Amazing picture, but surprised by some missing features

Amazing picture, but surprised by some missing features, April 3, 2008
By Daniel Eskenazi (Chapel Hill, NC USA) - See all my reviews


I want to say first off that I also experienced the bug where the TV unexpectedly turns itself off, but after I installed the firmware upgrade that Samsung posted on 4/5 the problem has gone away.

I agree with the other reviewers that the picture is AMAZING. I am also happy to see that Samsung has added a 4th HDMI port. I was initially concerned that the "Touch Of Color" might clash with my decor, but samsung ln40b650 is very subtle especially if you mount the TV inside a cabinet. The "Infolink" feature is cute and easy to set up, but I don't see samsung ln40b650 as being extremely useful.

Now for some caveats. I purchased this TV right after setting up an LNT4661F for my inlaws, and I was quite surprised to realize that the A650 is missing several features from the 4661F, despite the A650 costing $650 more. For starters, the A650 does not have rear composite video or S-video ports (only one of each on the side). This is probably not a big deal for most people, but if you are using a VCR, surveillance cam, etc. you will have a cables plugged into the side of the TV. More of a concern to me was that the A650 has only 1 antenna input versus 2 on the 4661F. That means with the A650 you can't plug in both an antenna and a cable input. I guess Samsung figures everyone is using a set top box so they cut corners there.

By far my biggest complaint is with the Remote control. Again unlike the 4661F, the A650 does NOT have a universal remote! It's essentially a TV-only remote, although samsung ln40b650 CAN control Samsung "Anynet+" components connected via TV. This seems like a big step backwards and bothers me more than the other features that were removed. Also the remote is not described on the Samsung website so I had no way of knowing that the remote had been "de-improved". I agree with other reviewers that the navigation wheel is horrible ... samsung ln40b650 spins freely which makes samsung ln40b650 practically useless ... you spin the dial to make your selection, then as you move your finger to press the enter button inside the scroll wheel, the wheel moves and you select the wrong value. You have to wonder "what were they thinking?". I've seen Happy Meal toys with better tactile feedback!

Despite my criticisms and annoyance that some features have been removed, I still rated this TV as 5 stars because in my book, picture quality is by far the biggest consideration and samsung ln40b650 looks great to me. Also the aesthetics are very nice and the new features such as 4th HDMI and Infolink make up for the removed features and poor remote control.