Review by Paul Pacis
Rating:
I have literally been following the prices of HDTV’s for about a year now, and there is no better time for an upgrade! Samsung just released their new “C” series, and somehow they are remarkably less expensive than their pre-existing models! The majority of the websites are selling this HDTV for $800+, Amazon’s lower-than-low price is less than the rest of the market. I purchased it here on Amazon, and received my HDTV in 5 days (could have been 4 days, but I had school all day). CEVA did the shipping for my HDTV, which I was wary at first because I have only dealt with UPS and Fedex. However, CEVA provided excellent customer service as they did contact me and I verbally specified a delivery time. Packaging was very efficient, and surprisingly light too!

For those who prefer using TV stands, you do have to assemble it on your own. Extremely easy to assemble though! All it took was 9 screws (already in the box) and I recommend using a power-screwdriver. Directions said it required two people, I did it solo! I was just eager to hook up my PS3 via HDMI cable and experience the wonderful world of 1080P.

Okay, now for the specifics and why this HDTV deserves a spot in your living room – As I mentioned before, right up to my purchase I extensively followed the quality and price of several HDTVs. The Samsungs 530, 550, 630, 650. The Samsung 630 is the best deal for your money, here’s why: The 5 series is less expensive, but only offers refresh times of 60Hz as compared to the 630 which is 120Hz. This is a big difference, and means that your HDTV with 120Hz displays at least twice as many frames-per-second which makes movies, not only sports, very fluid and more realistic. Another difference is the response time, where as the 5 series has a 6ms response time, the 6 series has a 4ms response time. And if you are a gamer, a difference of 2ms can make a big difference. So why the Samsung 630 and not the 650? The only difference now is the contrast ratio. The 630 comes with a 80,000:1 contrast ratio which in my opinion, still creates an extraordinary depth to the display. TV contrast ratio’s are starting to become stable around the 70,000 – 100,000 range (or much higher for LEDs). Whereas, 3 years ago the highest was around 10,000 but kept constantly rising. So this HDTV is very much future proof. Yes, the 650 has a higher contrast ratio, but is it worth the extra $200 something dollars?

All in all, if you’re not worried about price, go all out and purchase a LED HDTV. But if you want to shop smart, this HDTV is the way to go.

Review by KS
Rating:
I did a lot of research for TV’s in this price range. I’ve bought a few plasmas and LCD’s previously, and this TV blows them all away. This is a great price point, size and brand name TV. You can’t go wrong really, you will most certainly be satisfied. The 120hz setting on Clear works best, otherwise gives your TV content a weird soap opera look, so either set it to Clear or turn it off. This LCD works great with a PS3 also, and supports 1080p/24hz resolution, so when you watch blurays, the picture is crystal clear. If you experience any input lag when playing games (delay from button press to action on screen), try setting the source name of your PS3 to PC, it seems to fix that issue pretty well.

The sound on this TV is very robust and clear, although when watching blurays I have to turn it up to hear dialogs, which then makes action sequences really loud, but it’s not a big deal.

The design of this TV is just awesome. It has the glass bezel and gloss table top, definitely one of the best looking TV’s that I’ve ever seen. The stand also swivels, which is something every TV should have, but usually don’t.

The remote works well, and is very sturdy. The onscreen menus are very clear and even provide descriptions to most of the settings so you don’t need to try and figure out what certain settings do.

Its a pretty thin and light panel too, so if your mounting it, it should stay pretty flat on the wall.

I’ve got nothing but positives to say about this set, its worth every penny, and I’m usually very critical about electronics, but I’d recommend this LCD to anyone. It doesn’t look that great out of the box, but after a week of playing with the color settings, I think the picture has been perfected.

UPDATE

Here are my picture settings for anyone that needs a little help getting started

Mode: Standard

Backlight: 14

Contrast: 80

Brightness: 40

Sharpness: 20

Color: 51

Tint: G48/R52

Eco Solution: all off

Edge Enhancement: off

Digital Noise Filter: Low (though I’m sure auto is about the same)

MPEG Noise: Low

Color Tone: Normal (some people seem to like the Warm settings)

Auto Motion Plus 120HZ: Clear (though some people might like this more OFF)

If you have any adjustments to these, let me know

Review by T. Anderson
Rating:
Had good luck with a previous Samsung LCD TV. Was thinking of going LED this time, but the prices are still a bit high. We found a good deal on this TV, through Amazon, and even thought it didn’t have any reviews at the time we purchased it, we took a gamble.

