Photo gallery: Samsung PS50A650Second only to its flagship 70-inch Series 7 mammoth, the Samsung PS50A650 is an all-rounded plasma TV that seats comfortably within the high-end flat-panel category. It features the company's upmarket "crystal design" styling and comes with a whopping four HDMI ports for 24p 1080p video playback. A close contender with the Panasonic Viera TH-50PZ850, they both come with a similar feature set and a premium AU$4099 sticker price.
Design
If you're plain tired of most TVs' glossy black shades, or simply seek something that will stand out amongst the competition, Samsung's unique "crystal design with a touch of colour" is the solution to your woes. This catchy finish exudes a feminine red tint that has a blown glass-like effect, though its critics have been known to nitpick on a plastikey feel and build quality. That said, it's hard to fault the PS50A650's clean lines, sleek and clutter-free bezel, courtesy of a pair of bottom-firing stealth speakers which sit below the 96mm-thick chassis.
When it comes to component placement, everything is just about right. You have the auxiliary ports — including HDMI and USB — conveniently located on the left edge, and a set of keys on the bezel's front right corner. These controls are not your ordinary push buttons, either. They're fully backlit in red and touch-sensitive for an added touch of class. As for installation, the TV is bundled with a swivel stand - with the option of a manual or motorized wall bracket. Lastly, wire management is catered for by two adjustable cable ties on the rear.
While some may take issue with the TV's appearance, we have little issue with the matching and well-conceived remote controller. We first came across this ergonomic concoction in our LA40A650 review and it was an instant hit with its orange illumination. The layout of these responsive and tactile buttons is just about right for no-fuss one-hand operation, while the TV will automatically detect connected video sources and allow you to toggle through them with a single key. This high level of convenience is extended to shortcuts for major functions ranging from viewing TV broadcasts to WiseLink multimedia playback.
Diving deep into the Samsung's intuitive software menu, we were able to quickly access both fundamental and advanced configuration options allowing a high degree of customization. Most notably, the TV has a detailed white balance setting to dial in the primary colors, plus multi-level options to tailor its 100Hz engine. What we found disappointing was its dated textual-based interface and the limited Dynamic, Standard and Movie picture modes. It was also during calibration that we noticed that the Movie mode's default sharpness was set on the low side as well.
Features
Under the hood of this 50-incher is a future-proof 1,920 x 1,080-pixel plasma panel that delivers a high 1,000,000:1 dynamic contrast. To optimize this panel, Samsung is also throwing in enhanced 18-bit color processing and an updated DNIE Pro engine. Samsung claims their processing ups the amount of reproduceable shades to more than 549 billion graduations for truer-to-life colors. Unlike the Panasonic Viera PZ850, the screen also exhibits negligible internal reflection, while glare in a bright room is kept to the minimum, thanks to its suite of Ultra FilterBright technology.
Motion on the the PS50A650 is enhanced with a 100Hz frame rate-doubling function. Its Dual Scan technology analyses and interpolates existing footages to insert new intermittent ones, increasing the overall frame rate to 100 frames per second. This video processing is designed to minimise judder and motion blurring for smoother onscreen action and is particularly ideal for sports programs. That said, Samsung has disabled the 100Hz function for 24-frame Blu-rays, leaving it enabled for video-based content such as regular TV broadcasts.
As a further value add, Samsung has outfitted this panel with onboard multimedia playback via a high-speed USB port. The Wiselink system is capable of reading MP3 and JPEG files and is compatible with a wide variety of storage devices ranging from inexpensive thumbdrives to flash memory media (using a card reader) and digital cameras. Here, the photos are previewed in neat 5 x 3 thumbnails, complete with key information such as resolution and date. You can also program a slideshow with customised time intervals and background music.
Another notable addition is the PS50A650's comprehensive connectivity options. Not only do you get a suite of four film-centric 1080p24-ready HDMI terminals (one on the side), but you'll also receive two 1080p component-video ports which are perfect for older devices. That's not all: the PC input features a full 1,920 x 1,080 resolution, instead of the usual 1,360 x 768 pixels, and should result in sharper, un-upscaled text.
Performance
For couch potatoes, the PS50A650T1R is one of the more capable full-HD panels, offering good free-to-air broadcast reception. We were greeted by clean, grain-free and relatively sharp visuals on par with our reference Pioneer LX Kuro. We also noticed smoother-scrolling news tickers, thanks to its 100Hz engine, though there was noticeable image cropping, or overscan, in full-screen 16:9 aspect ratio.
Our full SpyderTV Pro-calibrated review unit put up a similarly strong showing in Avia synthetic test patterns. We recorded near-perfect color decoding and a flawless grayscale tracking right down to the deepest shade of black. To verify the latter, we fired up our DVD copy of Blade 2 which revealed excellent shadow in the dark warehouse ninja assult scene. Switching to standard-definition HQV benchmarks, there was no shortage of detail. Sharpness was also just about right without visible jaggies, while noise reduction really kicked in on the 'mid' setting.
Playing native 24-frame (24p) Blu-rays on the PS50A650 delivered an instant fidelity boost, though movies such as Cars and Casino Royale also highlighted two minor issues. With the 100Hz enhancement automatically disabled under 24p mode, judder was observed during a slow pan of a blip in the opening scene in Cars. The skin tone of Bond's Daniel Creg was a bit on the warm side as well, which give the spy a somewhat Asian cast. That said, colours from both titles had a pleasant, natural feel with blacks that were comparable to our reference screen.
Putting aside the slight distortion during the Film Resolution Loss test, it was mostly smooth sailing for HD-HQV benchmarks reflecting the TV's effective DNIE Pro video-processing engine. With 100Hz running, the PS50A650 was an absolute ace in gaming, and both PlayStation 3 Ridge Racer 7 and Xbox 360 Need for Speed: ProStreet were rendered with fluid motion and razor-sharp graphics. Furthernore, downgrading from HDMI to analog component-video yielded minimal performance penalties. The visuals were equally stunning sans noticeable burn-in effects.
As expected from the Samsung's 1080p-compatible PC input, text was crisp and relatively stable. Screen formatting was spot-on with edge-to-edge accuracy, though mild colour banding was picked up in our test chart. Multimedia playback-wise, the Wiselink clocked a respectable 12 seconds to preview and 10 seconds to load full-screen 8-megapixel JPEGs. While this may still seem to be lacking in speed, this was offset by brilliant photo-quality reproduction in its original aspect ratio. However, there was nothing to shout about for MP3 playback, which while commendable could also sound too thin and bright at times.
Following on from this, we've mixed impressions for the Samsung's invisible speakers. On the one hand, it could go pretty loud with a healthy dose of mid-bass and extended treble. On the other, stereo imaging and SRS surround effects were mediocre due to the TV's down-firing speakers projecting sound away from the sweet spot. For the same price as the Panasonic Viera PZ850, the Samsung PS50A650 may offer better aesthetics but loses out slightly in the A/V performance department. More importantly, there's the forthcoming Pioneer Kuros that offer much deeper blacks.
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