Samsung WS 32 Z 306 P

...from blueprints and upon contacting Samsung they revealed that the stand was an error on the part of the North East factory. Samsung offered to send someone out, but being ever resourceful I turned this offer down and pulled the television back off the stand. I headed off in the garage to collect a saw; at this point Sue returned from work to find me carving at the television stand.

Having sorted out the stand and again lifting the ...
...there was a competition between Samsung and their rivals to see who could get the most buttons on a remote.


Having had the television for the last two weeks I now feel its a safe time to discuss it; the biggest bonus for me was no burning smell; the last television Argos supplied me with electrocuted me and caught fire, and we had only just met. So to be able to leave the television on without worry was certainly a bonus.
more

After nearly a year of problems in respect of a combusting Hitachi television; the friendly guys at Argos said "Pick another", and so we did. We had picked it simply by looking at the Argos catalogue at what looked the best for us.
After 30 days waiting this little Monster finally arrived.

Having left me sat on the floor in my living room with two large boxes;the cheery Argos delivery men literally ran out the door. I began enthusiastically assembling the base unit. In honesty this is rather disappointing, my last stand had been all metal and glass; this one was wooden frame painted silver with one glass shelf; however the plus side is not only does it allow for stacking, you also have room to place different units side by side. So theoretically it allows up to 8 units to be placed inside. Personally I have a DVD recorder, DVD Multi Region Player and the Sky +, all sat underneath. So the exciting part is that if I want to go out and buy a magnificent something or other I've plenty of room under the television for it. On top of the stand are two stumpy stand up bits which marry up with the underside of your television holding it in place.

Having spent several minutes assembling the base it was time to unbox the television. Now I'm no wimp but this was hell of a task trying to remove the television from the box. Having had no joy lifting the television out of the box, I rolled the box over and pulled the television out sideways. In the process of doing this if anyone had looked in through the window they would have assumed Evil Edna from Willow the Wisp had arrived; as with a final burst of energy I ripped the television out of the box and onto my chest. So there I am spread-eagled on the floor with a giant TV screen for a head.

Having wiggled out from under the television I stood it upright on the floor. It was quite scary to look at; a picture cannot represent what this television is like; and a picture was the only way I had seen it. The screen is a very flat and compact screen; it's sat on a giant set of speakers; this creates the effect that it's a plasma/LCD screen. The speaker part of the set reminds me of a satellite dish as it curves out at the ends creating a sort of depressed U shape. The other television had been a 28 inch and as I looked at this monster I thought "My goodness, women are right 4 inches does make a difference".

It was time to lift the television 2 feet onto the base unit. On my fifth attempt of lifting (concerned as the last thing I wanted was a hernia) I finally became he-man and picked up quite easily putting it onto the base unit. As I lowered it onto the base I happened to notice the weight written on the side of the box and the two man lift logo. What's that I thought in STONES; I pulled out my mobile phone and was horrified to discover that the television weight was just over 13 stone "Its heavier than the mother in law!"

Having sat rather smug for 10 minutes at the thought of lifting something nearly 5 stone over my weight I noticed that the television was leaning forward somewhat. Now the Television was made in Korea; but the base was made in Country Durham. It's not going to come as much as a surprise to you to find that those pesky Northerners had made the base wrong. (For those of you waving knives now I can state I am entitled to use that expression my other half comes from the North and I was forced to live there for some years.) And no it was not the Korean's because there parts were already part compiled from blueprints and upon contacting Samsung they revealed that the stand was an error on the part of the North East factory. Samsung offered to send someone out, but being ever resourceful I turned this offer down and pulled the television back off the stand. I headed off in the garage to collect a saw; at this point Sue returned from work to find me carving at the television stand.

Having sorted out the stand and again lifting the mother in law back onto the base I was now ready for set up. But interestingly enough it still learned forward slightly; I whisked the television off again and placed 2p coins strategically under the base. Before putting the television back on the stand again. TADAAAAA it was all up and working and ready to go.

Now the nice thing about this television is that conveniently hidden but easily noticeable on the side of the screen is a bay of buttons; this allows you to control every aspect that the remote does; so often nowadays the remote disappears and your left powerless to control a television with limited buttons.

I plugged all the boxes into the television and switched it on. I was greeted with a cheery hello tune (you get a goodbye tune when you switch the television off). On came the blue screen; first of all you need to set the time and the date; EASY!! The next stage was tuning I selected Auto tune which did not work; it just kept saying "check your connections". I finally opted for the manual install which took about 11 minutes to find all the channels. Now I was ready to roll.

The instruction book is easy to get through, and the plug and play options of the television enhance this; however the remote control is a pig. Nothing is in a place that's similar with other television remote controls; leaving you fumbling about with it in the dark trying to turn the television volume down. Also a lot of the buttons on the remote seem to do the same things too, almost as if there was a competition between Samsung and their rivals to see who could get the most buttons on a remote.

Having had the television for the last two weeks I now feel its a safe time to discuss it; the biggest bonus for me was no burning smell; the last television Argos supplied me with electrocuted me and caught fire, and we had only just met. So to be able to leave the television on without worry was certainly a bonus.

The biggest thing I notice is the definition of the picture has reduced from the previous television we had. It just does not look natural anymore; so ladies those extra 4 inches are not always an advantage. However what is nice is that the television runs through different frequencies in order to achieve the best picture. Also most other widescreen televisions still leave you with a black border. This model does a quick scan lasting about 1 second to ensure that no border is visible. Which is a nice touch when having old people to stay; regardless how many times you tell them they never understand the widescreen thing, and if the border is too big they seem incapable of watching whatever is on.

The sound however is great you can pick through a variety of settings; and it's a pretty big noise even on volume level 10 out of 100. There are allsorts of preset sounds included and one that turns mono into stereo (or at least pretends too). Other settings include Speech, Movie, Music, and Television. But each sound is available to independently alter with a 16 bar graphic equaliser.

To sum up this television set I'd say its a pretty good buy; this model was £399 from Argos; and has everyone fooled that its a plasma screen, every time someone walks in they normally pass some comment about the fact they thought we were broke. If you look round the back though there is still a massive back unit it's just confined to an area 2 foot deep by about a foot width and height wise. As a result of this you cannot put the television in a corner it needs to be protruding out slightly.

I'm not really disappointed with this set and if you read my review on the Hitachi television you'll probably understand why. Although I'm sure there are better models out there; and certainly lighter ones.
 

...less