This is an honest review of the PS50A650 and contains things that I wish someone had of told me before I order my TV. But let me start by saying that I am not a videophile, just a normal IT junky. So I won’t be giving you any technical insight into the picture quality, but I can tell you what it is like to live with day-to-day.

First the good stuff.
The set looks amazing, even when it’s not switched on. Initially I was worried about the ‘touch of red’ in the frame which is really noticeable on all of Samsungs marketing pictures. However in real life it’s almost unnoticeable and even more surprisingly the subtle amount that can be seen, somehow manage to make the set look sexier!?

When you turn it on the set comes to life and the picture quality is amazing! I read a lot of reviews before selecting this set and apparently the PS50A650 is slightly better than the equivalent Panasonic. But considering I don’t have several TV’s in my living room, I can’t really do a side by side comparison. All I can say is that it looks vivid and clean and crisp and that 1080P content for some reason makes liquid appear in the corner of my mouth. All in all I am very happy with the actually image.

Now the not so good stuff.
The thing that really lets this set down is not the display/picture; it’s the small things like the menu and channel change times. It really is a shame that Samsung have gone through all of this effort to make a panel that is getting really good reviews and then they drop the ball on easy stuff that they master years ago in their LCD TV’s. This is supposed to be Samsungs flagship model but it honestly functions like a child who has been kept back a few grades. It has the potential to be a perfect TV but for some reason they went and removed some basic functionality and effectively cripple the set.

For example, I own a 2 year old 32” Samsung LCD and when I click the ‘guide’ button on the remote I get a nice guide showing me what’s playing and what’s scheduled to play in the next hour for all of my favourite channels. It’s a very handy feature that I use when the program I’m watching finishes and I’m trying to decide what to watch next. Now on the PS50A650 when I click the ‘guide’ button I can only see what is currently playing on my favourite channels, which it not very handy when all of those programs are about to finish. To find out what will play next I have to individually select each channel and push the right arrow to see what is scheduled. A huge F’ing pain in the you-know-where.

Then there is the Wiselink. I was actually looking forward to listen to music straight for a USB stick which I planed to just leave permanently connected. Wiselink is very clever and can analyse and sort your music based on the songs mood etc. However you have to manually select each song that you want it to play! You can’t pick a mood, or folder or any other group of songs and just say ‘play them all’! No you have to manually select individual songs! On a 4gb stick that’s about 1,000 songs to manually select! Oh and then there’s the wise idea of being able to display images with music, but not music with images. That is to say that you can do a photo slideshow with music and when you click the skip forward button you get the next image. But there is no way of having your images as a screensaver while you listen to music. Oh and apparently shuffle means start with the same first song and THEN randomise the next track. I am so sick of stairway to heaven right now!

One last thing before I wrap-up my rant. Channel changes are slow. They’re not ‘oh my god I’ve got time to load my gun and blow my brains out’ slow, but slow enough to get the bullet into the chamber. It’s slower than most sets I have seen and noticeable slower than the 2 year old Samsung LCD I own. Definitely something to look at in the store before you buy, that is if you plan on watching lots of FTA TV.

In conclusion.
I like the TV, I really do. But I just wish I had of known these issues before I bought it. I’m not saying I would have chosen a different set but I would have given more considerations to the other options. For me it’s not a huge problem because I mostly watch movies and other media from my HTPC, so all I really need 95% of the time is a really nice monitor. But if you are one of those people who love to watch FTA TV then you might want to reconsider or at least go to the store and have a look at what I am talking about.

Also it should be noted that Samsung could possibly fix most of these issues with a new firmware release, but I doubt that they will bother. In my limited experience, firmware updates only fix bugs and don’t improve menus/options.

FYI – Street price with good haggling is $2744 which includes the standard 2 year warranty.

Hey, thanks for your honest appraisal it's what this forum is all about.

