Samsung PS50A756

Although it's much more well known for its LCD TVs, Samsung nevertheless has a very interesting collection of plasma screens, offering very good quality for a reasonable price.  This 50'' model, the Samsung PS50A756, is one example the manufacturer's plasma range.

New Multimedia Features: Are They Worth It?
Despite the entry-level price tag, Samsung hasn't held back from making a monitor with plenty of features that help it compete with the LCD competition.  With a HD digital TV tuner, a backlit remote and all the different connectivity options you'll need, it certainly doesn't leave you wanting to look elsewhere.

You might want to pay some attention to its styling, though, which is a little less refined than some other models.  The reflections from the red trim are likely to put a few people off.

The onscreen menu system is full of options and easy-to-use, and even features a short online help system that explains the effects of modifying different settings.  It's a nice idea, but it didn't match up to our original enthusiasm, especially when it came to more complicated features.  The definition of the Movie Plus feature is just 'separates and displays the film using Movie Plus which is more suitable for movies'--not really much of an explanation.  Something that actually describes what it does--'Movie Plus makes moving images more fluid and natural'--would have been more useful.

Another downside is that moving from one source to another sometimes takes a long time.

Like Samsung's LE46A856, this new TV uses the Wiselink Pro system to connect to an external hard drive over USB to access photo, music and video files.  As you can see the last part of our test of the earlier model, we found that photos and MP3s worked a lot better than video, which remained buggy.  In short, it'll be a long time before systems like Wiselink replace dedicated Blu-ray or DVD players or multimedia hard drives. 

Another multimedia addition is the Info live system, which requires an Internet connection to display live updates of news headlines, stock prices and weather reports in a box on the screen.  Once again, as we found with the LE46A856, the amount of content available over this service remains fairly small.


Nice Image--Shame About the Reflections
The image on the screen is very easy on the eye.  We have to admit that the glossy finish improves the picture quality, but it is a little more problematic in bright rooms because it tends to be prone to reflections.  

Despite this, the test scenes we watched all looked natural, with good colors despite a slight lack of sharpness.

A good DeltaE score of 4.1 confirmed our initial impression that colors are well-handled by this screen.

As is often the case with plasma screens, the screen isn't very bright, especially when what's on screen is light.  Unlike LCD screens, plasma technology relies on changes the level of brightness based on the frame currently displayed.  A test card with a very small white square against a black background got up to 200cd/m², but using the standard ANSI test pattern, a checkerboard of black and white squares, whites were only 89 cd/m².  On the same test, the black squares were 0.11 cd/m², giving a contrast ratio of around 800:1. 

Next to that, the amount of light levels in different shades of gray, the gamma, found it hard to stick at 2.2 all the way along the curve.  The results aren't disastrous on screen though and perfectly acceptable for the average viewer--only very demanding users will notice this sort of detail.  On average, the gamma is an excellent 2.3.

As usual, Samsung's Movie Plus system makes moving images perfectly fluid with no trace of jerkiness.  Be careful not to turn it up to its highest settings, though, as this can produce some irritating effects.

Another recurring theme with modern plasma screens is a greenish and/or blueish ring that surrounds moving objects that contrast sharply with their background.  That sounds bad, but in reality we found very few actual instances of this problem.  Just one of our dozens of test screenings suffered this problem.


Theoretically, the viewing angles are infinite and so you can sit absolutely anywhere in the room and still get a good view, which is one of the big advantages of plasma screens over LCDs.  There can be a heavy price to pay for this advantage if you're not careful, though: screen burn.  Never ever leave a bright, static image--a photo, say--on the screen for a long time, as if burns into the panel you'll be left with a shadow that could last hours or even days, depending on how bad the damage is.

Finally, video signals from a PC connected to the HDMI port works perfectly, but you need to set the aspect ratio to Scan Image mode to avoid cropping off the corners.

Sound
Unfortunately, the PS50A76 doesn't offer sound that's anywhere near as good as the picture.  In particular, it lacks high and mid-range notes, that produces dull, muffled soundtracks.