Home > Consumer Reviews > Samsung HCL4715W 47-Inch Widescreen High-Definition Projection TV

I remember when I first saw this TV on a Sears showroom floor. At the time the Sears people were using a Satellite TV feed with a digital tuner using the Discovery HD channel. In the dark room they were using the picture looked like nothing I had ever seen before. I went to Best Buy where the TV was a $100.00 dollars cheaper and decided to buy. Overall I would give this TV an average grade. It's HD picture did not look as good in my house as it did in the Sears showroom. I have Comcast digital cable so I am using their HD cable tuner. ESPN HD is best picture by far in HDTV. I'm a little disappointed in this TV's High Definition output. The TV's HD visual output varies too widely from channel to channel. On the DVD side I used a Marantz DV-8400 DVD player which a year ago was one of the tops in it's class. I could not tell the difference between 480I and 480P visually using this TV and using progressive scan on the DVD player. It looked the same to me. To top it all off the red convergence unit went out after 3 years. When I bought my TV from Best Buy I got the extended warranty because I was concerned about this technology at the time. It turned out to be a good move since the TV was still covered by the warranty when it broke so Best Buy repaired it at no charge. Finally this TV does not display any picture using 780P which is the HDTV standard. This is troubling to me because I own a XBox 360 which displays their HD games at 720P resolution and this TV can't show the games or anything else in that resolution at all. After my experience with this TV and hearing about other owners of Samsung Televisions have similiar experiences my advice would be to stay away from Samsung Televisions regardless of type. There are better deals out there.

I have owned this set since June 11, 2002. It first broke on January 4, 2003 and was not repaired until February 10. Samsung admitted they had 'parts availability problems.' Then, on July 6, 2003, it failed again and as of August 6, 2003, remains dark with again, 'parts availability problems.' Samsung can not promise me ANY date it will be working, can promise no date for delivery of parts and generally does not follow-up or return telephone calls. I have hired a lawyer since after $1800 - they have very poor customer and warranty service - spend the $200 and buy a Mitsubishi.