Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

My background: Art major, pro photographer, highend home audio/stereo veteran, home-theater veteran (sort of). Owned a couple of front projectors over the last decade, currently without one...still have a very large 2.35:1 Da-Lite high gain screen. I don't play video games. I mostly watch 1080i "hdtv" broadcasts, or else blu rays via a slightly old player. All connected with silver-plated HDMI cable (yes it does make a big difference...and this cable did not cost very much, either). With the above in mind, most of my review is about my personal journey, and my perception of the tv, regarding image quality. I've not begun to dig into many of the "smart tv" features. They do seem to work fine, though. Would work better with a keyboard. Also my internet connection is not the fastest. I've had this 46F6300 tv nearly a month. I had tried the 40 inch 5000 series, but returned it (it had the "sharp" panel, and it just plain sucked...Thankfully, this particular 46F6300 only comes with the Samsung panel, so you can order one from anywhere and not have to worry about the Samsung "panel lottery"). Having spent a lot of money on new camera equipment over the last 6 months, amongst other things...I wanted to see if I could live with spending a minimum amount of cash on a tv. It turns out, I could not. And 40 inches is smaller than two people can comfortably watch anyway. Sitting 12 feet away from any 1080p tv smaller than 80 inches, is a waste of pixels in my opinion...so I sit much closer. But sitting closer means there's barely room for two people...at least on the front row. After some extra research, and joining AVS forum (a few debates on another forum)...and several visits to local tv showrooms, I concluded this F6300 would suit me. After living with it for 3 weeks at home, I can certainly be happy with it, but I will always want something better. The problem is, "better" costs anywhere from 50% more, to 150% more...or even 3000% more! At this time, there is probably only one other "1080p" tv I want: a Sony which costs over $2000...and it's only 55 inches. Currently the best looking tv I have seen in person, is the Samsung 4k. Samsung's demo looks a lot better than Sony's demo on their 4k TV's. But then Sony are pushing their 4k upsampled movie disc drive, so demo content relies on movie clips which lack the "wow" factor. OLED tv's will be putting every tv available now, to shame over the next few years, in any case. But until then, the new 4k panels, absolutely put most of the 1080p panels to shame, in terms of color, contrast, and black level (not even counting the 4-times-more pixels). That 1080p Sony I mention above, with its own dedicated 1080p demo in the store, does get close to the 4K panels...in my opinion...at least in terms of color palette and saturation without clipping (certainly not in detail, obviously). Getting back to this Samsung UN46F6300...Comparing the F6300 to what I saw in the stores, in my opinion, the 7100 series is just not enough better to justify the price difference. Sure the 7100 has "3D", but if that's important to you, you might not be reading this. The biggest difference, is the 7100 seems to have solved the "dark corner" backlight issue of the 6300 (an inch square in each corner of the screen, is slightly dark at times...I can live with it. You're almost never looking in the extreme corners anyway unless there's a tv commercial where the whole screen is white, and you get bored with that...) And the 8000 series, is also not that much improved over the 7100...yet costs quite a bit more. Certainly the 8000 still suffers from a lack of a really wide color gamut. My opinion of 3D is, it's a cute feature if you have the money to blow, and young children...but really it's just the CG cartoons such as "Despicable Me", etc...which look good in 3D. Live action 3D looks fake to me unless it's shot with dual IMAX film cameras (almost nothing is anymore)...and all consumer 3D glasses I have viewed, ruin color saturation and balance...and destroy shadow detail...not to mention they're annoying to wear. So I see the current 3D technology as a slowly passing fad...But if you want the best panel from any manufacturer, it will be 3D anyway...except of course for 4K (currently)! After quite a bit of fiddling with the settings, I can state that this F6300 appears to have decent black level, color saturation, contrast, and motion processing...with an adequate amount of shadow detail (not great, but definitely adequate). BUT TO ACHIEVE THIS, you need to watch in a dark room with the backlight turned down (a lot)...and the contrast set a bit above "50", with brightness below "50". To turn the backlight above halfway, and set contrast and brightness below halfway...destroys blacks, and the image loses its contrast and "crispness". Sure the brightness "grabs" your eyes and makes them take notice, but what they're noticing...does not look good. I suspect the 7100 series is just not that much better, here. Certainly it was hard to tell in the store, with their absurd demo reel that wasn't even connected via HDMI... The "black tone" and "dynamic contrast" can be useful if the content needs them, but if the content is shot/edited correctly, you won't need these features. Certainly the gamma setting can vary, usually from "0" to "3". Rarely if ever did I need to go below "0". So...In a bright room, the 6300 can go extremely bright (turn the backlight to 20 and the contrast up a lot)...but there won't be any blacks at all, or even dark grays. Given the display seems almost as bright as a searchlight in this mode...I guess that