Archive for April, 2010

Samsung UN46C8000 46-Inch 1080p 3D 240 Hz LED HDTV

Written by Best Buy PRODUCTs on Saturday, April 17th, 2010 in TV.
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Samsung UN46C8000

This TV is absolutely stunning. I was actually waiting for the C9000 to come out, but that TV’s price is way over the limit. I found out that this TV which is the next step down and actually has the exact same technology as the C9000 minus the touchscreen remote (which can be bought seperately) and the slim profile, not a big deal considering the TV already looks beautiful and is half the price or less then a C9000!

In all honesty, I think this TV has one of the nicest pictures I’ve ever seen. One example is the pin-point dimming, which has garnered a lot of criticsm and skeptisism. I have seen the production TV model live and I must tell you, I think it’s better then local-dimming and I’ll tell you why… Unless there is a new panel that is made to fix the local-dimming “halo affect”, this is currently the only way to get outradgeous contrast levels without that problem. The pin-point dimming on this TV dramatically lowers the dark spots on the screen in certain area’s without a halo affect and actually goes completely pitch black when watching movies with dark screens just like a local-dimming TV. I think this TV actually excels at the dimming part over a local-dimming TV because it creates supurb black levels without any halo affects. That’s a huge deal for me. Next is the color accuracy of this panel, I think the whites and colors on this TV are probably better then I’ve ever seen. Sure Plasma’s can sometimes have better color temperatures, but they will not pop out of the screen with ambience like this TV shows. This TV is sharp looking and beautiful and it displays wonderful 3D and High-definition like never before.

Last, but not least… this tv is LOADED with features, easily making it one of the most feature rich TV’s there is on the market. It’s completely wireless, has 4-hdmi conenctions, has internet applications and streaming capabilities and best yet, it does it well! I have done a lot of research and have compared this TV with it’s newest competitors and this one is it. Don’t just take my word for it, go see it for yourselves and you’ll just see what I am talking about.

Reviewed by : Corey Fisher,   Mar 30, 2010

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LG BD590 250GB HD Network Blu-Ray Disc Player

Written by Best Buy PRODUCTs on Thursday, April 1st, 2010 in DVD Player.
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LG BD590

Little background on me: I owned or have owned a BH100, BH200, BD300, BD370 and BD390. So pretty much every LG Blu-ray player except the 270.

Pros:
Fast – I noticed DVD and Blu-ray loaded just a wee bit faster than my LG BD390. The difference wasn’t amazing, but maybe a few seconds.

VuDu, Netflix, Pandora etc – They work just as they should. VuDu is identical to that on the BD390, but Netflix is the new version that allows you to view new movies/TV to Instant, has Genres, collections etc. No, it’s not EVERYTHING that [...] offers, but you probably have a rotating selection of 300 different programs to check out if you don’t feel like breaking out the laptop.

GracieNotes – Wow. Freakin’ awesome. I managed to pull song information from a DVD, BD and a ‘movie’ file. As an added bonus; Hit the Display button while watching something (I assume DVD/BD only) and at the very bottom is ‘Movie Information’. Click it and it will tell you what you are watching (small picture), synopsis, actor names etc. Woah!

250GB HD – Big selling point and works well. You are able to copy directly from an external HD/USB to the intern HD or via WiFi. Your choice. Obviously a wired copy will be faster than WiFi, so I set mine to copy 100GB from my external HD and went to bed. Woke up, and watched some stuff. Works very well and was fast. Maybe it can be upgraded? Out of the box it had 246GB out of 250GB available. So everything else is stored on internal memory. I bet this can be upped…

WiFi – Faster. Before, VuDu was a bit choppy, but now it was perfect.

DNLA – Works fine on my MacBook (some had issues?)

Cons:
Pandora – Ok, it’s great to finally get this, but why can’t I assume the colored buttons to be an easy Thumb Up, zzzz, Thumbs Down, Bookmark? Seems like it would be much easier, but the colored buttons do other things in Pandora. Feels like a wasted opportunity.

Music on HD – Well, it won’t play iTunes DMR files or ones in m4a format (iTunes automatically converts them this way when you rip from CD unless you tell it not to). I spent 2 hours converting everything in my library to .mp3 so I could import them. Funny thing is, it actually imports the folder name, but none of the tracks. Took me a while to figure out why it skipped several CDs (I did 10 right away).

Size – Why is this bigger? I get it has a 250GB HD inside, but those are the size of an iPhone and the back of the units reeks of being a Gen2 unit and not a Gen5 version.

Menu – Sigh. All of the online stuff is in the Netcast icon, which means you have to click it, wait for it to load, and then you get presented with Netflix, VuDu etc. An extra step, but c’mon, there is a ton of room on that menu screen. Which is now redesigned to look like animated Ice Cubes in a pool. Odd choice…

Picture Settings – Remember how the BD390 could allow you to add/remove Edge Enhancement, DNR etc. That’s gone. I even tried using my BD390 remote and the player didn’t do anything. WTF? This is the top of the line player (out of 3 now!) and this was removed? Update: FIXED! The Picture Setting Menu is now found when you hit ‘Display’ during a movie. There are as many options as the BD390, but its better than none.

USB – Really, under a trap door? I get that some people may not want to pull their gear out to plug in a USB dogle, but get a $2 extension. Thankfully, with the Internal HD, I’ll never use it.

Meh:
Remote – I don’t hate it…but I like the BD590. I’ll never use the numbers, so I would prefer them to be hidden in a trap door so I would have less to look at. The Center and arrow keys do feel better, and the Power button is HUGE compared to the identical sized Power/Eject of the previous. The Play/Pause/Skip are clear white…not sure why. They don’t glow. So confused.

DVD Upconversion – Looks about the same.

Reviewed by : B. Lowenberg,   Feb 28, 2010

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