Customer Reviews
Gorgeous picture.
I'd had my eye on the Samsung LN-R**8W series for quite some time after starting to see them in various places used as monitors for PCs and as televisions hooked up to XBox 360s. Every time I saw one of these sets (the demo models were invariably the 23" version), I had to stop and stare. Usually the game playing was "Call of Duty 2", but it looked positively stunning. Finally I watched some high-def programming at a store on the 26" model and I was sold. Having read not a single on-line review and without doing any research whatsoever, I was sold by my eyes alone. The only 'research' I did was comparing this set to other brands, and this was the clear winner.
The 3000:1 contrast ratio is misleading. They used 'dynamic' contrast ratio to come up with that figure. I've since learned the actual contrast ratio as used by most other manufacturers is around 800:1, which is still among the best of the current crop. The next generation will undoubtedly beat this figure. But for my purposes, this set is just fantastic. The blacks are black, and all shades of gray seem to come through as intended. To judge this, I'm replaying "Deus Ex", a PC game from back in 2000 (which runs fine in WinXP and supports 1360 x 768). This game takes place entirely at night, so there are a lot of dark areas along with many shades of gray. This game looks amazing, as does FarCry (2004) with its beautiful vivid tropical colors and water. Those are the only two games I've tried thus far. And I imagine games that natively support 1360 x 768 will naturally fare better on this set. For instance, a game that only supports 1024 x 768 will probably look kinda crappy because of scaling problems, a problem all LCD monitors share when not running in their native resolution.
I'm using it primarily as a huge monitor for my PC. I had to think hard about this, because using this set as a PC monitor, your screen resolution will max out at 1360 x 768, which is great for television, but hardly cutting-edge for a computer monitor. However, to find a PC monitor this BIG with ultra-high resolution would have set me back about double the dollars. And since my rig (An Athlon 2600+ with an NVidia 6600GT video card) isn't capable of playing games at ultra-high res anyway, I'm happy with this. Also, I've since learned that this series of sets is the easiest to configure for computer use. It's got a VGA port on the back, so just buy a VGA cable, hook it to your PC, and it's Plug-And-Play. Just remember before unhooking your old monitor to resize the screen in Windows to 1360 x 768 so it boots to the correct size after you hook this up.
Picture quality is excellent. The best I've ever seen in an LCD. They're all pretty decent these days, but this one stands out as brighter, sharper, crisper, clearer, at least to my eyes. Before buying anything this expensive though, I'd make sure you actually see various brands in action at various stores before you buy.
I don't have high-def service at home yet, so the only HD I've viewed on this has been at the store, but it looked awesome to me.
Picture-in-picture is really only useful if you're surfing the net and want to watch TV at the same time. For that, it's great, though you'll have to manually use the remote to activate sound in PIP each time. An annoyance. The speakers sound clear and crisp. Not huge, but nice-sounding.
And now, the only flaw I've found: Out of the box, the reds can be oversaturated when contrasted with black. I've only noticed this with text; graphics are fine. I might be able to adjust this in the set's menu, but haven't tried it yet, because otherwise it looks just absolutely perfect and I hate to mess with it.
Best solution for a bedroom
I recently moved to a new apartment a get surprised by the size of the bedroom, it was too small. So, once I recovered from the initial shock, I had the perfect excuse to buy me a brand new TV. I really did a lot of research and look for every possibility and brand. So I want you to know what was my reasoning behind this: I don't have high definition TV, so I was afraid that normal cable TV was not going to look OK. Also the size was something important. You can not have a big screen in your bedroom because then you will have a problem with your wife. You also don't want to have a small screen, because then there is no point of buying a flat panel TV, at least for me. So I decided to go for 26". Let me tell you that this was the best possible choice. The other thing was the audio. I read that the Audio in this model was not so great. Well, it sounds very good to me. I don't know how it will sound in a big TV room, but in my bedroom, I don't need more. I use it with the volume in 5, and it's enough. When we are all watching a movie, I use it in 10. Sound can go up to 30. Again, I don't need more. Sorry to write all this things, but I was looking for them when I was doing some research, I didn't find anything.
The TV is perfect for small apartments and bedrooms. Excellent picture quality and sound. Easy to install and use. The only thing I didn't like is the PIP function, which can only be used with a HDMI connection, which of course I don't have.
Wow... What an experience!
When I first saw this TV at a local store, I wanted it. When I bought it, I thought this was gonna change the way I watch TV. Indeed...once you go HDTV, you will not go back. I am watching all of my local channels in HD for free OTA. I love KOCE-HD. The travel programs are so life-like, I feel I'm actually on vacation. So get this TV just for HDTV....it's worth it for that reason alone.
Now I am also a video gamer. So I hooked up my PS2 to it. Was not impressed initially. Then I switched to using Component cable. Difference of night and day. NEVER use the PS2 factory AV cable...it sucks. This TV is PERFECT for video games. I'd buy this TV for video games only actually. That's money well spent.
But last but not least....DVDs! Oh my goodness....if you use HDMI or Component connect for DVDs, you're gonna stop going to the movie theaters. Picture is so perfect on this TV....what a pleasure just watching it. This is truly a video-phile's dream.
My only complaints....The hookups are on the back, so you wont be able to use mounts that hang the TV flush against the wall. You need a couple of inches clearance. Several other TVs have hookups on the side or bottom edge so you can hang tightly. Also, speakers are not real strong. Lastly, the shape of the TV itself reminds me of an oversized computer monitor. I wish it would be more streamlined to look like a hi-tech TV.
