StAug
StAug's Stats
- Review Count4
- Helpfulness Votes13
- First ReviewJanuary 6, 2014
- Last ReviewMay 18, 2014
- Featured Reviews0
- Average Rating4
Reviews Comments
- Review Comment Count1
- Helpfulness Votes0
- First Review CommentJanuary 27, 2014
- Last Review CommentJanuary 27, 2014
- Featured Review Comments0
Questions
- Question Count0
- Helpfulness Votes0
- First QuestionNone
- Last QuestionNone
- Featured Questions0
- Answer Count2
- Helpfulness Votes1
- First AnswerJanuary 24, 2014
- Last AnswerJanuary 24, 2014
- Featured Answers0
- Best Answers0
StAug's Reviews
Rocketfish™ - 10' Low-Profile HDMI Cable - Black
Enjoy crisp, brilliant visuals and lush audio with this Rocketfish™ RF-G1306 HDMI cable that supports 1080p resolution, 3D video, 7.1/5.1 surround sound and most screen refresh rates for versatile use with a variety of electronic devices.
slim cable with some quality issue
Customer Rating
3.0
Quality
3.0
Performance
4.0
What's great about it: good for travel, size-wise...
What's not so great: bad for travel, quality-wise...
This cable works as expected, but the plastic cover on the TV side connector was broken so easily. Exactly speaking, the plastic part was pulled off from its metallic part when I detached the cable from my TV set. I pushed it back and fixed it easily, but having this kind of issue in its first time use is a little bit annoying.
No, I would not recommend this to a friend.
My Best Buy number: 0783602545
-3points
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Speck - FITFOLIO Case for Barnes & Noble NOOK HD - Black
Protect your 7" Barnes & Noble NOOK HD from damage with this Speck FITFOLIO SPK-A1971 case that features a custom-fit cradle for stability. The book-style design allows you to fold back the cover for easing viewing.
Good protection and good looking!
Customer Rating
5.0
What's great about it: looks good, low price, good protection
What's not so great: basic colors only
I bought this for my 7" ebook, Nook HD, and I didn't want to spend more than $20 for the cover. I found lots of cheap ones on amazon.com, but I couldn't find something that would protect the device well and also be good for carrying around. This cheap case (on clearance) from Speck does both jobs quite well, and I am quite satisfied. Only one thing that I don't like about this is its color selections: my nook HD is white, and I wanted to have a cover in bright green or orange color. Except that, this cheap cover is quite perfect for me. Highly recommended!
I would recommend this to a friend!
My Best Buy number: 0783602545
0points
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LG - 39" Class (38-1/2" Diag.) - LED - 1080p - 60Hz - HDTV
LG 39LN5300 LED HDTV: Watch Blu-ray movies or HD programming with this 1080p HD screen. The Triple XD Engine creates striking color and stark contrast for a beautiful picture.
Good IF you are going to use in a well-lit room...
Customer Rating
3.0
Picture Quality
4.0
Sound Quality
3.0
Features
2.0
What's great about it: picture quality, default color settings, price
What's not so great: viewing angle, contrast ratio
This 39" model might be really good to some people, and also really terrible to some other people.
Good things first: at this price point, this model from LG might be hard to beat, especially considering its affordability, reliability, and its beautiful, natural and vivid colors out of the box. And I liked this model a lot better than similarly priced Samsung models due to some minor reasons: its base stand, the angle the power cord is connected to the TV set, 10-point white balance calibration and etc.
However, one bad thing ruined every good thing that I mentioned above. LG display doesn't make 39" IPS panel just like Samsung, and it looked like LG used unknown VA panels, possibly made by Chimei for this model. When I looked up the pixel structure, it was far from the popular VA panels used for TVs such as S-PVA, PSA, A-MVA3, UV2A and others. It just look like a TN panel. In my opinion, it was a blend of bad things of IPS panel and VA panel: low contrast ratio + narrow viewing angle. If you are going to use this in a well-lit room for mostly watching TV over the air or through digital cable, then you might love this TV for the reasons I mentioned above. But, if you are going to use this TV in your bedroom or in a basement for watching movies with no lights on or with just one or two small lamps on, probably you will be disappointed. Due to its low contrast ratio, black in dark scenes will look like grey. This will be acceptable as long as the grey color is uniform on the screen, but due to its narrow viewing angle, when you off center just a little bit, you will notice drastic changes in the grey color: darker grey on one side, and purple on the other half. When you watch bright scenes on TV, you will not notice this gamma shift easily or not at all, but when you watch movies such as 'dark knight rises' or 'IMAX Hubble,' this shift might make you really irritated whenever you watch dark scenes. I tried to live with this issue for about three days, then I simply gave up, and exchanged it with a different model.
