Samsung PN60E550 60-Inch Plasma HDTV Review

This TV packs a ton of features in for the price. A great TV for the money. A High Class TV for the great price. Picture quality is excellent.
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Review Results

Picture Quality

Black Levels

The PN60E550 does not come with All Black Pure Filter that higher end Samsung HD TVs come with, however the black levels are still impressive. In darker rooms without bright lights, the black levels and contrast is fantastic, putting a lot of similarly priced LED TVs to shame.

Color Accuracy

The color accuracy is very impressive, it delivers balanced natural tones with fantastic detail and depth, this is particularly noticeable in how natural flesh tones look. Plasmas can have a tendency to produce over-saturated colors, causing unnatural tones. With properly calibrated settings the PN60E550 offers awesome color accuracy.

Video Motion

There were no problems in this field, we couldn’t detect any motion blur or ghosting. Samsung added a feature called CinemaSmooth which is supposed to improve video smoothness for movies and films, we didn’t notice it make any difference though.

Bright Lighting

When looking closely at the PN60E550′s performance with bright lighting, you can see a slight loss of picture quality, especially in terms of black levels and color accuracy. The loss in picture quality isn’t drastic and won’t ruin your viewing pleasure, but it’s worth noting.

3D Quality

The Samsung PN60E550 uses active 3D and it isn’t the best performer when it comes to 3D quality, there is noticeable cross-talk which is irritating and essentially makes the picture look blurry. There was a large reduction in cross-talk when the CinemaSmooth was turned on, however cross-talk was still visible. Whilst there is definitely improvement on earlier Samsung models, there are still clear problems.

On a brighter note, it does come with two free pairs of 3D glasses which is a welcome surprise since most 3D TVs don’t come with free glasses, meaning you normally have to buy them separately for around $50 to $100 a piece. The free pair usually cost roughly $40 each so it’s a great addition, as you save money and you can get stuck into 3D viewing straight out of the box.

Features

The Samsung PN60E550 is one the cheapest 2012 HD TVs to offer Smart TV as well as 3D, making it a stand-out model for anyone looking for a 60″ TV with the latest technologies, at a cut price.

Smart TV

The PN60E550 comes with Samsung’s Smart TV, it comes with all the services you would expect as standard, such as Netflix, Pandora, Hulu, YouTube, Vudu plus all the popular social networking services too. It does not come with Amazon Instant though, a service available on other major brand’s Smart TV services.

Whilst it lacks Amazon Instant, Samsung’s Smart TV comes with one exclusive service that is highly sought after; HBO GO. This allows you to watch HBO shows on-demand, the video playback is smooth and doesn’t lose any picture quality, and we didn’t experience any streaming problems such as lag or blurriness.

Internet browsing is another new feature that is catching on, the browser in Samsung’s Smart TV is by far the best browser we’ve seen built into a TV. It’s just as functional as a normal web browser you’d find on your laptop or desktop, you can even connect a keyboard and a mouse to the TV using the 2 USB slots.

Connectivity

The PN60E550 comes with 3 HDMI ports and 2 USB ports, with 2 HDMI ports and both USB ports on the side of the TV. This is a very useful design feature, because it means if you wall mount the TV, you can easily to take out and change the cables.

In terms of the amount of ports, 3 HDMIs and 2 USBs should be plenty for most people, as most people do not have more than 3 devices that require a HDMI cable and if you do have more than three, then a HDMI splitter can be easily bought for $10 or so.

It also comes with built-in Wi-Fi so you don’t have to mess around with cables to connect the TV to the internet, you can simply connect via Wi-Fi, this makes using the Smart TV and built-in web browser really simple.

It doesn’t however, come with a standard VGA port used for connecting desktop or laptop computers to the TV so unless you can use a HDMI cable, you won’t be able to use the PN60E550 as a computer monitor.

Sound Quality

The sound quality from the PN60E550 is surprisingly good when compared to other 2012 HD TVs, whilst it is not as impressive as a surround sound system, it is good enough to use on a permanent basis, something that can’t be said of most high end HD TVs.

Design

The Samsung PN60E550 has a standard black bezel surrounding the screen, with a thin lining of clear acrylic around the outside of the bezel. It has a standard flat black stand in the same style as the bezel, the stand swivels too, which makes finding the perfect viewing angle really easy.

Technical Specification