Its not that hard to imagine............ Review on Samsung CS29M21MA

I was on the look out for a good TV as we’d been hitting our heads against our so called Sansui for last couple of months and its brightness was going down by the day, even when we kept the brightness at the max it felt like we were watching some west Indian channel thru out the day. Sound was awful with a 20 watt speaker – even the size of the TV was so small – it was 20” but looked like a pretty portable one. Remote was one more thing I must tell you that with 4 years of use had become so stubborn that we had to aim it straight to the sensor of the TV or better take it close enough or the best - hit it on our knees twice before we were able to change the channel.

Same TV some 4 years earlier was an apple of my eye and I just cudnt take my eyes off its curvy body as it took me bloody 3 months to save all that money to go for it, I still remember I bought it specifically to watch the Cricket World cup without being interrupted.

Now picking up a TVis as tough as choosing a girl to marry these days – its darn tuff. Since they have all the big brands(I am talking about TVs), in one row you can see ‘em playing the same channel and drool on the looks till you see the price tags and move to your left(that’s how they keep it) – leftest the cheapest – and rightest would be the expensivest – so the more you get inside the showroom – the more they go deep down your pockets.

Sony was an out right rejectas one of my closest enemies has got a Sony - so there was no way that I could have gone for it, wifey would have broken that TV into two pieces, (Ravi – no name calling please), Sansui was a strict no no after 4 years of use, Onida has got nothing to offer – Videocon and BPL are already out of the market, Bro has an LG and I am bored to death of the silver looks, last option which I never tried was a Samsung. So I finally settled for it, 18K was not a bad price for a 29” Flat TV with quite good sound. Exact 10% of its price is what my old TV fetched me. Gladly I paid them and the same was delivered to me in flat 3 hours.

I wanted to go for a LCD(Samsung) was my personal choice for same – I almost fainted to see the clarity of the same, just cant take my eyes off the discovery channel they were running as demo on TV, it was so damn clear that I could feel the chill of Himalayan range right inside the showroom, but the moment I looked at the price of a 42” LCD – I was like wtf! – two months without pay check, Forget it. I am sure they will come down within the next year or so.

Now the one I got: Samsung Plano DNIeJr

Looks:It’s a flat 29” with a black panel, if you see it from front – I am sure you can’t tell if it’s a flat TV or a LCD on the first look, even our TV rack is a bit deeper and it gives a good look for the same. Black Panel looks sexy.

Size:It is huge, when the delivery guys came and put it inside the drawing room I was like – what the hell! Than I checked in the weight and was surprised to see that it did weigh bloody 45+ Kgs. Now that’s either almost my weight or a lil less than me. But surely I am not going to give it a shot to pick / move it anywhere.

Function wise:I think I choose the right thing, it has an option called plug and play, that means just fit in the cable, click on plug and play, go get your coke bottle and empty it in a glass – add some 3-4 ice cubes, call dad and mom to have a look and pull your favorite low lying chair. By the time you finish these things – it has already installed all your channels and is ready to go. Manual installation is also there so you can choose your personal favorites and save them in a line. Change the sound settings to Stereo; keep all music channels on Turbo Sound to have a terrific bass effect and you are ready to Rock. Amitabh Bachchan really sounds Amitabh Bachchan on this one(350 Watts). Sound Clarity is good, I loved Watching “Rang De Basanti” – dunno what channel it was running but I could make out that sound was really awesome to say the least. News channels can be kept on voice mode, Movie channels on Movie mode and all. Now equalizers are something you can play with till you finalize and settle for one setting.

Remote:Infrared Full Function. The first thing I checked with the remote was point it towards the roof and see if it increases the volume or not – thanking god that it does. So no worries at least during this world cup, who is planning to watch the next on the same TV anyways;). It has all the functions you ask for.

Clarity:It’s a Samsung Plano DNIe vision, Now I am no rocket scientist to explain that but as a lay man can tell you that vision is dirt clear and if its no better than a Sony than nothing less too(may be 10% here and there) but is damn good. No issues with brightness, contrast or color things. Its smooth and pretty good, Grass is always green and even an old movie sounds like I am watching “Salaam namaste” with so many colors. Streets of Mumbai look like NYC. OK ………… Its good and doesn’t effects me at all even when I watch 2 – 3 movies in one go that too from a distance of hardly 6 feet as that close is our Deewan from the TV and I don’t go to the extent of sitting on the sofa and watching it. It has 4 different viewing modes like Dynamic, Movie, Standard and Custom.

Extras: You don’t do anything to the TV for about 3 hrs and it will assume that either you are not there or you are dead and will shut down automatically. Your cable Walla stops the signals as you didn’t bothered to pay the bill for the month and TV will switch off in 10 minutes of signal failure automatically. Screen goes blank and produces no sound in case nothing is coming or you are trying to install something in between two channels, doesn’t makes that annoying hissing sound. A cute music plays everytime you switch on or switch off the TV asTING TONG TING, that ways I come to know even from our bedroom that how many times wifey has turned on and turned off the TV in last half an hour before I could assume that she will come to me and say “I want to talk to you about something……” and you know what they always talk about?…………… No prizes for guessing. Although you can turn this sound off too. Other Options: Channel Scan, Off timer On timer, On screen Display, Clock, Signal Strength, Child Lock, Swapping Channels etc. Reminder is one option which is something new in this one, you can put in a reminder for a certain time and it will remind you to swap the channel if you were expecting to see something on some other channel while seeing something else for the time being. And also it has one pathetic game to play.

Trust me– whenever I visit any of my friends now a days who have a 21” flat – it looks so small in front of my current possession, I remember there was a time when I was jealous of the same guys as their TVs were far far better than mine but now I feel good – YEAH somewhere I read “The Bigger The Better”.

Even the users manual is bloody 48 pages thick and I am yet to check it.

My Recommendation– go for it till the LCDs and Plazmas come down a little and they stop throwing junk technology our ways.

Ratings and comments are more than welcome as always.