Don't worry, all the other brands have their own stupid issues too. I've had LG and Panasonic plasmas and both have problems that make you want to bang your head against the wall

Why is it so hard to make a TV that just works?

Exactly. I mean these problems aren’t that hard to fix compared to the grand scheme of designing a plasma.

In fact considering they have better menu systems in their older and cheaper models it almost looks like they deliberately decided to undo their good work?

Why they would do such a thing to a ‘flagship’ model is beyond me, but the end result speaks for itself.

I desperately wish I could find a ‘feedback’ email address for Samsung so I could ask them what they were thinking. Anyone know someone who works for Samsung?

good review, cheers.

im suprised they dont just have a standard menu (operating system) across their display range - like they do for example on their mobile phones. that way they could just add to something thats already working well and that people are familiar and comfortable with.

Personal experience reviews are far and away the best and, in my opinion, the most reliable. Thanks for your post.

Just got mine PS50A650 yesterday, had a 50"P7 but rent it out with my house, then back down to a 32" R 81 sereis for few months, happy to be back to the 50"!

PS50A650 does have a "Full" Guide, after you press the Guide, then look at the bottom, press the Red key on your remote for Full Guide, the TV came default at simple guide.

Suggest you read the user manual come with the TV (normally ppl don't look a it as you would expect they should have pretty much the same menu setup, but that's not true)

Hope this help



Btw, have you try to connect it via HDMI/DVI cable to a PC? (will only work by connect to HDMI port 2), I'm having some problem with my unit, it keep showing "Mode is not Supported" but it work with the 32" R81 I have and vid the D-Dub (PC VGA) connection on the PS50A650

Thanks for the suggestion dhung. I actually did read the manual (something I normally don’t do) as I was desperate to fix the small issues that were annoying me. I’m pretty sure I have tried the ‘full guide’ and it didn’t give me what I wanted. But I’ll double check that tonight – I really hope you are right

As for connecting via HDMI, I’ve had no problems at all! It was amazingly easy to do. Originally I just had it in a random HDMI port on the back of the set. Then I read the manual and it said to use the HDMI 2 port so I swapped it. I don’t know why I swapped it. I mean it was working fine before that anyway so it made no difference. The thing is that my laptop is outputting in 1080p so I don’t think that the TV knows that it’s actually a computer. You probably have done this already, but double check the supported resolution/refresh rates in the manual and make sure you are using one of them. Also in your case you probably do have to use the HDMI 2 port as that’s probably the only port scanning for those supported computer formats. But if you can find a setting on your display driver to force 1080p I would give that a go.

Best of luck

Thanks gogeek, will try this weekend. Might be the problem with my video card.

btw, what notebook you have? Brand & Model?

I've got a Dell XPS M1330. It’s actually more powerful than my 2 year old HTPC. And yes it can even play 1080p x264 content without any problems at all.

As for the full guide thing you suggested, you were right… to an extent I had tried it before but it kept defaulting back to the mini guide after every use instead of remembering what I used last. Plus it shows all the channels and has no option to just look at your favourite channels – which is f**king stupid. So I got sick of it and started using the channel list button (which lat least ets me look at my favourite channels) instead of the guide button.

I did find the setting in the menu system last night to set full guide as the default for the guide button, but there is no way to specify that you only want to see your favourite channels. So it’s slightly better now, but still not perfect (or even sensible).

Thanks for your suggestion though.

I too have this set and i know what you mean about the slow channel change gogeek but other then that so far it been a real pleasure to have this tv,the PQ is just amazing Im watching the cricket now in HD and its superb and we just finished watching Con Air on BD and it was spectacular.How did you guys go with the settings or are you still tweaking???I found some setting on the net and they were optimum settings for this display in a dark room but when i set them it looked fine but foxtel was **** i know its not that good at the best of times but it was really awful,so have you guys got foxtel and/or some optimum settings???