After I returned this, I checked 42LN5300, and it was better than 39LN5300. A-MVA3 panel from AUO was used in the 42LN5300 set that I tested, but I couldn't find any sets with LG's its own IPS panel.
Good things first: at this price point, this model from LG might be hard to beat, especially considering its affordability, reliability, and its beautiful, natural and vivid colors out of the box. And I liked this model a lot better than similarly priced Samsung models due to some minor reasons: its base stand, the angle the power cord is connected to the TV set, 10-point white balance calibration and etc.
However, one bad thing ruined every good thing that I mentioned above. LG display doesn't make 39" IPS panel just like Samsung, and it looked like LG used unknown VA panels, possibly made by Chimei for this model. When I looked up the pixel structure, it was far from the popular VA panels used for TVs such as S-PVA, PSA, A-MVA3, UV2A and others. It just look like a TN panel. In my opinion, it was a blend of bad things of IPS panel and VA panel: low contrast ratio + narrow viewing angle. If you are going to use this in a well-lit room for mostly watching TV over the air or through digital cable, then you might love this TV for the reasons I mentioned above. But, if you are going to use this TV in your bedroom or in a basement for watching movies with no lights on or with just one or two small lamps on, probably you will be disappointed. Due to its low contrast ratio, black in dark scenes will look like grey. This will be acceptable as long as the grey color is uniform on the screen, but due to its narrow viewing angle, when you off center just a little bit, you will notice drastic changes in the grey color: darker grey on one side, and purple on the other half. When you watch bright scenes on TV, you will not notice this gamma shift easily or not at all, but when you watch movies such as 'dark knight rises' or 'IMAX Hubble,' this shift might make you really irritated whenever you watch dark scenes. I tried to live with this issue for about three days, then I simply gave up, and exchanged it with a different model.
After I returned this, I checked 42LN5300, and it was better than 39LN5300. A-MVA3 panel from AUO was used in the 42LN5300 set that I tested, but I couldn't find any sets with LG's its own IPS panel.
In summary, you are going to love this set, if you are going to use this in a well-lit room for mostly watching TV. On the contrary, you might hate this set, if you will use this in a dark room for mainly watching movies.
This product has... Easy to set up, Great value and features for the price
About me... Technically savvy viewer
No, I would not recommend this to a friend.
Internet Connectable?No
Verified Purchaser:Yes
My Best Buy number: 0783602545
My Best Buy number: 0783602545
+10points
10out of 10found this review helpful.
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Samsung - 40" Class (40" Diag.) - LED - 1080p - HDTV
Samsung UN40EH5000FXZA LED HDTV: Get LED-quality images with crisp, clear picture details on this Samsung HDTV. A 1080p screen gives you a more vivid viewing experience and Clear Motion Rate technology enhances clarity.
If you need a decent basic display, this is it!
Customer Rating
5.0
Picture Quality
5.0
Sound Quality
4.0
Features
3.0
What's great about it: Great contrast and wide viewing angle (among LCD TVs), color accuracy
What's not so great: Average sound quality
As you might know, Samsung uses four different LCD panels for this model, and picture quality will be different based on the panel inside. In my review, it is all about a set that was manufactured in October 2013 in Mexico, with a Samsung S-PVA panel inside.
Exactly speaking, this one is not a perfect TV: Tried a few different sets, they all had a few dead pixels, which you might notice only when you use it as a monitor for your PC or laptop and when you have very sensitive eyes, and one of the sets even had a stuck pixel. And I also noticed some flashlighting/clouding issues at the corners in a dark room. I also found that LCD panel or something else was slightly moving (2 to 3mm at best) inside the cabinet when I tilted it slowly by around 10 degrees or more to the left or right when I moved it from living room to my bedroom.
Even with these kind of irritating issues, I chose this 2012 model over 2013 model 40F5000 and the 39/42LN5300 from LG mainly because of its wide viewing angles of around +-30 degrees and quite satisfactory contrast ratio. (might be worse than PDP, but quite good for an LCD TV) I am using this in my bedroom as a TV or sometimes as a monitor for my portable devices including laptop, so the image quality in a dark room is the most important factor in choosing a TV set. Thanks to its wide viewing angles and high contrast ratio, dark scenes are quite uniform from left to right, and black is black, unlike gray on one side and purple on the other side on a cheap, unknown VA panel based TV even when you are off the center slightly.