isn't surprising. The matte screen likely works very well in a bright room, but for me I would rather read a magazine or book in a bright room...or else look at the world outside through the windows. I don't agree with some who feel the matte screen "keeps the colors from popping" as well as is possible with a full gloss screen. I think it's mostly due to this matte screen being "glossy enough", yet still matte. The 5000 series had a much more matte screen that did look dull by comparison to the 6300. Regarding the built in speakers...being an audiophile who used to have more time, and was more obsessed than I can currently afford to be...compared to the 5000 tv, the speakers in this F6300 sound fabulous! The 5000's sounded like honking geese (yet its speaker drivers were larger)! The 6300's equalizer needs very little adjusting. These speakers work just fine for when you don't want to turn the surround system on, and portray very nice "out of phase" stereo imaging from the "downconverted from surround to two channel" digital audio signal being fed to them (and this is still in the "standard" audio mode). The treble is plenty extended enough, given these are downfiring, and thus "quasi-omnidirectional" (as are most flat panel tv speakers). There are a few spoken-word documentaries, where the person was mic'ed with too much chest sound...which can be a tad annoying...but for soundtracks that are mixed correctly (90% or so of all tv and movie content), these tv speakers sound neutral. It's hard to believe so much sound can come from tiny 1x3 inch speakers firing down at the floor! A few tips for setting this tv: One thing you don't want to do, is leave the picture mode in "standard", because it will constantly vary the backlight...and on dark scenes, actually turns the backlight down, probably to "0". Very frustrating, so just don't watch in this mode. Who cares if it saves you 10 watts per year of power consumption?? Just use your hairdryer for a few less nanoseconds per year, and you can offset the power usage. "Movie" mode is the only mode you should use. "Dynamic" and "Neutral" don't allow access to the advanced menu... Set "auto motion plus" to "2" on both types of material. Any higher and objects in motion appear to "float"...looks very fake...this is where the "soap opera" criticism comes into play. As long as you set it to 2, or else turn it off, you won't have a problem. Sure there is content which has crappy, jittery motion...but just endure it...or else set the auto motion feature to high during this content, and then back down again after it's over. The white balance on my sample, is not remotely white. Don't be afraid to tweak both the white balance and customize the color gamut. First, of course, set the color temperature to "standard", and adjust all the sliders so that most broadcast tv material looks like the correct color temperature when set to "standard". That way, it gives you one "cool", and two "warm" quick-adjustments beyond that (useful especially for many modern movies which are way too blue). I wound up boosting yellow in the color gamut (all three sliders of the yellow, but not equally), and cutting red in the white balance...but again literally every slider in both menus needed adjusting (this is within the "advanced menu"). It took two weeks before I had it all completely dialed in how I wanted it. I didn't use any measurement devices, just my eyes and normal program material. I trust them more than a device because I can live with how my eyes want everything set, and I can't live with how a device wants it set. If I see the world through my eyes, they should correctly show me what is wrong with a tv, with some trial and error. In case you have not guessed by now, I am also someone who would change a few settings, when switching to the blu ray player...as the one I own needs a higher gamma setting than the DVR/receiver does. This annoys the other people who are there to watch, but that's too bad! I definitely do not believe in setting all the adjustments on the tv once, and then never changing them ever again. That assumes all content and sources look exactly the same...and they don't. Of course, I am someone who is a bit of an artist, and I pay attention to how things look...and notice if something looks off. Your mileage may vary. Can I state for a fact that this is the best 46 inch tv for what I paid ($749)? No, but the only other brand with the same size panel I compared it to in three different stores, was the LG 47 inch. The colors just did not look as varied, the primaries looked too saturated...just didn't care for the "LG look". The Sony models below $1000, to me also did not measure up to this Samsung. The plasmas...well there are those freaks who swear by them...but certainly the plasmas in this price range, also did not do it for me. The black levels were perhaps a tad better, but not enough to convince me the overall "look" was better. The best plasma I have ever seen, was a 720p Pioneer Elite back in 2005, and it cost $5000 back then. I hear they still fetch a pretty penny on the used market. Plasma today, appears to be going into extinction...perhaps that's a shame, but whatever will be will be. Backlit LED will very likely follow the same path, but for now a "lower end" version is all I can afford. I had wanted a new 1080p front projector, but decided I could wait...mostly because the only ones that looked adequate were over $2000. But also I don't care for the trend of using a "silent" fan which also does not cool the lamp adequately...forcing you to buy another $300 to $500 lamp every 100 hours. Waste of money! Thanks for reading!