Customer Reviews
Excellent TV!! 
2008-06-08
When I first saw this HDTV I was at Best Buy. It stopped me in my tracks because the picture was excellent. There are plenty of inputs to choose from. It also Energy Star compliant which isn't well known. This unit hardly uses any electricity at all when not in use. If you get this tv you will not be disappointed.
Great picture, but tuner, board does not work 
2008-06-01
I bought this tv on May 8, 2008.When i brought it home and searched for channels, it was not able to auto program any. I exchanged it for a new one. Amazingly, had the same problem. Called up Samsung and was told they could not fix it over the phone and had a nearby repair shop come out and work on it. The repair shop came out to my place (one thing I have found out is Samsung customer support is top notch, wish there TV's would work.) Repair man told me he was replacing at least one main board a day, and said it was a widespread issue. Said many people do not notice due to the fact they are using a cable box. Replaced my main board, still had the same problem. Just recently tried to use a dvd player through the s-video jack, and that doesn't work either.
This is a very condensed version of the actual situation, this has been going on for about three weeks. Unfortunately i will have to take it back and fully return it. Note that i am able to pull up channels by typing in there numbers but not able to "surf" using the up/down arrows. And from what I have seen the TV picture is amazing, and the tv's look and aesthetics awesome for this price point. I REALLY do not want to return it.
I am writing this review so that others know that they may want to wait a couple of weeks (longer?, not sure on how quickly these things are fixed)until this widespread issue is resolved, or they may want to buy it from a local store so they can easily take it back. If you plan on using a cable box though, you will be just fine.
Highly disappointed, but the video channels I did type in were great, and I think the price is so reasonable, I am amazing myself at the fact I may reconsider and repurchase this tv at a later date. So much for being an early adopter for a new product line!
Great TV 2008-05-26
I am updating this review after one months, as my knowledge about the product has increased. Basically I think it offers one of the best picture quality available at the $1k price point. The features that in my opinion set this TV appart are: outstanding HD picture and black levels, anti-glare coating, 3 HDMI inputs, great picture adjustment controls and swivel stand. On the minus side, the sound is tiny and the speakers are prone to vibration if you turn the bass higher. It's not a real concern for me, since I use external speakers anyway. Also, with some older material (not re-mastered) the picture may look a bit grainy. Perhaps not the best choice if your viewing mostly SD programming.
Here is the original review, with a few minor adjustments:
Colours are deep, rich and accurate when fed a good quality signal through an HDMI or DVI connection. Even dark scenes are beautiful: deep black levels and excellent contrast are better than many plasma TVs. The screen backlight is uniform. There is no noticeable glare from the screen, although the glossy black bezel will show some reflections.
HD material looks excellent. Vibrant colours and outstanding detail give a perception of depths that is very pleasing, especially when watching HD sports channels. I found that component cables provided from my cable company did not work nearly as well. With HDMI/DVI the picture looks much better than it did in the store. I tried three different cables and I settled for a Monster 300 HDMI cable (rated 1080i) which in my opinion works well for this TV and is probably worth the extra few dollars as opposed to lesser brand names.
The Samsung A450 does a good job with high quality SD material and some channels look much better than a CRT of comparable size. There are no banding issues or artifacts that I notice, except to say that old SD material tends to look blurry on a 40 inch set vs the typical 27 inch CRT, which is to be expected. Feeding the signal through an upconverting DVD player seemed to help a bit in this regard. You can also use the upconvert setting on your cable box, but I found it more useful to set it on Auto-DVI.
The 720/1080i display is adequate for this size TV and in HD the picture looks as sharp as I'd ever want. In fact, I set up my cable box to 1080i, rather than the slightly sharper 720p. To my eyes, this resolution seems to give a more natural picture.
The design is quite attractive and the swivel stand is very handy if you put the TV on a stand, rather than hanging it on the wall. These TV's really have only a +- 30 degrees viewing angle before colours start to fade and while this model does better than others that I saw in the store, the swivel feature is a definite plus.
User menus are friendly and provide a vast array of options for picture adjustment. You can store three custom settings for each input (for viewing in bright/normal/dark room). The factory setting are quite good for standard cable TV viewing, but I found that different sources do require adjustment and you will be happy with all the controls that this set provides. One adjustment that CNET recommends is Picture:Picture options: Film mode: auto (rather than off), which should engage the 3:2 pull down for optimum viewing of film based material.
With a picture so sharp and clear, some lower quality material shot in low light (such as concerts and movies) may appear a bit grainy. While the digital noise reduction is largely ineffective, reducing sharpness all the way to zero (if necessary) effectivelly cleans the picture with minimal loss of detail. This is also recommended by CNET for the movie setting. However, some TV's fair better in this regard (for example the PN50A450, which I also own, has excellent noise reduction and even with the larger size, SD channels look better. However, the HD material is sharper and the blacks are deeper on the LN40A450). If you plan to use cable TV, the SA 4250HD box gives a better SD picture than the older 3250, so I would recommend it.