Even with these kind of irritating issues, I chose this 2012 model over 2013 model 40F5000 and the 39/42LN5300 from LG mainly because of its wide viewing angles of around +-30 degrees and quite satisfactory contrast ratio. (might be worse than PDP, but quite good for an LCD TV) I am using this in my bedroom as a TV or sometimes as a monitor for my portable devices including laptop, so the image quality in a dark room is the most important factor in choosing a TV set. Thanks to its wide viewing angles and high contrast ratio, dark scenes are quite uniform from left to right, and black is black, unlike gray on one side and purple on the other side on a cheap, unknown VA panel based TV even when you are off the center slightly.
As I said at the beginning, this is not a perfect TV, and you might need to spend at least twice the price tag of this one in order to have a near perfect TV set in 2014. Having a few dead pixels in 2013/14 was actually quite surprising to me (even though most people will not notice these two or three dead pixels out of 2 million pixels). Not having Internet connectivity nor "smart TV" functions nor 120Hz panel might be another disappointment to some people. However, quite a decent basic TV with quite a good image quality/ viewing angles/ contrast ratio/ reliable LCD panel below $450, this might be the only one that you can find in the market in 2013 or early 2014. If you are looking for a TV set that you will use in your bright living room, there might be some other models that you can consider from LG, Sony or Toshiba with a similar or lower price tag and with a little bit better technologies (2012 model vs. 2013/14 models) out there. But, I highly recommend this model in case you are looking for a set that you will use in a dark room like I do.
Some initial impressions after I use this for about a week:
- I connected an 1TB portable drive through USB, and it plays several files that I tried without any issues. Need to figure out how to change picture settings when playing files through USB though.
- Sound quality is just about average. But it has optical and stereo outputs, so no problems with me. I connected it to my old and trust-worthy Yamaha AX596 stereo amp through its analog output, and it is good.
- A backlit remote is good to have, even though the keys/buttons on the remote are a little bit small.
- Hard to explain, but this set looks a little bit poor at handling fast motions especially when compared to 2013 LG 60Hz models. So, if you are to watch sports games a lot, it might be better to have 2013 models or a set with 120Hz panel. Personally, I hate soap opera effect of low end 120Hz models.
- As I said, I tried a few sets of this model, and I found that each set had its own unique color reproductions even with exactly same parameter settings in its menu. So, "the best parameter values" that you can find on the Internet will not work on your specific TV set.
- I connected an 1TB portable drive through USB, and it plays several files that I tried without any issues. Need to figure out how to change picture settings when playing files through USB though.
- Sound quality is just about average. But it has optical and stereo outputs, so no problems with me. I connected it to my old and trust-worthy Yamaha AX596 stereo amp through its analog output, and it is good.
- A backlit remote is good to have, even though the keys/buttons on the remote are a little bit small.
- Hard to explain, but this set looks a little bit poor at handling fast motions especially when compared to 2013 LG 60Hz models. So, if you are to watch sports games a lot, it might be better to have 2013 models or a set with 120Hz panel. Personally, I hate soap opera effect of low end 120Hz models.
- As I said, I tried a few sets of this model, and I found that each set had its own unique color reproductions even with exactly same parameter settings in its menu. So, "the best parameter values" that you can find on the Internet will not work on your specific TV set.
* I thank all BestBuy people who didn't complain about my repeated exchanges due to some minor issues such as dead pixels and backlighting issues.
This product has... Easy to set up, Great value and features for the price
About me... Technically savvy viewer
I would recommend this to a friend!
Internet Connectable?No
My Best Buy number: 783602545
+2points
3out of 4found this review helpful.
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StAug's Answers
LG - 39" Class (38-1/2" Diag.) - LED - 1080p - 60Hz - HDTV
LG 39LN5300 LED HDTV: Watch Blu-ray movies or HD programming with this 1080p HD screen. The Triple XD Engine creates striking color and stark contrast for a beautiful picture.
Media played through the USB port
Will the USB port allow connection of a device to play MP4 videos with subtitles enabled?
If I remember correctly, it can play mp3 files and jpg picture files, not any mp4 nor avi.
10 years, 3 months ago
by
Posted by:
StAug
from
Irvine, CA
LG - 39" Class (38-1/2" Diag.) - LED - 1080p - 60Hz - HDTV
LG 39LN5300 LED HDTV: Watch Blu-ray movies or HD programming with this 1080p HD screen. The Triple XD Engine creates striking color and stark contrast for a beautiful picture.
what is the difference between LCD tvs vs LED tvs?
Both of the two use LCD panels for display. 'LCD TV' uses CCFL as a backlight, and 'LED TV' uses LED as its backlight. It was a gimmick that Samsung used when they introduced new LCD TVs with LED backlight.
Hope this helps!
Hope this helps!
10 years, 3 months ago
by
Posted by:
StAug
from
Irvine, CA