Wake up, Samsung (Peeling Issue), June 29, 2011

By 

J. Reed “(‘www.realmofinfamy.com’)” (Washington DC) – See all my reviews

  

Customer Video Review Length:: 0:49 Mins

I purchased this marvelous television after countless research and first-hand looks at B&M stores. The PN597000 is a slight step-down from Samsung’s flagship 8000 model, but it’s also plagued with the same issues, most notably a “peeling” issue.

Samsung devised a solution to eliminate most of the glare from the 7000/8000 series sets, calling it the Real Black Filter. The RBF is a sheet of thin plastic laminated on the inside of the front set glass to mitigate glare caused by direct incoming light for those rooms with a lot of ambient light present. Kind of like a tint for a car window. Is it effective? Yes.

Does it at a huge price? Absolutely.

You see, what Samsung failed to predict and discover – and, more disturbingly, what they refuse to acknowledge even at this stage – is that this plastic sheet can PEEL on its own from the inside, possibly due to the considerable heat generated from the plasma set, creating air bubbles within the screen itself that will only EXPAND during the course of time, distorting or otherwise ruining the television.

I’ve learned about the peeling issue before getting the television set, since it seemed not everyone was having this issue (although a great number were). I thoroughly inspected my television around the edge using a flashlight and found no signs of peeling. It wasn’t until after 100 hours of breaking in the plasma did I notice a slight distortion on the top right corner of my set, and it was as I feared: my set was peeling.

I’m still one week into the purchase of this television, and I will undoubtedly return it toward the tail end of my 30-day exchange window as my television’s newfound problem will only accelerate over the course of time. Every report I’ve heard from other owners with this issue seem to indicate that matters will only get worse from here.

I urge both current and potential buyers to research this matter before it’s too late. I will exchange my set for a newer model, but I have very little hope that the new machine will not suffer from the same issue as my current one as the problem is inherit in the design of the set and not a mere random defection.

UPDATE: 07/09/2011 – A second peeling (air bubble) has appeared, this time on the top left corner of the screen.

UPDATE 2: 07/27/2011 – Just received my replacement TV from Amazon (Love you, Amazon!), and am currently in the process of breaking it in. By this time, Samsung has discovered the underlying cause of the peeling issue. Apparently, the television’s bezel is pressed too closely against the black filter, and needs to be separated slightly more. A solution has been devised and, from my understanding, Samsung will fix or replace any TV suffering from peeling issues with an updated panel provided that it’s still under warranty. Unfortunately, they won’t replace existing stock of their TVs with revised models, so new customers might still face this issue

UPDATE 3 (11/24/11): Second TV has not shown any initial signs of peeling or bubbling. I attribute this more to luck than anything else as the TV was built around the same time as the original defective one, and Samsung didn’t address the issue at the point of the purchase. I’ve read that, in some cases, signs of peeling might won’t surface until months later, and some owners are SOL as a result since the peeling occurred after the expiration of the warranty. I’ll post another update in 3 months (or sooner if any unfortunate developments occur). If it can last a year without any problems, I’ll upgrade my rating.

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Excellent Plasma, May 30, 2011

By 

David A. Oliver “Dave1000″ (Long Beach,CA) – See all my reviews

  

I just got the TV and have had it 2 days. My other TV’s are a 42in Samsung LCD and a 50in sony rear proj. LCD.

I read about plasma vs. LED and went for the plasma. It is in the livingroom which has full height glass windows on one side. We get direct morning sun as windows face S/E.

I bought the set over internet shipped free. Need 2 people to move very large box into home. Need 2 people to hang the set. I unboxed and mounted hanger by myself.

If considering plasma, here are my comments:

1. 3D is excellent. Get the largest set you can afford/ fit in home.

2. Picture on this set is very very good. Very vivid, yet realistic color and contrast.

3. Remote is good, but not a high end look. Possibly because many use other combo remotes.

4. Glare is not an issue. The sony used to be in livingroom and glare was more of an issue.

5. Off axis viewing is outstanding. 2D excellent. 3D excellent from any angle.

6. I bought the light rechargeable 3D glasses. Easy setup. Comfortable. OK over your perscrip. glasses, but not great.

7. TV looks great. Thin, high quality.

8. I mounted this set on new Walker Edison 60-Inch Cayenne TV Stand (black laquer and black glass). They are made for each other!! Looks great and size of stand fits perfect (width) with TV. TV “floats” above table- mounted on the stand’s rear pedestal.

9. Network/ wifi works good. Allshare works but sometimes buggy, as playing videos can abruptly stop (sometimes). I am still figuring the wifi and remote out. Plaing music through the wifi or network to livingroom is so cool.

