This week we’re going to go in on a set of plasma televisions, and they’ll run the gamut from the pricey to the budget-friendly, with all sorts of features and capabilities in between. Some will be better than others, and one of the best in the set will come from the Samsung PN51D8000.
The Samsung PN51D8000 is a fifty one inch 1080p plasma television that will offer 3D playback once you get all the necessary subcomponents, a six hundred Hz refresh rate to reduce blurring, built-in wi-fi connectivity for streaming access, Samsung’s Smart TV (which in turn gives you access to the growing body of Samsung apps), two ten watt speakers, AnyNet Plus capability, the Real Black Filter for improved picture, four HDMI inputs, one component input, a PC input, an ethernet port, two USB inputs, an optical digital audio output, an analog audio input, and an audio analog output.
This is one of those that’s about par for the course, with a nice looking picture (that unusual measurement actually helps quite a bit), lesser-grade sound quality and of course plenty of options. This doesn’t play near as well with your older components as I’d like to see, but this is definitely one of those setups where you want the newer quality gear to take full advantage of what’s going on anyway. Why would you want to watch VHS tapes on a television with this kind of resolution and refresh rate anyway? You may as well go boldly into the Blu-ray era, as it will still let you watch DVDs, and upconvert them besides.
And you can get one of these out at Amazon right now for one thousand nine hundred seventy-seven dollars, which seems like a lot, but considering what you get is actually a pretty fair price.
So really, the Samsung PN51D8000 is a nice setup, maybe overpriced, but still plenty nice. There’s a lot to like here and it will definitely handle your needs today as well as tomorrow. It may not do so hot with yesterday, and you’ll probably need to perk up the sound a bit, but you’ll still be in a good posture with this one in your home theater arsenal.