Couldn't return it fast enough

I know I've said it before, but I really mean it this time - this will be the last piece of Samsung's garbage that I fall for.

Another Best Buy gift card has been burning a hole in my pocket for the past couple of months, so on my last visit I just couldn't resist when I saw this very attractive (as always) Samsung LCD on clearance for $429. Add to that the 12% off coupon I had, and I was out the door with this beauty for just $260.

I am still trying to find a decent LCD TV in the 22-26" range for my XBOX 360, but in the mean time I've been playing mostly on my projector and now I am over the motion sickness I had at first. After playing on the 23" screen of this Samsung it felt almost impossible. So my new reason for still wanting an LCD is to save some bulb life on my projector, but for the price of the TV, I might as well just buy another lamp and enjoy the real thing.

I can't fault the TV for being small - that's its idea to begin with, but don't worry - there is plenty to complain about here, and other than the design - not much really to like.

I picked up the white version for two reason - one, to match my XBOX, and two, the dust that it will collect will be a lot less visible than on the glossy black version.

As I said, like every Samsung product, this TV is really cute, and as usual it hurts me that I had to return it. It came in a fairly small box, with the table top stand not attached to the body, but it wasn't difficult to put the two together - just four screws.

I was seriously debating between this Samsung and a 26" LG, which was about $60 more. I chose the Samsung for two reasons: it received better reviews, and also has 2 antenna inputs - one for over-the-air antenna, and one for cable. Since I do use a regular antenna for some local channels, this feature was very important to me, and Samsung seems to be the only brand to offer dual coax inputs.

Set up was fairly simple, I hooked up my XBOX and DVD recorder with HDMI, and connected basic cable and my antenna to the dual coax inputs. Unfortunately the included stand neither tilts nor swivels, and the base is really thin, making hiding the cables pretty difficult. I took some time though and made it look acceptable.

I had big hopes for the tuners, not only for the dual inputs, but also an option in the menu I had not seen in another device - REMOVE SCRAMBLED CHANNELS. I always hate that on my DVD recorder and TV, they find and store about 150 channels from the QAM tuner, of which maybe 20 are available, the rest I have to spend hours deleting manually. The tuner was fairly quick, took less than 30 minutes to scan both the air and the cable frequencies, and to run a "clear scrambled channels" routine. Unfortunately the results were identical to what I get with my DVD recorder - hundreds of channels, most of which scrambled, despite the supposed cleansing.

Once tuned, the picture wasn't impressive either. The out-of-the-box picture settings were overly bright and saturated, which is expected, but the TV does not have that many picture controls, just the standard (brightness, contrast, color, tint, sharpness). The only extras are a back light control and HDMI black level. After playing with those for a bit, I found the picture acceptable, but far from the best I've seen, and light years behind the picture from my projector.

With the XBOX 360 the results were beyond disastrous. My biggest problem is that this TV will absolutely not send through sound from the HDMI to the optical out. My experience with previous TVs has been a mixed bag with one (Insignia) passing through full DD 5.1 from HDMI to optical, and 3 or 4 other just passing plain 2 channel PCM. This is the first one though that send absolutely no sound from the HDMI to the optical. This is a huge problem, because the XBOX 360's optical out is on its A/V cable and not on the console so I can't connect it directly to my receiver.

Beyond the sound, the picture with games was very disappointing. I guess I got spoiled playing on the projector, but I was certainly expecting much better black levels. There was a definite purplish/grayish hue to the picture with 360 games. The HDMI black level helped a bit, but wasn't great. I also noticed a lot more motion artifacts and a good bit of grain. The TV also has a game mode, but when enabled, it pretty much kills any advances in contrast and black level the other settings make, and it also puts the picture in dynamic mode, without the possibility of changing it.

I have mixed feelings about the remote control, it's the same one Samsung's been using with everything for the past 6-7 years. It is neither back lit, nor glowing, but it does control other devices. There is disappointing PIP function on the remote, which regrettably does not allow you to watch two different channels, and does not work with the HDMI enabled either - in short, it is completely useless.

Sound from the built-in speakers is surprisingly acceptable, though there are no low frequencies to speak of. The simulated surround sound, however, works wonders, but after a while the hollowness of the overly bright sound bouncing off the walls gets tiring.

I did get online to check if I wasn't missing something with the HDMI-to-optical pass through, and while was unable to download the owner's manual (didn't feel like pulling out the box to find the original one again), I did chat live with a customer service representative, who was very helpful in confirming my suspicion that the TV simply will not do what I wanted it to.

Couple of other random thoughts - there is a little glowing light on the front, which luckily can be disabled or enabled to glow while stand by (my choice). I am not entirely thrilled with the color choice for the glowing light - orange - to me the white and orange combination is a bit toxic, but to each his own. One thing I was surprised to see missing was a program guide, my previous experience with Samsung has been good at leas on this end. I still like the menu system and appreciate the auto clock set and being able to actually see the clock on the Info screen.