The Xtra Inch. Review on Samsung-CS-30A3

It's weird how we can so get so used to our everyday routines. So was the case with our old TV. Yes it was good. The Surround Sound technology of our Videocon CTV worked wonders. It did not have the S and Hyper band, which were now the keywords for all TVs in the market, thanks to the cable TV boom. We liked it so much that we didn't want to buy a new one and had the so called magic box installed. Everything was so fine till....

Yes till Ritesh (yes rit_gary on MS) once came over to our house and a cricket match was going on. He suddenly came up with a crazy observation. ''Hey, why is Tendulkar looking stunted from waist down?''. ''Oh! He is a short guy'', I said defending our TV, where he chuckled with ''He is short but certainly not a mutant''. It was only then that we realized, that the image on lower part of the screen was compressed. OK yes it was really time to change (though we had the problem corrected).

We did went through the painful exercise of visiting several shops/dealers and grand electronic exhibition at Bandra Reclamation. The TVs we saw were fascinating. The Flat TV models were impressive with their sharp picture quality but the prices - eyepopping. The Philips 100 Hz was the clearest. The plasma TV were huge and priced Rs. 1,50,000 and above. The Philips wide vision (wall hanging TV) was a fashion statement and at Rs. 8,00,000 was probably designed for Jayalalitha (only she can buy that w/o inviting income tax guys). Samsung with its Vision Plus, Plano TVs and other products and wonderful chicks (Oh! Mine..sorry I had to express myself) was the next impressive stall.

Well we came back - empty handed.

------------------ END OF PART ONE -----------------------

One fine day I came home from work and my mom was talking on phone, which she suddenly kept on seeing me. Strange and she looked all excited, zapped! ''Something's fishy'', I thought. I was right beside the TV and some news was going on. I glanced at the newsreader. Oh! She looked bigger than normal. ''Oh! My God'', I screamed out loud. Was I seeing it - a reality? Yes my eyes were reading ''S-A-M-S-U-N-G''. The phone rang again - ''Dad, you sure have a style''.

My Samsung TV (Model No: CS-7601NV) was huge. As compared to our earlier 21'' this was 29'' + an extra inch for their Vision Plus technology. So the 30'' TV with a market price of Rs. 35, 500+taxes was purchased at Rs. 25,000. What? Yes that combines a discount + super discount + exchange price of our old TV.

So what's so great about it. Nothing revolutionary but a bit of everything and at a affordable price.

The Screen: Firstly it's almost flat. Most Flat TVs manage to get the edges straight but the center screen appears concave. This one is perfect on all parts of the screen.

The Picture: The important thing to watch out for TV is the picture quality. Funny though, that, some people advertise Thunderous sounds or Bazooka etc. The color, contrast works wonders. Important is that it has 4 presets - Mild (reduced brightness), Standard (sharp, slightly more bright than Mild and more contrast), Dynamic (more contrast, brightness and color), Movie (less sharp, bright and less contrast) and then the Custom for your own choice.

Well things don't stop at that. It has several 4 zoom modes. Normal hey hey, I am not explaining this. 16:9 for that cinemascope style Zoom for those who don't like cinemascope. This elongates the 16:9 picture to fit the screen. Don't try it on normal formats as the picture may get clipped. Plus This is the extra inch that forms the USP and is in fact the name of the TV Samsung Vision Plus. Though now they term this as a technology in their Hitron series.

The Sound: Though it does not mention the G-horn technology of Samsung, but I guess it's there. It has 5 modes again Custom, Standard, Music, Movie and Speech. It allows for Bass and Treble adjustments in Custom mode. There is ''pseudo stereo'' over and above this that splits monoaural into right and left channels. It also supports NICAM stereo which some channels broadcast. There is support for more broadcast sound systems like B/G, I, D/K though I don't know what it means nor does the manual explain.

Channel surfing:It has 100 channel memory and supports all frequencies there are. The remote is the main tool that allows you to get from Ch. 1 to Ch. 78 directly. If you prefer TV buttons, you may have to press the button 77 times (tsk tsk). So use the remote carefully and don't damage it. There is a channel scan that surfs all channels for few secs each. For setting of channels it has auto store in increasing order of frequencies aired and the manual store.

The best part is you can search for a channel first and then store it to which ever channel you number you want. In my earlier TV you go to Ch.1 search till you find Star, then goto Ch. 2 search all over again till you find Zee etc. So I find this extremely useful. You can also sort later on. Navigation and settings are easy through remote and it supports English and even Hindi language. And yes it has Child Lock and Channel Skip functions too. For noisy or weak channels you have fine tuning and even then if its bad, it is replaced by ''blue screen''.

Other Features:

• The audio/video/headphone jacks (RCA input connector sockets) are not inconveniently at the rear side nor on the front side spoiling the looks. It's conveniently at the left side towards the front and easily accessible. Thoughtful huh!

  
  




• The TV has a standby mode for power saving. It has ''Sleep timer/Off timer'' and ''On timer'' as well.

  
  




• It has a game mode (senseless game though). Better off w/o it.

  
  




• It has automatic degaussing to prevent those color patches on screen when magnetic interference (such as speakers) are brought closer to it.

  
  




• The TV model looks sleek and attractive, worth putting as décor in hall with only power, menu, vol, channel and IR port in front. Damn Sexy! But it has large size. Better keep it open than in any shelf.

  
  

Overall, it's one of the best TV to have at that price and I would rate it above those concave flat TVs. There is but a higher version with PIP technology. MRP = Rs. 50,000/-I would have loved Dad to surprise me with that one. Dad, surprise me again with a DVD player or a DTS set.