Well, it was delivered today. I'm glad I had it delivered and pissed that I didn't give up my man card and pay $30 for unboxing and setup. Holy hell. While they are making newer TVs lighter, this size still weighs in at 90lbs, and I did not consider that weight matched to the ginormous screen where I couldn't get any good handholds. It was simply too heavy for me to lift it with one hand from the bottom while the other hand stabilized the top. I would start getting it up in the air, then the giant rectangle would start to wobble and I was scared that I was going to lose balance and the thing would crash down. I couldn't figure out any way to get a two hand hold for lifting without having the thing flip on me or else putting too much pressure on the sides of the screen and busting something.
I was really stuck for a minute there, until I remembered that I had a harbor freight hydraulic lift cart in the shop. I dragged that into the house and put the TV on that. The downside was that the cart was still 8" off the ground when lowered, so I still had to do a balancing act with the TV to lift it that 8". But unlike lifting it onto the entertainment center, I didn't have to go from kneeling to standing, and was able to lift it onto the cart from kneeling. I put a bunch of pillows on the back of the cart for if I slipped.
After that, it was easy peasy. I just cranked the cart up even with the entertainment center and scooched the TV over to it. Still, this would have been absolutely worth $30 and being called a girl to have the delivery guys do it. A TV this size is just absolutely unwieldy for one guy.
Meanwhile, I picked up the comparatively light as a feather 55" TV and carried it up the stairs to my bonus room, piece of cake. Weighs half as much as the new one, and I can actually get my arms around it.
As far as the TV:
Unboxing: I was really impressed with the box. I guess for these big TVs, they design the box so you don't have to lift the TV out or else cut up the box. It was almost like origami in reverse. The box was designed to fold open, with tabs everywhere. Including a special fold out section where the stand goes. You fold that out and then slide the stand in the slot and attach it while the TV is still in the styrofoam. Really slick.
As for the stand itself, super heavy duty. The base plate is like 1/8 steel and weighs a good 15lbs. The TV seems to be very stable on the entertainment center. Nevertheless, I'm going to do a wall tie-down for it. There's a spot near the top of the back where you can mount a connecter and then strap the TV onto a wall. Earthquakes a rare here, but still, better safe than sorry.
The picture is amazing, and even my old eyes notice a difference between it and my old Q60 55" (which was amazing itself). It has autosensing for room lighting and type of content playing, which so far seems to work well, but time will tell (especially about blacks and the tendency of moviemakers to make very dark scenes these days).
I was really worried about 75" being too big for the room and the space, based on measuring dimensions before I bought it, but now that it's up there, it doesn't look as overbearing as the tape measure made me think it would be. It's definitely the centerpiece of the living room now, but not ridiculously so.
Setup was a breeze. It found all my HDMI stuff and the CAT6 instantly. It also moved my menus and apps from the old Samsung to this one. I'm a little worried about security and will be digging into submenus to turn some "convenience" stuff off that might be security problems. I've already deactivated the mic.
I'm not super crazy about the updates Samsung screen menu. Instead of just being on the bottom of the screen, it now takes up the whole dang screen. Also it seems to be slower to react than the menu on my old Samsung. Not a super big deal, since I have never been crazy about the Samsung menu anyway, and run my Netflix, Hulu, etc. off my Roku, so I just have things defaulting to that at startup.
Anyways, so far, so good. However the next time I get a TV this big, I'm just paying for unboxing and setup.