DNIe seems more of an experimental technology at this point. It is mostly useful for sports, giving exceptional sharp and bright picture but at the expense of colour accuracy (especially for the green colour). A little fiddling with the green/red balance (about 10% towards red) will produce a more natural effect. For the standard/movie settings, where colour accuracy is the main consideration and sharpness not as important, DNIe is disabled. All in all, with so many adjustment options, in the quest for that perfect picture, you will likely find yourself reaching for the remote control more often than you really want, which is why having three custom setting per input is so useful - a feature that most TV's in this price range lack.
Set-up is easy. The set is quite light (40 pounds) and can be handled by just one person. Once plugged in, it will find all available channels and external sources. You can customize the names for each source, which makes it easier to identify them.
Motion blur doesn't seem to be a problem with this set, at least so far. There was only one instance that I noticed and re-booting the STB eliminated the problem. However, plasma TV's still seem to have the edge here (at least on paper), but I decided to go with LCD, since I like the extra brightness and colour definition that it offers and black levels and contrast are excellent and comparable to the Panasonic TH42PX80 for example. Since I looked at this Panasonic set in detail, I can add that the colour accuracy on the Samsung is better. This is even more important since the Panasonic lacks some of the picture adjustment options. In the trade-off however, you give up a couple of inches of screen size and perhaps a higher quality cabinet.
Great LCD HD display for the price 2008-05-06
So the masses have spoken (or all 8 or 9 here on Amazon anyway) and let me know how lackluster my initial review was -- hey, I said I'd get to it...so here it is folks. Hope it provides decent information. The bottom line is that you need to go to a local electronics retailer to see/hear any LCD display you're considering before purchasing -- I recommend this highly.
I want to emphasize that you can research a large-screen display purchase for weeks: I got Consumer Reports LCD and Plasma review round-ups from 2007 and 2008 and Samsung's LCD displays consistently scored well against other major brands for reliability and picture quality.
As of this writing, Samsung is in a dead heat in the North American LCD market, competing with Sony and Vizio for first position.
PICTURE QUALITY:
I receive both Standard Definition and High Definition programming through Time Warner Cable and a Motorola DCT6412 set-top box with dual-tuner DVR. The set-top box is connected to the LN40A450 via one set of component inputs on the back of the display (there are 2 sets of component inputs on this unit).
HD picture quality is brilliant and pleasing to my eyes. There are a total of six pre-set picture modes - I usually stick with "Standard" or "Dynamic" and tweak color, brightness and sharpness settings as necessary.
I still haven't figured out the ideal settings that work with all pictures sources (SD, HD, DVD etc.) and there probably isn't just one frankly, so you should get ready to read the manual and understand how the various picture settings can impact your viewing experience if you're not currently adjusting your TV's picture settings.
For example, there's a "Cinema" mode visual preset that is best for dark rooms, and it does work well for when you watch a movie at night in a dark room. Black levels are satisfactory to me - only annoyance in watching SD broadcasts occurs sometimes when the black bars at the left and right are too bright, but this can be adjusted with the "backlight" and "brightness" settings.
The maximum resolution I get from the DCT6412 over the component connection is 1080i. Even though this display is advertised as 720p it apparently can accept 1080p signals thru the HDMI inputs from a source like a Blu-Ray DVD player (and in fact I watched a BR DVD of "The Bourne Supremacy" in-store to see what kind of motion blur there might be during action sequences, and none was apparent to my eyes - this was enough to sell me on getting this particular model). See the product spec sheet at Samsung.com for the 1080p listing:
http://www.samsung.com/us/system/consumer/product/2008/03/05/ln40a450c1dxza/ln40A450_spec.pdf
AUDIO QUALITY:
I like to tweak my bass and treble depending on the sound source, and this TV has a five-band equalizer built into the settings interface, as well as a balance setting.
I've tried the SRS TruSurround XT setting for fake surround, but frankly do not care for it -- if I want surround I pump sound from my video source into to my home audio receiver instead.
Sometimes if I crank up the low-end frequencies on the display, the enclosure can vibrate at the bottom very slightly, but that's rare. I have the Motorola set-top box connected to my home audio receiver via digital coax for movies and concerts, so this is not an issue for me. But when my wife and I watch regular TV programming (just voices over frequent music passages or TV news), the built-in speakers perform just fine. Across the board, you really shouldn't expect mind-blowing audio from any LCD TV regardless of brand - these speakers on this particular Samsung model only have 10 watts fed to them.
THE REMOTE:
It has all necessary functions to access the visual and audio settings, channels, inputs and also has a nice feature that allows you to press an "info" button to find out what resolution the current picture signal is being processed at. Overall, it's comfortable to hold. One minor design gripe: for some reason to me the remote is shaped to be picked up and held one way, when it should be held just the exact opposite way - very strange, but now I'm used to it. Also, the remote buttons are not illuminated in the dark - not a huge deal to me as I know the remote buttons by feeling and placement, but for some with poor eyesight in the dark this might be a negative.
