You wouldn’t think you could actually make a technology leap in high definition television at home.  I mean after all high definition televisions are all displaying the same thing, right?  Wrong.  I did it this past weekend and the results are still blowing me away every evening.

A few months ago I had decided to purchase a new HDTV and sell my HP 58” DLP MD5880n to my brother-in-law.  Buck was willing to give me a little money for it, but in the end I decided to just give it to him.  Pretty good deal for him, eh?

I had narrowed my list of possible sets to a 58” Samsung Series 8 plasma, a 58” Panasonic V10 plasma, and the 55” Samsung Series 8 LED LCD.  I went to a BestBuy in far north Texas in Flower Mound because they had them all on display nearly side-by-side.  All three sets are impressive and after looking at the picture quality, fiddling with menus and settings, and kicking the tires I left the store in order to shop for the price I wanted.

Waiting turned out to be a good and bad idea.  Just before the BestBuy visit, I noticed the supply of the Samsung LED LCD UN55B8500 I wanted was starting to dry up.  I knew CES was coming and Samsung was likely to announce a successor, but I hadn’t anticipated inventory disappearing already.  But the internal Microsoft employee deal was already gone.  Not a good sign.

BestBuy put the UN55B8500 on sale.  In fact, as of this writing it still is but they didn’t have any in stock other than display models in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana.  Nothing in the central warehouse for shipping from bestbuy.com either.

I looked at frys.com and noticed they also had the set on sale.  I called the salesman I had talked to a week earlier and asked if he had one new in the box.  He said he had two.  I told him I’d be there in 30 minutes to buy one.  I already knew from prior dimension and weight research that the box would fit perfectly in my wife's Honda Element with one back seat folded up.  It did.  Perfect fit.  Made for each other.  Karma.

The Wife Acceptance Factor

My wife rarely comments about technology changes around the house.  After living with a nerd for so many years she is used to stuff coming and going.  I think she thought I was crazy to consider replacing the DLP set.  I’m not really sure.  I didn’t really ask because I didn’t have to get the purchase through the budget committee.  The purchase was funded by selling of stuff from my home office I wasn’t using.  I also won third place in a contest and that helped seal the deal. 

We moved the HP DLP off the den entertainment center stand and into the garage for bro-in-law pickup. We then pulled the box out of the Honda and set it in front of the tv stand.  I think she was pretty surprised when I lifted the box cover off and we lifted the new set out of the box and on the stand.  Thin and light baby.

I had the protective tape off, box removed and new HDTV up and running about twenty minutes later.  I had to go over and pick her jaw up off the floor.  I must admit, the out-of-box experience was fantastic.  There was absolutely no question from anyone that has been to my house since that this HDTV is a technology leap. 

You want to see Verizon FIOS TV shine?  This set really does it justice.  The recordings coming off my TiVo are fantastic.  The Blu-ray 1080p playback is unreal.  It’s actually too good.  Is that possible?  Let me put it to you this way.  You actually feel like you are on the set where some of the movies or TV shows are being shot, while they are shooting it.  My wife commented, “It no longer looks fake.  It looks like we are on the set”.

Watching the remaining football games last Sunday was a blast.  So clear and detailed.  I am looking forward to this coming weekends NFL games. I am also going to re-watch some of my favorite movies.  The XBOX 360 across HDMI at 1080p aint bad either. Gotta love winter. 

The Samsung UN55B8500 is a phenomenal set.  I just hope I am not kicking myself in a few weeks for not buying the new Samsung Series 9000 LED with 3D capabilities.  Naw, this should keep me happy until the holodecks are available in 2015.