Samsung LN55a950

[Perrard]

This bad boy LCD is suppose to hit the market this month and yet I only see 2 sites that carry this set so far.

Anyone have the inside scoop on this set? It is going to be an awesome TV to get your hands on and I can't wait to see it hit the market.

I believe retail is $4,199 for the 950 and $3,199 for the 850.


Please share if you have heard anything new or informative about this tv. I believe it will be one hot potato once they start hitting the store shelves...

Features::yummy:

HD-Grade pixel resolution
High-resolution pixel density is combined with a builtin image scaler to handle inputs from a variety of digital and analog audio/video sources
Widescreen aspect ratio
2,000,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio
Pre-loaded Content Library™
Exercise, children’s “edutainment”, cooking, image gallery, games
Ultra Clear Panel™
Allows you to enjoy crisp image details, natural skin tones, excellent shadow detail and vibrant colors

Wide Color Gamut LED backlight
Optimizes a color’s hue resulting in more natural colors
Auto Motion Plus 120Hz™
DLNA Certified™

Touch of Color™ design
Samsung’s cutting-edge process infuses color into the black bezel resulting in a charcoal grey accent that lines the bezel’s top and bottom edge

Wheel key remote control

WiseLink™ Pro
Watch your favorite photos in a slideshow (including MPEG) and listen to your MP3’s with WiseLink™

InfoLink™
(RSS feeds of customizable stock quotes, weather and brief news articles)

Wide Color Enhancer
Optimizes a color’s hue resulting in more natural colors

Built-in digital tuner: (ATSC/Clear QAM)

4ms response time
Fast 4ms response time minimizes blurring of moving video

Entertainment Mode
Allows customized picture settings, optimized for different content (e.g., sports, movies, gaming)
Picture-in-Picture (PIP)
Enables convenient simultaneous viewing of TV programs and video or PC sources
178° x 178° (H/V) viewing angle

Single User Interface

DNIe™ The Samsung Digital Natural Image engine
This exclusive Samsung technology dramatically improves the picture by enhancing the contrast, detail, white balance and reduces
SRS TruSurround XT™
TruSurround is a patented SRS technology that solves the problem of playing 5.1 multichannel content over two speakers. TruSurround delivers a compelling, virtual surround sound experience through any two-speaker playback system, including internal television speakers and headphones. It is fully compatible with all multichannel formats up to 5.1 channels
Stereo broadcast reception: (MTS & SAP) with 181-channel capacity

Down firing speakers

Integrated woofer

V-Chip system
Allows blocking of rated TV and movie programs determined by the parent to contain objectionable content
Trilingual on-screen displays in English, Spanish or French

Variable sleep timer
HDMI-CEC
Allows peripheral devices such as a DVD player to be controlled by TV remote control
Specifications:

TV/Video

Touch of Color™ design

InfoLink™ (RSS feeds of customizable stock quotes, weather and brief news articles)

Auto Motion Plus 120Hz™

Pre-loaded Content Library™

Ultra Clear Panel™

Wide Color Gamut LED backlight

HD-grade 1920 (H) x 1080 (V) pixel resolution

2,000,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio with LED SmartLighting™

DLNA Certified™

Wide color enhancer

NTSC/ATSC Tuners with Clear QAM

Fast 4ms response time

Picture-in-Picture

Audio

Watts per channel: 15W x 2

SRS TruSurround XT™

Down firing speakers

Connections


4 HDMI (HDMI-CEC) version 1.3 (3 rear/1 side)

2 Component video inputs (rear)

1 S-video input (side)

Side and Rear composite inputs

PC input

WiseLink™ Pro (USB 2.0 MPEG)

RF antenna inputs

Headphone

Wheel key remote control
Approximate Dimensions:

With Stand
Height: 34.7"
Width: 53.7"
Depth: 13.3"
Without Stand
Height: 32.3"
Width: 53.7"
Depth: 4.4"

Approximate Weight:

With Stand: 91.3 lbs
Without Stand: 80 lbs
Shipping: 112 lbs
Warranty Information:

Manufacturer Warranty (authorized online retailer): One Year Parts And Labor

[nosauten]

Yea. I can't wait for it to come to my area! Only one place in Cleveland has it as listed in stock, and Abt is taking pre-orders. Anyone know when this is coming to Maryland????

