Samsung: Can the clouding be fixed? I keep Samsung (ln52a850) anyway

Same problem - no fix yet

I have the same problem with mine. I bought the set in December from Amazon. I had bad clouding in the corners and a spot off center. I called and a tech came out and said the panel needed to be replaced. They sent a new panel and replaced my old one. This was a fairly painless operation and I was excited to have a good television for my home theater.

However, the new one has worse clouding than the old one. Now instead of clouding in the corners I have clouding in one corner and four big clouds right in the center of the screen. I called the tech again and after messing with it for an hour and calling Samsung he said that it's just tough luck. That is the way that the monitor is supposed to be and that no one else has complained. I showed how distracting the clouds were in an episode of Star Trek (they are very noticable during any of the space scenes) and his comment was "pretend they are nebula". Nice!

However, I find it completely unacceptable. I purchased a top of the line model hoping to avoid quality issues. I called again and this time he said he just came from a Samsung tech meeting where they spent most of the time discussing this problem. The new solution was to update the firmware and turn down the back light so it can't go over a certain brightness. It seems to me this would reduce your contrast ratio. If the set won't function at the contrast ratios advertised then it shouldn't be advertised at those ratios. Besides even when I turn the backlight all the way down you can still see the clouds. I just want my money back at this point. I have a smaller Samsung LCD (32") which has no trouble and 5 Samsung computer monitors which I have loved. I was very disappointed with this tv. It does not perform as advertised and they are trying to avoid fixing the issue by saying this is just how they are. That is garbage. Plenty of competitors have large LCDs that don't have this problem so it isn't inherent in the technology. It is just a bad design on Samsung's part.