I got two lemons
I've purchased two of these TVs from Amazon.com and I've had to return them both due to problems. Maybe I was just unlucky but I will not be purchasing another Samsung TV. Thankfully Amazon's service department was fantastic through the entire ordeal.
For the first TV within the first few hours of use I noticed that the left side of the screen was darker than the right side and that it was also flickering occasionally. I called Samsung tech support and I was very unhappy with their service. First when they asked for the model # of the TV they asked me to confirm it several times because this particular model was not in their system. I realize this is a new model but not having any record whatsoever of my particular TV model was not confidence inspiring. After walking through a series of troubleshooting steps they tried to prematurely pin the source of the problem on my cable box. Samsung support said the dark left side of the screen was caused by my cable box and this was before we tried the "test image" under the "diagnostic" section of the TV menu which also showed the problem clearly demonstrating that the problem was in the TV itself and not related to anything connected to it. After they finally acknowledged that there was a problem in the TV they arranged for a local repair shop to contact me. They said it would be 24-48 hours before I was contacted. No thanks. This brand new TV was going back. I'm not waiting for days for service contact and further days or weeks for a 'repair' of a brand new $1400 TV.
Amazon's service folks were great we worked it out so that a new TV would be delivered and the old defective TV would be picked up all in one go.
The second TV also had a problem. The TV 'creaked' or 'popped' or 'clicked' about every 3-5 minutes when the TV was on and would continue this for several hours after turned off. I'm not sure if it was the plastic body making noise due to heat or something electronic inside the TV but it was far too loud and happened far too often to be acceptable. At best it was distracting when watching TV and at worst it was indicative that something was wrong inside the TV (try googling: "samsung TV clicking"). I did confirm that this was definitely the TV by removing and unplugging all other components and noting that the behavior still did continue.
So again I contacted Amazon's service folks to arrange a return. This time I did not order a replacement. There was no charge to me on any of the shipping in either direction since the TV was considered defective.
For the short while I had this TV here are some of the things I noticed about it:
1.The 120MHz Auto Motion Plus option defaults to "standard". This makes the picture look real "too real" almost (I've seen people describe this as the "soap opera effect"). This might be OK for sports but I preferred this option to be off for normal movie / TV show watching. Try disabling this feature first if you think the picture looks "strange".
2.The TV has an ambient light sensor which lowers the brightness of the picture automatically when the ambient light is low (e.g. in a living room with lights off). I found that the TV picture got way too dark when the lights were turned off in the room. After some investigation I discovered that you can set the amount of dimming that occurs when this option kicks in. This is under the "Eco Sensor" option. It defaulted to maximum dimming which made the picture totally unsuitable for viewing (shadows and darker parts of the image were completely blacked out). I adjusted this so that it did dim just not as much and then it was OK. So if you find that your TV is too dark when the room is dark but OK when the room is well lit then check this option.
3.The TV appeared to be inconsistent in holding it's settings after losing power. For example every time the power went out or the TV was unplugged I had to manually re-set the options I've described above (Auto Motion Plus and Eco Option dimming level). Oddly sometimes the TV would retain it's settings. Not sure if I got a lemon or what but this was very frustrating as it would take a few minutes to reset these things manually with the remote.
[*** This was user-error not a problem with the TV - see "UPDATE (Jun 2 2010)" at the bottom of this review ***]
4.I was not particularly pleased with the quality of the stand. It looked nice but for the two TVs I had I found that neither was level when sitting on the stand. The first one tilted to the left and the second one tilted to the right (just to be clear - both were on the exact same level surface so I'm sure the problem was the TV stand itself). The TV stand is not adjustable so there's no real way to deal with this.
5.Otherwise this is a good looking TV it is ultra-thin and very sleek. Unfortunately for me the quality was not up to par.
UPDATE (May 1 2010): Against my better judgment I decided to give Samsung one more chance because I definitely like the look of their TVs over the other brands. So I did purchase a third Samsung TV (again from Amazon.com) but I got the "traditional" LCD model that is not LED backlit (Samsung LN46C630) rather than this same LED model (Samsung UN46C6300). So far here is what I think about the traditional LCD model replacing the LED version that I initially purchased:
- I've had no problem with the display or with the TV clicking/creaking/popping.
- I'd be hard pressed to see any noticeable degradation in picture quality in going from the LED backlit LCD to the regular LCD model. The only think I can notice is that black screens are "light" as is common for traditional LCD screens. Unless you are a videophile this makes no practical difference when watching everyday TV movies etc. This is still a 1080p HDTV and let me assure you the image quality still looks fantastic.
- The only real noticeable disadvantage I can find to the traditional LCD vs the LED model is that it is thicker (the LED model was ultra-thin). Having said that the thicker body of the traditional LCD model feels much sturdier and more solid than the LED model. The LED model creaked and popped when moving it around and this one does not. Obviously the thinner LED would look better on the way (with a low-profile mount) but this LCD version still looks nice.
- I know the traditional LCD consumes more power than the LED but given the significantly cheaper price I can live with that and I doubt the difference is significant enough to make any real dent in the energy bill.
- The menu system / firmware appears to be identical between the two models.
- I had to adjust the Auto Motion Plus and Eco Sensor options for this TV just like I did for the LED model (see above).
- This model like my LED model came with the "Contrast" setting maxed out to '100' by default. I needed to town this down.
- The stand is different and mounts to the TV in a different way than the LED model. My new traditional LCD model is perfectly level unlike the two LED models I had.
- Oh yeah the traditional LCD model is about $400-500 cheaper than the LED model.
I'd strongly suggest that anyone looking at the Samsung UN46C6300 LED model strongly consider the less expensive Samsung LN46C630 traditional LCD model. For roughly $500 less I've got a better built TV and I can live without the ultra-slim frame.
UPDATE (Jun 2 2010): I'd like to clarify that the #3 issue I reported above about the TV not holding it's settings after losing power is incorrect. I have just discovered that each source input (i.e. each HDMI input) has it's own unique settings. I was not aware of this originally. I think what originally happened is that I set HDMI input #1 (Cable box) to put the contrast down to 50 and then was still seeing a contrast setting of 100 but on the HDMI input #2 (BD player). The only explanation I had for this was loss of power and I think I was wrong. So in summary there was probably no problem with this particular aspect of the TV and it's up to the user to town down the contrast / auto motion plus / etc features for *every* source input that they use. As mentioned above I now have the LN46C630 model with a similar menu/firmware system and it holds its settings just fine through power-outages. I hope this is helpful to other users.More detail ...
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