This looks really awesome. I saw the predecessor of this set--the series 81, and that was awesome. This will be totally awesome....and 2 MILLION : 1 Contrast ration!!

Quote from Perrard : This bad boy LCD is suppose to hit the market this month and yet I only see 2 sites that carry this set so far.

[kyler13]

A couple people already have the 46" 950. Go over to avsforum.com to see pics and videos. BB is reported to have it by Aug 28, but apparently it's making its way west-to-east since some people in Washington state and California have already seen it on display at BB or other retailers. It has also been reported on display in San Antonio, TX. I expect it to hit stock/display in MD (home for me) sometime during the week following labor day. I'm looking forward to seeing it in person. Supposed to be a noticeable upgrade from last year's Samsung LED backlit LCD (81-series).

FYI, the word around is that Samsung is price locking this TV at msrp with retailers (just like the 81-series), but some people have had succes using the 10% coupon from BB for preorders. Someone contacted Amazon and they responded that they don't plan to carry it (bummer).

[juowens]

Going to BB today to see if I can check it out, hoping it lives up to the hype!
Contrast ratios vary for every vendor, I'm just hoping that their supposed 2*10^6:1 Contrast is comparable to the Pioneer Elite series.

[Perrard]

Quote from juowens : Going to BB today to see if I can check it out, hoping it lives up to the hype! Contrast ratios vary for every vendor, I'm just hoping that their supposed 2*10^6:1 Contrast is comparable to the Pioneer Elite series.

When you get any updates on this, please post, we would all be very interested!

Thanks!

[Arcticat]

Some also have the 55950 and are starting to report on it. BB has it on their site and will give free shipping because they don't have it in the stores yet. I'd like to see it before I buy it, lets get a slickdeal going, lowest price is............

I'll be putting my 5281F up for sale soon.

[kyler13]

Quote from Arcticat : Some also have the 55950 and are starting to report on it. BB has it on their site and will give free shipping because they don't have it in the stores yet. I'd like to see it before I buy it, lets get a slickdeal going, lowest price is............ I'll be putting my 5281F up for sale soon.

Not to be the bearer of bad news, but Samsung just upped the MSRP on the 55" from $4199 to $4999 as of 9/1/08. I think the 46" went up to $3499. Not sure if something was lost in translation, but you don't jack up prices in a poor economy.

[Arcticat]

So it is true! When I priced it the other day it was $41xx. when I went into a Magnolia store to see it it was $49xx. Bad move, the salesman said that for that $$ you can get the Pioneer Eliete Plasma.

[aleitry]

Just came back from tweeter where I was told that the unilateral price change meant that retailers cannot discount the 55a950 at all.

Given avs forums' restriction regarding discussions about pricing or where to buy, I'm cross-posting to invite any avsf readers/members to add to this discussion. I believe their input will be useful because they are the most likely type of consumer to actually spend that much money for a set.

That said, I intend to find a deal for the 55a950. One or two online vendors seem to carry this model around the 4500 mark.

Hopefully this thread will become a place where people share:
- stores (name and location) where they've been able to view a demo unit
- stores (b&m or online) where they've found this model in stock
- pricing (hopefully clearing up whether they are willing to go below msrp)
- negotiation strategies in case the retailer is amenable to lowering the price

[Perrard]

I must say that I am extremely LUCKY. I bought this bad boy on 9/2/08 for $3,849 (Sorry, realized I am not suppose to publish the seller). This was tax free and free shipping.

I received the unit on 9/9/08. It was delivered to me by BB. Also ordered a Wall Mount from the company and it was shipped from Peerless directly.

