Review hits home.

I am not a firm believer in user reviews however I came upon one in particular that was just so touching and moving and yet informative at the same time. This has definitely captured my attention.  I thought I'd show you all:


"Jkowzer"
"My Story Samsung UN65D8000 vs LG 65LW6500"

" I just wanted to share my story with you all.

I have a Samsung UN65D8000 and had it for about two months. I bought it for around $4500. My wife and I just went through a divorce and we received joint custody of our two children. My eldest daughter who is 13 enjoys watching TV in my home on my Samsung but it wasn’t until about two weeks ago, my children watched their very first 3D movie at home. The movie was Tron. I was greatly disappointed however because after only 10 minutes of watching, my youngest daughter (age 11) began to complain about the weight of the shutter glasses. I tried to solve this by tying a string on the bridge of the frame, and tying the other part of the string to her hairpiece. I thought this would relieve some of the weight but it did not. My eldest daughter had no problem with the weight of the glasses but around 30 minutes into the film, she started complaining to me about her eyes hurting and we had to stop the DVD right then and there. Personally, I did not regret the purchase of my TV because my intention wasn’t to show 3D films to my children. It just became a convenient option once my children were here. My children since have bugged me about “fixing” my TV, which of course there was no problem with, just that the active shutter technology didn’t suit them very well. 

Since I value my limited time with my children very much, I decided on purchasing a passive 3D TV. I asked my physician about 3D TVs and he had recommended me a passive 3D LED TV which he himself has in his home. I won’t say which model he recommended me but I will tell you which passive 3D LED TV I had ended up purchasing. It was a LG 65LW6500 LED TV. This TV is the same size as my Samsung and I paid around $3900 for it. They also came with four pairs of Cinema 3D glasses ( I was glad to have an extra pair just in case). I ended up moving my Samsung TV into my bedroom and putting the LG one in the living room. Before I tell you my thoughts, I will first discuss how my children reacted to it. We purchased other blue-ray titles as well when we went to buy the TV(Tangled and Avatar).

The first words that came out of my youngest daughter when I gave her one of the Cinema 3D glasses were “Cool, I look like a bug” (these were a little larger than the Shutter glasses). We popped in Tron from where we left off from the previous session (at the 33’ mark). During viewing, I purposely did not mention to bring up any problems about the weight of the glasses or the eyes straining from the Samsung, I just monitored them every five minutes or so. Aside from an occasional “Wow”, “Holy cow”, there were absolutely no complaints, only pure enjoyment. As a father, it is very fulfilling to provide great entertainment and bring joy to my children and I was glad to see this TV didn’t have any problems the Samsung had.

Now on to my personal thoughts on the two TVs.

The Samsung has more likeability in its design over the LG in my opinion. The bezel and overall look just feels somewhat more “expensive”. That being said, the remote however was a big disaster compared to the LGs. When I first purchased the UN65D8000, I did not think anything bad of the remote. However after using LG’s remote and 3D interface, it brought out a new impatience in me when using the Samsung’s. The amount of button-clicking and lack of mobility when navigating just made me push the buttons harder. I’m sure the life of the remote is much lower than the TV itself when it comes to impatient people. 

When I view TV, I usually like to watch sports programs in 2D as well as numerous documentaries on the discovery/geographic channel. Both TVs have very similar 2D imaging, absolutely fantastic. I tried the 2D to 3D conversion feature on both of them with different results. Samsung’s conversion feature was done on NBA finals Game 1 on NBC. There was a lot of blurring during the passing and drive in layups (the drop in fps was very noticeable). Sometimes the sound even sounded very off-sync with their lips. The still image however was very clean. The LG was completely different. I viewed it on the NBA finals game 6 and the conversion was beautiful. It was almost as if the program was being filmed on a 3D camera lens. There were no problems with voice-sync and the fps drop wasn’t noticeable at all.

Now because my Samsung cost over $800 more than my LG (including glasses cost), I had expected a inferior 3D experience when watching on the LG. This was not the case. The 3D image actually looked better than the Samsung. This goes against what many users on forums or retailers suggested, active having a better quality than passive 3D. Maybe it was just me but I value my thoughts more than anyone else’s regarding my own personal satisfaction and LG gave it to me here. The lighting was also much brighter than the Samsung’s. When I changed the brightness settings of the Samsung to max, this caused the black levels to decrease and ruin the overall image of the 3D. 

My final thoughts; the LG is a TV that is great for the little ones. The remote is very fun to use, the cinema 3D glasses are more comfortable, and the inconveniences are just too much to consider as a parent when choosing the right TV. As a personal user I also prefer the LG over the Samsung for basically the same reasons my children do. Maybe the part of the brain that is activated during watching/using a 3D TV is no different from children.

The Viewing distance from the TV in the living room is 7 feet. The viewing distance in my bedroom is 6 1/2 feet."