Samsung 23" LCD (1 Viewer)

[Kenny A]

I am looking to purchase a 23" lcd for my wife to put in a spare room near our kitchen. I was looking at the 23" from Samsung. Anybody have opinions about the LNR-238.
Thanks

 

[Charlie Campisi]

I have the 269. It's the 26" screen with built in atsc tuner. I use it in my bedroom, so it's a secondary display. The picture looked better than all of the similar screens I was able to compare it to -- Sharp, LG, Toshiba. The Sony definitely has a better picture, but was several hundred dollars more. One annoying thing is that I haven't figured out a way to turn off the blue neon ring around the power button when the display is off.

I took my first shot at calibrating it last night with DVE. This is my first calibration of a non-CRT hd set. DVE says their basic test pattern doesn't work for adjusting contrast on non-CRT HD sets and I couldn't work my way throught the dvd to find one that did. But I adjusted the brightness and color, and turned the sharpness to 0. Blue and red adjusted perfectly. Green was real close. The picture isn't quite centered (there's a bit cut off at the top) so I have to figure out how to adjust that.

When I was done, the picture was good, but not great. Part of it is that you have to adjust for every input, and I adjusted over the component connection, when I also have a directivo connected via s-video and am using an OTA antenna connected via RF. Even though I had the black levels correct according to DVE, the picture wasn't quite right and I needed to up the brightness when watching Grey's Anatomy and then an episode of Firefly on dvd to see some details that were lost in shadow. Don't mean to discourage you. It was my first shot at it. The usual complaint is that you can't turn off the DNIe processing and that this makes calibration difficult.

 

[Kenny A]

Thanks for your imput. This sounds complicated. The reason I was looking for a lcd is because of the limited depth of the location I want to put it. Any more suggestions. I was hoping to just get it out of the box, set it up, turn it on and be done with it. I guess this is not the case. Are all lcd's this complicated.
Thanks

 

[David Norman]

Kenny, the 238 is a very good set. It only gets complicated if you want to get things dialed in perfectly. I have had the 238 for a few weeks and it's impressive in most respects. It has one of the better non HD pictures I've seen in LCD.

Hook it up, turn it on, go to setup menu and adjust as little or as much as you like. Personally, my main settings going by eyeball in the custom picture are about halfway between the Movie and Standard defaults. I turned off almost all the automatic settings (dynamic constrast, auto brightness, etc) and generally the picture is good to excellent for 95% of my viewing from OTA HD and DirecTV HD/Regular Satellite. I haven't hooked it up to a DVD player, but I suspect I'll tweak it a bit for movies, but this is only used for a TV in my computer room which where I watch 90% of my TV anyway.

I don't even have a gaming console so I can't comment on that though by reputation this isn't likely the the best set for serious gaming, but it is a very competant TV for everyday use. The other 23 inch set I liked as well or better for most things except regular Standard Def TV is the Panasonic 23LX50.

 

[Kenny A]

Thanks David. I may go ahead and get the 238. I see where I can get them online from Nice Electronics for about $655.00 plus shipping. This is a good price considering Circuit City sells them for 899.00. There are other online stores that sell them for about the same price as Nice. Is there anybody on HTF that sells them as cheap as Nice.
Thanks, Kenny

 

[Charlie Campisi]

It's not the lcd that makes it complicated. Every set needs to be calibrated. Or, you can just watch it out of the box and non-HTF'ers won't notice the difference.

This is my first lcd tho, so I am not sure how many of the flaws I see are related to lcd screens in general -- low blacks, a little blur, macroblocking in the blacks -- as opposed to the samsung. It did look better than every set I saw in the store except the sony, but then, those sets are not calibrated either.

Just so you don't think I am being totally negative :b , the black trim around the screen is real nice. When viewing 4:3 programming, the pillar bars blend in real well and I actually forget that I am watching 4:3 on a 16:9 display. The remote that came with the 269 is good, though I am now using a Harmony on it. The menus are easy. Changing the inputs is easy via a "source" button (high WAF on that), and the tv is smart to know to only cycle through the inputs that are receiving a signal.

I bought mine at Dbuys.com. They had close to the best price I could find on pricegrabber with trustworthy feedback. I placed the order at night, they called me the next day to confirm, didn't try to sell me a warranty or cables, and shipped it that day. The free 7-10 day shipping got the set there in 2 days from NY via fed ex ground. My wife took delivery, opened the box and plugged it in to make sure it worked and signed the receipt. Most internet shippers won't allow you to return tv's larger than 20" even if they arrive damaged once you sign. Anyway, very positive experience with dbuys.

 

[Kenny A]

Thanks Charlie,I appreciate all the help.

 

[Gregg Loewen]

hi
I own the 26" version and really like it.
The DNIe feature can not be turned off but that is not a deal breaker.
www.tvauthority.com is a HTF sponsor and will have this display in stock, are an authorized etailer etc etc.
Happy viewing!!

Gregg

 

[David Norman]

The 655 price is pretty nice.

I actually got lucky around the Super Bowl in that I needed a HD DirecTv box anyway (200 with 200 rebate) plus D* was having a $100 off promotion, Best buy had the set down to $809 plus 36 months free financing. So basically I got an HD Sat Box plus 238W for a little over 700 with 3 years to pay it off. I'm not a big believer in Store Extended warranties, but I wnt ahead with a 4 year Plan for another $100 or so which seemed pretty reasonable as these things go.

Between the LCD panel and DNie it does crush the blacks a bit, but it is a nice bright set with a pretty good PC input when needed, nice color spectrum, and has a quite acceptable SD pic. The black border does set off the black pillar box nicely though I preferred the Panasonic Matte black to the Samsung shiny black. Luckily I don't watch a lot in the daytime where the reflections off the shiny border could get a bit distracting.

 

[Kenny A]

If I am going to be using the tv via a non hd dish satellite or sd local cable, will this tv be ok. Or is something else out there better for this application. I am looking to spend $600-$700 on the unit. I may later get HD.
Thanks

 

[David Norman]

Probably not another Flat Screen/LCD that would be significantly better.

You can get a cheaper LCD like Syntax, but I don't like the picture as much as the Samsung.

You could get a slightly better SD picture out of regular CRT and cheaper at the same size, but size and weight issues can be a problem.