Once you turn it on the picture quality is quite good. In our case it replaced a Sony s2000 40-inch, and the picture quality is as good and better in some areas. Viewing angle is not quite as good as the Sony, though not bad. Blacks are noticeably blacker than the Sony, or any other LCD I’ve seen for that matter. In a room with lights on, the blacks look as dark as the black border around the TV. In a room with no lights on, the blacks are slightly lighter (depending on your settings). I was glad to see a near complete absence of any clouding or flashlighting. On a pure white background screen, there is some slight vignetting in one corner, though not visible in normal use.

One thing that does differentiate it is the 240hz blur and judder reduction. This is great for tickers on news channels, and for sports, but makes everything else look like BBC kids shows, which is to say kind of bizarre and hard to watch. We won’t be using this feature except when we want people to leave. Though it is acceptable with blur reduction sans judder reduction. But if motion blur is a big issue for you then you should probably be looking at a different HDTV technology rather than put up with these strange looking solutions. In my case, I’m so used to the inherent LCD motion blur that I my eyes are used to it, even preferring it. We are very happy with the tv and would purchase again, though think the price is still a bit high, even with the discount. But compliments to samsung for a good looking, performing and quality product.

Lastly I wanted to mention that amazon’s shipping with Pilot was excellent. Box arrived in perfect condition and by people that care and take their job seriously.