Right, first up this is a fantastic TV at a great price from Amazon. I haven't seen this cheaper anywhere else, and the delivery from Amazon was was incredibly quick and hassle free. There's only one or two retailers online who I'd trust with a purchase such as this, and Amazon tops the list for me. And no, I'm not paid to say this!
I came to this TV as my first HD set from an older CRT TV, which was pretty good really but had certain picture geometry problems that I just couldn't get on with, and had a much smaller screen viewing area. If you're used to CRT tellies, then you'll know how relatively easy they are to set up to get a good quality picture. Colour me flabbergasted then, when I set up this Samsung TV and went into the menus. There's options everywhere! It can be really daunting, and I'm not surprised to see many reviews here saying they've had difficulty optimising the picture. It took me a lot of trial and error to get the picture I like from it, which was not helped one bit by scouring the net for help. There is a lot of erroneous info around about how to set up a good quality picture. Some of it is useful, don't get me wrong, but there's a lot of conflicting information too about certain settings. Particularly the backlight settings. I was told in some guides to turn it right down and compensate for it with the brightness and contrast settings to preserve its life span, but frankly this just doesn't work this way, certainly not on this TV anyway. I had to set my backlight to 14 out of 20 to get a realistic looking and consistent image I could work from. Dropping to lower levels rendered the picture dark and unwatchable, no matter how I might then try to set the brightness and contrast.
Also, I'm no expert but it seems to me that one person's perfect picture will not be another persons. Not only is there your personal and subjective opinion to consider, as well as the lighting in your room and the placement of the set, but also the fact that the same model TV might have a completely different set of firmware and settings technology inside. I could post up my settings, but they most likely will be of no use to another Samsung owner. Personally, I think a good rule of thumb is just to stick to the basic settings you're used to at first and don't consider altering things like white balance or colour tint at all. But there is no "one size fits all" list of settings that anyone can give you. A handy hint is to use the THX Optimiser on your Star Wars or Indiana Jones DVD to help you. You'll probably find it hiding in the language options. It's a quick and useful tool that will help you get good contrast and brightness at least.
Once set though, it's a fantastic picture, especially if you get HDMI leads. They don't cost much, and there's three available HDMI ports to connect your equipment. We use a V+ box with this, and the HD channels look stunning. So much so that it's rare we watch the regular channels, though I will add that they too look brilliant. I'd heard that standard channels can look really poor on LCD tellies, but though there is a drop in quality compared to the HD broadcasts they still look every bit as good as they did on my CRT. I also use a Wii with a component cable on this TV and a Toshiba SD3010 upscaling DVD player with HDMI and they both look fantastic too, the DVD player being particularly impressive and comparing incredibly well with HD broadcasts.
A quick note about the mounting stand that comes with the TV. A few people have complained about how difficult it is to fit it to the set, and yes I found this too. No matter how much pressure you put on the screws, the stand will wobble as if it isn't fitted right. However, what I did solved it easily, making a potential hour long struggle a two minute job. Instead of connecting the stand straight away and trying to screw it in, insert the three screws into the TV without the mounting stand first and screw them right in as far as you can. This has the effect of breaking in the connecting screw holes, so when you do connect the stand, the screws will go right in and the TV will be secure. Easy. Hope this helps those of you struggling. No need for lubrication or washers of any kind.
The only real criticism I can think of is one that has been mentioned here previously, and that's the viewing angle. If you aren't sat in the optimum position square on the screen then the picture can begin to grey at other angles. Certainly it was something the missus noticed straight away, as we have our TV on a stand in the corner of the room and she sits at an angle to it. You can offset the problem to a certain degree by optimising the settings, but it's an issue you won't really ever remove on this set, and I would advise you to consider this before buying. It's certainly not a problem unique to this TV though, and more expensive sets can and do still have this issue.
And that's it. An amazing bargain of a TV that looks the biz with everything you throw at it, and even looks the biz when it isn't on! Highly recommended.