Cheers Ryan

Sorry Ryan I don't have Foxtel so I can't give you any specific help. As for picture settings I was really happy with the colour settings etc straight out of the box. The only thing from memory that I changed was that I turned off the ‘sharpening’ feature which was causing some annoying artefacts in detailed panning scenes and also set it to ‘just scan’.

And yes the clarity of the cricket the other day was fantastic. I’m not a sports kind of guy, but even I found myself watching it just because of how clear it looked

are you actually referring to the channel change directly from the Guide itself, or just by pressing the keypad? If the delays from the keypad is annoying you, just press Enter immediately after you've keyed in the number. I haven't changed any channels from the Guide yet, but i'll give that a go. i think the EPG is pretty good (esp in Full Guide mode), although i would prefer the highlight to scroll instead of the whole menu content!

also so far the best setting i've come across is the factory setting (but then so far i've only 'run it in' for about 4-6 hours since taking delivery yesterday so i haven't had much time to play with it all) i've tried to lower the contrast & brightness as well as turning off movie mode and digital NR as part of the 'run-in' process but what i find (esp on 10HD since it is broadcast in 1080) is that during quick movements on large objects, the colour palette changes on the texture (instead of a nice smooth textured gradient, it becomes almost VGA like with solid layers) i then tried to reset the picture settings and it seems to have gone away...(??)

so far pretty happy with the set, although i think it overkilled my Wii coz the games looks pretty shyte on it lol - any suggestions on how to fix this, or should i just suck it up and sell the BR player / trade in the Wii for a PS3 altogether? the only other thing that annoys me is the piss-weak speakers... my old 30" CRT has waaay better bass than the 650 - guess it's just another excuse for me to go and buy myself a digital receiver/home theatre pack lol

Hey gogeek,

Couple of questions:

Are you happy with bundle Samsung 50' Plasma 650 and Dell M1330?
How do you send Audio from Dell via HDMI or analogue Dell outs to Samsung TV(receiver)?
Did you try RGB signal at 1080 from Dell to TV (I was told that Samsung is capable) ? Is there big difference in quality?

Thanks,

Guys, does your PS50A650 turn on by itself then turn off right away.

My does that every now and then.... not sure if it's normal.

Every now and then I can hear the click sound from the TV when it turns on, then the screen flash black, then turns off again.

I've try to update the firmware but the one I had already have the latest firmware.

Can you report if you expeirence the same problem, thanx.

It's not normal. No tv would ever do that. Call Samsung for service.

Cheers, Nilas

Looks like it's the auto firmware update is the cause of the problem, after I turn it off, the TV is back to normal again.

Yes that does happen to me,sometimes when im in bed i hear it turn on then off.I havent contacted Samsung yet will probably do it in the next couple of days.....Cheers Ryan

A mate of mine has this TV. Nothing much wrong with it but it does have issues working with a Sony STRDA5200ES receiver. Most of the time it won't sync up with the HDMI input from any source you put into it, including the bonus Samsung Blu-ray player that comes with the set. And there are other nigglingly annoying issues too. Thankfully I only get to see it now and then. If it was mine it would be back in the box quick smart for a refund.

Cheers,
Alan

A little off topic........but semi related
I have the P9 and HDMI 1 always is recognised (even when PVR is powered down) however HDMI2/DVI is not recognised until my HD DVD player warms up. Quite often I have issues with screen going green (24p sync issue??).
Have called for service and they are going to replace the main board.

Has anyone managed to "sort" the channels?

I like to have my channels in this order:
ABC
ABC2
ABCHD
7
7HD
9
9HD
10
10HD (oneHD)
SBS
SBS2
SBSHD

According to page 23 of the manual there is a way to sort them, however I can not get the "sort" option to show in my Channel List options - it just does not appear.

The only thing that it looks like I can do is to re-number each channel to make it show in order. ie, ABC from 21 to 1, ABC2 from 22 to 2, ABCHD to 3 ,etc,etc.

The thing is I like having the channels as their "proper" channel numbers.

Can anyone help?