I believe this company must have been some type of broker. The company was listed on Amazon and had a good reputation and feedback.

Blew me away that BB delivered it and the delivery guys were also blown away that I bought it from someone else. B B didn't even have this TV listed yet...

I have it on the wall, ethernet hooked up, PS3, Wii, Inspire 5.1 digital speaker set up.
I am TOTALLY blown away! The TV tuner picked up all my cable channels immediately and also the HDTV channels. Music channels self programmed, the whole encillada from Comcast.

Picture is absolutely BEAUTIFUL. I played a standard DVD last night and thought it was a blue-ray, had to look at the DVD twice to make sure I wasn't going crazy.

Of course the Blu-Ray in itself is so damned crystal clear, my wife thought she was right there in the scene.

I have no complaints so far, but there are some minor areas I would have liked to have seen Samsung tweek better (infolink - fantastic, but images are pretty large on the screen). I will try out the Wlink to play a movie on a USB card tonight (Iron Man) and will give more feedback later.

As for the change in prices, I was shocked to see the prices jump. I must have beat the price increase by hours! I feel pretty damned lucky getting this unit at the price I paid...

[Perrard]

Well the girls and I just watched a movie on a USB flash card that I placed in the LN55a950 directly.

Movie was in two parts on the flash card. Subs also were seperate and on the flash card.
I went to the menu, selected the first movie, and it played flawlessly.

When the 1st part ended, I was about to reach for the remote to click on the second part, when instead it automatically started right into part two. Showed the subtitles automatically as well, no tweaking necesary!!!

Pretty awesome so far......

[aleitry]

Can't believe it's taken this long for any significant pricing news to occur - but that's the case. Anyhow - just repeating the relevant part of my post on the 2008 sammy pricing thread:

55a950
- BB > 4749.98 (250 off msrp ** the first discount i've seen from them on this set)

- Cleveland Plasma > 4100 (899 off msrp ** though they charge 200 bones for shipping, this is the best name I've found with some credibility at avs forum - only have 5 units according to the site)

[dieselfrog]

I found one of these at what seems like a "too good to be true" price of 3,198. Anybody have any experience with these guys?

PCDirectNet [pcdirectnet.com]

[dieselfrog]

Quote from dieselfrog : I found one of these at what seems like a "too good to be true" price of 3,198. Anybody have any experience with these guys? PCDirectNet [pcdirectnet.com]

UPDATE: Yeah, their site sucks - definitely not worth the risk.

[merwynn]

Quote from Perrard : I must say that I am extremely LUCKY. I bought this bad boy on 9/2/08 for $3,849 (Sorry, realized I am not suppose to publish the seller). This was tax free and free shipping. I received the unit on 9/9/08. It was delivered to me by BB. Also ordered a Wall Mount from the company and it was shipped from Peerless directly. I believe this company must have been some type of broker. The company was listed on Amazon and had a good reputation and feedback. Blew me away that BB delivered it and the delivery guys were also blown away that I bought it from someone else. B B didn't even have this TV listed yet... I have it on the wall, ethernet hooked up, PS3, Wii, Inspire 5.1 digital speaker set up. I am TOTALLY blown away! The TV tuner picked up all my cable channels immediately and also the HDTV channels. Music channels self programmed, the whole encillada from Comcast. Picture is absolutely BEAUTIFUL. I played a standard DVD last night and thought it was a blue-ray, had to look at the DVD twice to make sure I wasn't going crazy. Of course the Blu-Ray in itself is so damned crystal clear, my wife thought she was right there in the scene. I have no complaints so far, but there are some minor areas I would have liked to have seen Samsung tweek better (infolink - fantastic, but images are pretty large on the screen). I will try out the Wlink to play a movie on a USB card tonight (Iron Man) and will give more feedback later. As for the change in prices, I was shocked to see the prices jump. I must have beat the price increase by hours! I feel pretty damned lucky getting this unit at the price I paid...

PERRAD, WHAT IS THE NAME OF THE SELLER?