10. I do not hear buzzing unless audio is off and my ear is very close. And I only heard once when setting up system. Buzzing to me is not an issue. I don’t hear/ notice buzzing.

11. Fast motion picture is excellent. No artifacts, no ghosting that I have noticed. 2D and 3D.

Update – 6/26/11. Still love this set. No screen peeling issue.

Update – 10.6.11. No screen peeling. Love the set.

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Beautiful TV (updated), April 26, 2011

By 

T. Black (Charleston, SC) – See all my reviews

  

Background:

I come from the land of LCD, and I have had this TV for about a month. This replaced a several year old Sharp Aquos 37″ LCD. As is typical with electronics, this 51″ brand new 2011 plasma costs significantly less than my 37″ 2 year old (at the time) refurbished model.

I have limited space, and my choices to fill it included the LG 47″ LED TV’s, Samsung 46″LED TV’s, and the Samsung 51″ Plasmas. (Just for the record, an LED TV is just an LCD with LED lights behind it instead of flourescent bulbs. I use the term LED TV only because it’s easier to type and read than LED-backlit LCD TV.) While I would have preferred an LED TV for my situation (which is a very bright room), The LG’s were not impressive. Though the Samsung LED’s were (to my eyes) the best looking TV’s on display at my local BB, 51″ is a lot larger than 46 and the seating is about 17′ away from the TV. The new 2011 “Plus 1″ models add an inch of screen, but are actually smaller overall. In other words, last year’s 50″ would not fit but the 51″ would (barely!). Panasonic 50″ would not fit either due to a larger bezel.

Buying on Amazon:

If you are a Prime member, keep in mind that this will not reach your house in 2 days. It will ship by freight, not UPS or Fedex. Mine arrived in less than a week on a mostly empty truck and the driver helped me bring it into my house. It was obviously well packaged and arrived in perfect condition. Well of course the price immediately went down after I bought it, so I took advantage of the price matching policy. Amazon has a list of retailers that it will match and you have 14 days to do it. Once again Amazon impresses in their customer service. Many other retailers do include other goodies like glasses or a Blu-ray player as a bundle though.

Setup:

After you turn it on, you go through a step-by-step setup process. The first question is whether you are a consumer or a big box store. It then adjusts the picture settings for home viewing as opposed to trying to look like the brightest one in the store. Nice! I went through the network setup (wireless works fine), and it learned my channels with no problem. It actually picked up many digital (cable) channels that I wasn’t getting before through the old TV, so that is great. Haven’t tried OTA channels at this point.

-Screen burn in/break in: Since I am new to plasma, I am a bit paranoid about screen burn in and image retention (IR). During the initial setup, ghost images of some of the menu screens remained for a few minutes. I burned a break-in DVD that cycles through full-screen solid color for 24 hours and ran it whenever I wasn’t watching TV for the first 3-4 days. I won’t make any comments on burn in yet, but I have played some Xbox/Wii and haven’t had any issues yet. There is a feature in one of the menus that will display scrolling vertical bars that transition from white to black. No evidence yet of any permanent burn in or IR yet.

-Heat: Plasmas have come a long way since I was shopping for my old LCD. Used to be they would dim the lights and heat the whole house when you turned them on, but new models are much more efficient. This one gets pretty warm in the cabinet but not hot enough to be a concern.

The Good:

-The sound from the internal speakers is actually quite good, surprisingly. I wouldn’t want to do any serious movie watching without 5.1 surround, but for TV shows it is adequate.

-The picture: Brightness is much better than my old LCD, but significantly less than today’s LED TV’s. That being said, I have a wall of south facing windows behind the couch which is opposite the TV. The picture is bright enough during the day to watch, but still looks much better at night when the room lighting is dimmed.

-Picture settings: I put in my old Avia HT setup dvd and went to the picture settings. The TV seemed to match pretty well right out of the box. There are boatloads of picture options though, more than enough to baffle the average user (myself included). This thing is ready to be professionally calibrated, if that’s your thing.

-I hear lots of complaints about TV’s not displaying standard definition material well. Okay, you have to understand what you’re watching. If you crank up your old VCR, it is still going to look like an old VHS tape. This TV does an excellent job of upscaling poor quality content on the large screen.

-I have done some gaming, and have not noticed any lag.

-3D. I have done some research but have not tried out any 3D content yet. The glasses have gone as low as thirty-six dollars lately! The glasses for 2011 samsungs are bluetooth instead of IR. The TV has 2D>3D conversion capability with a dedicated button on the remote. I’ve got 2 pairs of glasses on order, and will update…

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