Samsung 51 inch plasma tv hdtv reviews

Samsung PN51F4500 51-Inch 720p 600Hz Plasma HDTV (Electronics)
It seems as though every single product category on the planet these days has to sacrifice itself to the lowest common denominator. I'm not that old yet and I still remember when the household "TV buying day" was a special event, and you were assured that if you wanted anything at least 32 inches in size, you were going to drop close to a 1000.00 or more for a quality set from one of the major name brands. Fast forward 15 or 20 years and now nothing it seems is immune from the economic race to the bottom, not even a "big" TV.

I had initially purchased a Westinghouse DW46F1Y1 at Microcenter seeing that as an incredible deal at 349.00 for an LED backlit 46 inch LCD. However I wasn't terribly pleased with the overall quality of the TV, knowing that just a few bucks more would probably get me something from one of the big name brands. I haven't had a plasma in several years and decided it was time to go back. I zeroed in on both the LG and Samsung 50-ish inch "4500" series models (how confusing is it that BOTH companies 720P offerings for 2013 are "4500" series models, couldn't they have figured this out before-hand?) but felt 449.00 for the LG was only within a stone's throw of the 1080P offerings from both companies at the time this review was written. However, I just happened across an open box of this Samsung sitting off to the side in its box when visiting one of our local BBs. Now keep in mind I have NEVER advocated buying open box plasma televisions. It's just a BAD idea as 9 times out of 10 what you're going to get is a floor demo that has had thousands of hours of burn time or a customer return that has potentially had image retention that the store wouldn't have detected when they took it back.

In this case, I figured it was cheap enough worth taking a chance on. The price on the box was 429 and knowing that the current sale price was 449 I asked to see if I could get a better price. We settled on another 10 percent off and the TV ended up being about 385.00. To my surprise, when I got the TV home and set it up it was absolutely brand new. Service menu reading indicated that the TV had literally ZERO hours of use, so this must have been a buyer's remorse return, like my Westinghouse for example.

With that little bit of history on the why and the how of the purchase, I must say that the feature set and quality of this TV is absolutely unbelievable at this modest price-tag. There are DOZENS of picture quality settings just like the big brothers to adjust many facets of the image quality to your liking, whether you are a novice or experienced videophile. There is a clock with a timer, a quickly evaporating feature these days, and even PICTURE IN PICTURE of all things! As far as I know the PIP will only work with the TV's internal tuner as one of the sources, but it's still a feature you simply never see any more. Even the remote, which is often a complete afterthought on anything near this price, is a chunky, well made and backlit affair to aid in night time use for those who don't have universal remotes of some sort. And keep in mind, we're still talking about the STRIPPED DOWN 2013 model here, still replete with tons of unexpected features. Additionally, there is an orbiter to protect from image retention, and economy modes which reduce the panel luminance based on ambient light in the room. Typically, ambient light adjusted brightness is another feature found on higher cost sets and something Samsung simply doesn't need to include at this price-point.

• Samsung PN43F4500 51 inch Plasma TV New

All in all, Samsung threw the kitchen sink at this TV features-wise to say nothing of the already very respectable Clear Image panel and picture quality for such a bargain bin television. I can not recommend this TV enough at under 400.00 if you can find one. At 450 or higher I would likely recommend stepping up to the 5300 model with 1080P resolution (bearing in mind that the "street" price for the 5300 is currently 549 at BB and possibly other retailers at the time this review was written). The BEST no-holds barred image quality "budget" plasma would be the Panasonic TC-P50S60 but it's still 700.00. I paid close to half for this TV and it does everything I need it to do. The only reason I didn't give the TV 5 stars is an annoying problem which is being seen on more and more TVs today, and that is the lack of analog audio outputs for those of us who use 2 channel stereo equipment, along with only 2 HDMI inputs of which even the lowly Westy had 3. There are ways around both of these problems, though at additional cost and cable clutter.