Strengths of the Samsung LN52A550
Absolutely superb picture quality and crispness, best I’ve seen on LCD in quite some time minus the more expensive A750 and A650.
The screen on the LN-52A550 is also much better than the more expensive 650 and 750, with it not having the same highly reflective problem (lights reflect in screen because of polish)
Super cheap for such a great display, it just simply doesn’t get much cheaper for a 52-inch Full HD 1080p LCD, never mind one this powerful and rich.
Fallouts of the Samsung LN52A550
Sound wasn’t good at all right out of the box, improved it after playing with it in the menus and settings and putting in some recommended settings and calibrating; although still not anything great at all.
Requires tuning and calibration settings to get the absolute nicest looking picture, Samsung should have presets from expert calibrators, so we don’t have to look online for recommend levels and such
Samsung LN52A550 Review Summary:
I did a ton and ton of research and reading reviews of different televisions from 40-58″ range and ultimately I ended up choosing this one, mostly because it did what I wanted well, and was much much cheaper. I am by no means a neither hardcore nor power user, just your average family that watches some movies and television shows and kids play the odd video game now and then on PS3 and XBOX, so power users or hardcores might want to check out and compare the LN52A550 vs LN52A650 / LN52A750 options from Samsung. Sound is sub-par and although it is easily improved playing with the factory settings once again and turning on something I forget what it called, still is not exactly great either.
The major area this television misses out on when you compare the LN52A550, LN52A650 & LN52A750 is 120HZ auto motion plus, which I believe is the really expensive feature that makes movies and fast moving pixels really smooth and clear, whereas LCDs without it will have noticeable ‘ghosting’ or ‘judder’ distorting the frames on your display. This is something I could live without, and to tell you the truth I haven’t noticed any really bad ghosting or judder that they talk about, so the saved money was really a good choice for me, maybe not so much for someone that plays lots of games or watches lots of sports though, as I read in another Samsung LN52A550 review online that this is where it would be most prevalent an issue.
I am super happy I picked up the 52-inch A550 Sammy and wouldn’t trade it for the world now having owned it for a couple weeks. It’s one of the nicer televisions out there, and comparing the prices of the 52 incher 1080p sets out there, you will also notice it’s by far one of if not the best deal around.