Glad we did. The picture is SOO crystal clear…much better than our previous Samsung TV (which is still really good mind you). Sound (without additional external speakers) is pretty decent, too.

If you can get this TV for under $800, it’s well worth the price. Very good. Highly recommend it.

Review by J. Hopkins
Rating:
Firstly, it’s important to point out that I was shopping strictly for a high quality 1080p display. I have a home theater with external speakers and an advanced learning remote so the TV’s audio quality and stock remote played an insignificant role in my decision to purchase this model. Now then, the LN46C630 was the best 46″ 1080p display I could find that had all the features I was looking for. My criteria were for a model with 120hz, an adequate amount of HDMI inputs (4), a pc input, largely tweakable picture controls, excellent black levels, an absence of motion blur, and a cost of under $1000. This TV possesses all of those things, and beat out the competition of similar LG and Sony models because of what I deemed to be the cleanest, most well defined image, along with superior black levels. The only thing I felt lacking on this TV was the screen texture which is more prone to glare. Though, because my room is quite dark that was of no real concern either, but could be to others with more ambient light in there viewing room.

Here are a couple features I learned about only after I had the set that may be useful in making a decision.:

-The TV has Eco Sensor which will automatically adjust the brightness of the TV based on the ambient light of the room. No worries, this CAN easily be turned off, and is definitely something to be aware of.

-In the Advanced settings menu there are 2 expert patterns that you can use to dial in your picture settings. One is a contrast / brightness pattern, the other a color pattern.

-If you’ll be using the TV’s speakers there is volume equalization which adjusts the volume automatically as you switch channel to channel.

-You can stream media to this TV through your wired LAN or from an external USB storage device. if you want to do wireless, you’ll need Samsung’s optional wireless adapter.

-The stock remote has a very narrow IR stream. You’ll want to point it not at the center of the screen as most people do, but at the bottom right corner. It works fantastic once you learn to do that.

Some other important notes I’d mention to those that purchase this model:

-At default levels the contrast is maxed out to 100 for every input. I and many others refer to this as “torch mode”. That setting will shorten the life of your TV immensely and it needs to be adjusted first thing for each input. While properly calibrating your TV is more than I care to get into here (and pointless since every display is different as well as every input), a setting of 50 contrast and 50 brightness is good place to start for those that don’t have any other means of calibrating it more precisely. I also lowered the back light from a default 14 to 10.

-Under the picture options there is a setting called Auto Motion Plus. This is what controls motion blur. Familiarize yourself with the effects of this control. If you are like me it’s going be disturbing to have this control on “Standard’ to view bluray movies because it removes the natural blur of the camera moving and panning which to me is an annoyance. I use the “Clear” mode or just turn it off for movies.

-Also the effects of the sharpness control only add noise to your image, use the sharpness control very judiciously. I have mine all the way down to a setting of 9.

All in all this is a fantastic set for the price. The very minor issues it has are far outweighed by the price, the amazing picture quality, and the tremendous control you have over adjusting the image to your liking.

Review by D. Crook
Rating:
This was my first expierence with high definition television. I decided to get a Samsung after doing a lot of homework. The set has a lot of features and the picture quality is outstanding. I really like that you can control your picture settings for each input (cable box, dvd, video games). I connected a Playstaion and Wii using component cables and put the tv in game mode – wow! I also have an upconverting dvd player connected thru hdmi cable and some scenes look almost three dimensional. The matte screen is great for cutting down on glare. I am an avid sports fan now enjoying high def cable and the trumotion 120hz really helps for the fast movements on the screen. I was cautious about making such a large purchase over the internet but Amazon was great and the delivery through CEVA was decent. Delivery was within 3 working days and they helped me unbox and check that the tv worked properly. I would highly recommend this set for anyone looking for an affordable 46″ LCD tv packed with great features and an awesome picture at a great price.