http://www.newegg.co...m=N82E16824998150

Fingers crossed...

Cheers,
Scott.

UPS didn't beat up the box, but I did have to wait quite a while at their location to pick it up. They thought it was still on the truck for quite a while... :-/

B&H shipped it in the original carton, with some extra security tape around it. It has a handle so it's easy to carry.

Setup was simple: 4 screws to attach the base, plug in the cord (attaching a ferrite noise suppressor), plug in the cable, and put batteries in the remote (the ones that came with it were dead). It took quite a while for it to search for all the channels in auto mode, and then it automatically removes scrambled channels. It shows the QAM and NTSC (and Antenna) channels all together (in groups) by default, so it can take a while to cycle through all of them. I haven't studied how to delete the ones we don't want yet.

I haven't noticed any stuck or dead pixels, but haven't looked for them yet, either.

HD cable channels look great, but a little too sharp for my taste on the default settings. SD cable channels vary widely in how good they look. Presumably some adjustment of the settings will help, but SD does not look as good as on a tube set (I think this is universal for all HD sets).

The sound is plenty loud at 25% of full scale in our bedroom. There's a little bit of a warm plastic smell as it burns-in. I expect that will go away in the next few hours.

We're still debating whether we're going to mount it on the wall arm. I want to, J is dubious.

We don't have an up-converting DVD player yet, so that's next on the list. And I need to look into replacing the cable box with an HD one...

So far, I'm happy. I hope it lasts 5-10 years. ;-)

Cheers,
Scott.