Home > Consumer Reviews > Samsung LN52A550 52-Inch 1080p LCD HDTV

I was so impressed with our Amazon Samsung 46" purchase, that when my Dad said he wanted a big screen HD TV to watch the Olympics on I knew exactly where to go.

To make sure he was comfortable with the purchase I took him to Circuit City to demonstrate all the TVs side by side and he agreed to go forward with the purchase. Amazon saved him about $500 once you take delivery and taxes into account. Delivery and service were excellent again.

If you are not in a hurry I would keep checking the prices on Amazon over about 2 weeks time. During the week he was looking, prices ranged about 50-70 day to day. Now it is retailing $100 less than what he paid.

I've been researching for months now and finally decided on the Samsung A550 series. I just got the TV 2 days ago, my first HDTV. I was originally planning on getting a 46" but couldn't find the deal i wanted so i ended up picking the 52". I was kind of nervous since i'm getting a larger sized TV than planned and might be overwhelmed with the size (9' viewing distance). When we got it set-up it was awesome. It was big but not overwhelming. The size was just perfect and couldn't be happier. I liked the matte/semi-gloss screen because i have 2 big windows behind the couch directly in-front of the TV and no glare at all even with the blinds open. This is one of the main reasons i opted for the 550 series. The viewing angles are very nice too since i have a love seat and a recliner chair on the side of my living room and it can be easily viewed without any problems. I didn't have HD service yet, so i just hooked up indoor antennas to pick up OTA (over-the-air) channels and the built-in digital tuner picked up both SD and digital channels and some HD channels. I was watching the NBA finals Game 5 and was blown away. I was getting 720p feed from ABC HD and the picture was awesome. I did also get some 1080i HD feeds from OTA and it looked great. I can't wait to get some HD channels (dish/cable) and PS3 bluray with this set. Right now my set-up is OTA and my laptop hooked-up to the TV so i'm just scratching the tip of the iceberg on the full potential of this TV. The sound is ok if you use one of the Amazon reviewers audio settings which i belive was taken from AVSforums and it is really worlds of difference from the default settings. Overall, this is a great and wonderful TV.

I'll admit.. I had reservations about ordering a 52" LCD Television off the internet. My biggest concern was shipping. In the "old days", you go the electronics store then begrudgingly call a friend who has a pickup and ask to borrow it for a few hours. You and the salesman throw the TV in the back, strap it down.. pray it doesn't start raining, bring it home and have someone help to unload it. Whew!

Not the case with Amazon.

I was amazed at how wonderful the entire transaction took place. After deciding on this model, I placed the order. A few days later, I received a pleasant call from a freight company in my nearest metro, Cleveland, OH. The nice woman on the other line confirmed my address and scheduled a date and time for delivery.

That Friday, a friendly driver showed up, unloaded the TV, and brought it right into my place. Being somewhat cautious, I asked if I could inspect the TV. The driver happily opened the box for me and we made sure everything was A-OK. The TV was perfect.. not a scratch.

The TV itself is, of course - excellent. Blacks are deep and colors are bright and vibrant. The gloss black frame looks traditional and is non-intrusive. I would never recommend a silver or "stainless" frame for a TV--black is the only way to go.

I will definitely recommend friends and family get their next TV from Amazon, and make it a Samsung!

Look no further than this model series. We spent about 3 months researching the LCD HDTVs before we bought this. We weren't even considering Plasma. We are LCD fans, also owning a magnificient Dell 30 inch lcd (2560x1600 over dual link DVI).

Per consumer reports, the top models were Sony, Samsung and Sharp. We researched the three and concurred with that. We did not consider Sony at all due to the price factor, being 2-300 more online. The Sony and the Samsung LNXXA550 were very similar in picture quality. The differences if any were too narrow to be practically discernable with the naked eye. The Sharp LC52D64U model we did consider, and almost ended up buying it at about 1600, but then when we saw the LN52A550 being offered here for ~1710 we grabbed it. We researched the Sharp and the Samsung in many BM stores, and the picture quality of the Samsung was much 'truer' than the Sharp. Had this been just at one store we could have attributed that to the settings, but this was the case at more than 2 stores. The Sharp picture seemed 'washed out' compared to this Samsung. If the Sharp had been the only TV in our living room we may not not have noticed this. But the Sharp was a 2007 model and the Samsung a 2008 model, and with the banding occuring in a good percentage of even the D64U series, the Samsung was our only choice. After reading the poor reviews of the speakers of this particular model, we just hooked it up to our 9 year old Music system receiver and the sound is fantastic, even though it is not 5.1.

The 650 and 750 series are not worth the price difference, and if you plan to keep the TV facing a window, this model will save you the unpleasantness of a glare. The shiny screen of those models makes sense if you live in cave-like darkness (unless you like a nice glare in your view!). When we saw the 650/750 in BM stores, the 120 hz was barely noticeable (9 times out of 10 viewing situations). With some high action sports there was a slight difference, but we are not sports fans so the difference is not worth it at all.

The 5 ms response, 30000:1 contrast ratio, the semi-matt finish and a price in the region of 1700 with a 30 day price match offer on Amazon got us to spring for this model. Get this TV, you won't go wrong.

Purchased LN52A650 from Circuit City and returned it for LN52A550 from Amazon. Since my purchase from Amazon, the price dropped twice and I requested adjustment and received credit for the difference totaling $102. Amazon has a great price and excellent customer service.

As far as the TV is concerned, it is absolutely amazing. I'm watching Euro 2008 Italy vs. Spain as I type this and the picture quality is stunning. After experiencing both TVs, there isn't that much of a difference in picture quality between the A550 and the A650 model. In fact, I would say they are equal. The A550 model has less reflection compared to the A650 model. This was one of the reasons why I decided to go with the A550 model (The other reason being the price). The sound quality was horrible when arrived but after adjusting it with the setting recommended in this thread it made a big difference. It is not the best sounding TV out there but it is more than adequate.

I'm very happy with my purchase of A550 and the service I received from Amazon. And in the process, I saved over $800 and also received a free HD TiVo with purchase. Couldn't be happier.