DESIGN & AESTHETIC APPEAL:
I did not mount this on a wall, but instead chose to place it on the included swivel stand - and it's very sturdy and solid feeling to me.
The display frame is made of plastic but looks good - almost like polished wood if you didn't know better (and you won't until you touch it) and has a nice sheen to it, but not so much that it's distracting in regular lighting. I'm reading online that some models have a blue light that illuminates under the "Samsung" logo on front, but mine does not.
The display's controls for volume, input selection and power are easily accessible on the right side. There are a few video inputs on the left side of the display, while the majority of inputs and outputs are on the rear near the power cord. If you're putting this into a tight space as I did in a media center, it can be a pain getting all necessary cords put in place, but - and this was a HUGE reason for getting this display - you can rotate the display on its included stand about 20 degrees each way. This let me get my hands behind the TV to get the cords in the right place. The Sony Bravia KDL-40S3000, which was the other model I was considering, does not have a swivel stand - and because I was concerned about viewing angle issues as well as accessibility, this was one of the main reasons I chose the Samsung over the Sony.
BUILD QUALITY:
According to Consumer Reports' most recent LCD TV review round-up, Sony and Samsung are tied when it comes to reliability (3% of purchasers of both brands report issues), and so far I'm lucky enough not to be in that 3% of issue reporters. I have not had any performance issues with this TV - and those that I do notice, like compression artifacts on SD broadcasts I blame on Time Warner, not Samsung.
However, some AVSForum.com posters report sound being out of synch when connecting a cable or DVR box through an HDMI connection - I'm using component connection, so this is not an issue for me. And even still, Samsung has released a firmware upgrade for this set that apparently fixes this issue - the upgrades are placed on a USB thumb drive and then placed into a USB port on the back of the set, and through the display's configuration/settings menu the upgrade is applied. This was another reason I bought this TV: Samsung can make performance improvements through firmware updates.
Physically, the TV feels light, but that's a good thing IMHO. The back of the set feels a little cheap the way Samsung chose to mold the plastic, but it's not a huge issue.
Lastly, someone in product development had their thinking caps on when it came to the packaging: the display comes in a box with two built in handles on each length-wise side of the box - very handy (pardon the pun) for carrying out of the store, into your car and into your home. There are also two pieces of plastic that go through the box and when fastened in place, keep the display from moving around in the box - another appreciated packaging feature. Major kudos to Samsung here for thinking of the consumer's needs.
In summary, a great LCD displat at a great price - apparently anything below $1,000 is low-end in the LCD TV marketing, but the last tube TV I bought for $400 in 1996 manufactured by Philips/Magnavox lasted over 10 years (it's now in use at a relative's place) so ultimately reliability of this set will prove itself out over the next few years.
I'll update this review if anything else strikes me about the set or issues arise.
Finally, check out AVSForum.com and search the forums on this model number -- there's a thread there dedicated to this line from Samsung.
Great TV for the Price & Specs as of Now 2008-07-24
I bought this TV from an another store during a Mother's Day weekend sale and have not regretted it since. Awesome TV for the price. I paid about $50 more, and it works with virtually everything unless you're looking for 1080p with bluray, HDDVD, XBOX 360 or PS3. My Wii looks great on it even though that's only 480p. I have not tried running 1080i through this system yet although other reviews have said it's possible.
Basically, if you're looking for an impressive TV with an affordable price this is your TV. I spent about 4 months researching TV's and doing in-store comparisons and Samsung was the best everytime (and still is with their most recent releases). Side by side it was hard for me to differentiate between 1080p and 720p but considering what actually supports 1080p as of now this set performed just fine.
Some day I'll buy a 1080p with 120hz refresh, and make this set a bedroom TV :) but until more HD programming utilizes it or I buy an HD-DVD this TV is perfect. If you're in the same boat as me and don't need the top of the line right now, or in the next 2 years, this TV is should be something you consider.
Just right 2008-07-03
Great picture quality, decent price, and that's all one really needs to say.
I compared the picture quality with a high-rated sony model and what I like better about the Samsung is the truer-to-life colors. I find the sony skin tones to be more orange and wax-like, while the Samsung just gets it right for my taste.
Way to go.
Good picture 
2008-06-29
Good Picture and delivered promptly. easy to set up and operate. Installation instructions were good and easy to follow.
Samsung LN40 A450 2008-06-20
Great Tv did a lot of shopping, and went with the Samsung due to great reviews,also Samsungs seem brighter.
720P? More like 1080P! Perfect! 2008-06-12
Wow! I picked this up from Amazon for $1004 shipped and they threw in a free HD Tivo unit. Doing some creative "man-math", I sold the Tivo and my old 36" Sony Wega XBR for $440.
Net price on this $564!!!
We have it hooked up to a Samsung upconvert DVD player, and I swear it makes my old DVD's look like full HD Blu-Ray!
Very very happy with this set.
