Samsung 32" lcd . Review on Samsung LA32R81B

So I was looking around for a month or so for a decent LCD and I settled on a Samsung series 4 32 incher for 38K delivered and wall mounted. Since I have had it for a couple of weeks now I thought I would review it on the off chance that some other kindred soul is in the same dilemma I was in.

Input options

This(after picture quality) is the most important thing for me in a TV. And it should be important for you as well. At any given time my TV has three devices plugged into it(DishTv, Xbox360 and PS2) with an option for a fourth(PC via VGA) that might be needed. So the TV needs to have at least 1 component, 1 VGA, AV and HDMI options. Samsung has all of them. In fact it has multiple connections for Component and HDMI. My only gripe is that the VGA option is in the back and you cant well fiddle around with that once its mounted on the wall without a lot of bother.

Size

This was a tough one. From the getgo the 40+ inchers were out. They wouldnt fit into my budget unless they were plasma(which came close enough to my budget to consider stretching). And I did not want to buy a plasma(more on that later). That left me with the 32 and the 37 inch options. Now I sit at about 6-8 feet from the screen so I was pretty sure that 32 would be good enough but I kept the 37" option open. Depending upon your requirements and room size 37" is avery good option.

DTH(STB connected by AV cable)

I have Dish TV at home and while I dont watch a lot of that(mostly I use the telly for gaming or DVDs) other people in the family do and this aspect was important to them and therefore to me.

Right of the bat the default settings the TV ships out with are awfull. The whole picture looks overy bright and pixelated at times. So I played around with the settings a bit(also looked at avforums.com for that) and finally settled on the best one I could find.

Now DTH looks good. Its certainly a step forward from my previous CRT. But its not a giant step forward. Discovery and cartoon network look a lot better on LCD. Sports as well look good. There was no ghosting or lagging in the Premiership games I saw yesterday. But all in all is not a spellbinding improvement. Still I am fairly happy with the results.

DVDs(from the PS2 via AV cable and Upscaling from the PC input)

Despite the DTH people advertising the DVD like quality of the display the differance in quality between a telivision broadcast and a good DVD is noticeable. I looked around for King kong as it had some lush colurfull exteriors. Also tested Sin city for its dark and moody look. And Shrek for its lovely animation and splurge of colours.

And it looks brilliant! Shrek was my favourate. It looks so vibrant and alive its hard not to be impressed. The colours are plush and natural and all in all its fantastic. The blacks in Sincity also look rather good. It looks good from the native 480p version of the PS2 and it looks slightly better when upscaled from a PC input. All in all the DVD aspect is very good.

Divx

Just a small word for Divx. Most of my film collection(about 100 GB worth) is in Divx format so I had to test and see what it looks like. I used the Xbox 360 to stream stuff from my main PC. I had seen that LCDs dont show the Divx format in its best light(on my desktop Viewsonic anyway) so I was pleasently surprised that it looks better on the TV than my Desktop LCD. It looks to be on par(depending upon the rip) to some of the STB TV channels. Its not mind blowing but I am happy that it doesnt look like a bloated pixellated mess. So all in all fairly happy with that.

HD

Well not True HD but I do have a small(and growing collection) of various things in 720p format. I started out by testing a few episodes of Planet earth. And its so beautifull I fell in love. I also tried Batman Begins at 720P and that looks brilliant too. So I threw some 1080p content at it. Mostly trailers and small videos and that looks excellent as well.

I dont have a lot of HD material at hand and I kinda wish I did. There is nothing else quite like it and the TV does such a brilliant job of displaying it that I feel bad just switching back to STB.

Final verdict is that if you have a decent collection of HD material you will not be dissapointed. Its everything you want in a HD display. The colours, the details, the picture clarity is nothing short of stunning. The fact that Dish TV might be stepping up to HD in a few months makes me giddy.

Gaming(HD with Xbox 360(component) and SD with PS2)

Ah the real reason I spent 38 K on the telly. I was fairly happy with my Viewsonic 19" for my Xbox 360 gaming. So I was not expecting much more than a larger size screen for gaming. Boy was I wrong. Forget about the screen size the whole picture quality is so superior that I cant picture going back to the Viewsonic now. I tried almost all the games in my collection. All of them look brilliant. Plus the larger screen size makes split screen play a lot more approachable. Gears of war alone makes the whole 38 K well spent.

PS2.

Again this is big leap from my previous 21" CRT TV. Its true that some of the low res textures can be a bit jarring at times on some of the older games. And the lower resolution means some of the flaws are highlighted but the superior colours and the size makes you overlook some of ther other inherant issues of SD games.

Will probably update this once I try some PC games on it. But its just a task moving my huge cabinet arount to the TV and my laptop cant even play solitaire without chugging.

Aesthetics

What about looks? Looks dont matter you say. Well they do to me. I like functionality and thats still most important but it helps if it loooks good when switched off and boy does it look gorgues. It has a very nice finish and lovely curved bottom(everyone loves a lovely curved bottom). Its thin and the speakers are hidden. What more can you ask for? Looks beautifull wall mounted.

Sound

Again I was expecting the sound to be average at best but it was actually pretty decent. Granted any external speaker you plug into it will sound better but as a default option for most people this will more than get the job done. Most importantly the sound clarity is extremely good and doesnt get compromised even at higher volumes. Turning on SRS gives the sound a richer feel as well. From dialogues to gunfire all the sounds are very clear and rich. For those people who dont plan on getting an expensive home theatre system with a TV this will be very good default option.

Last peice of advise. Always go to a showroom and see any telly you are interested in action.