Been reading the entire thread, quite envious of all of you.
OT warning,
please skip if finicky
I have a 51E490, purchased Sep'12 for 69k ( got my Dad to buy a 51E550, for his house @74k in Dec'12) .. Mine is a Semi-smart TV with Allshare, and Wifi Ready(not built-in), Lan in port, and 3D. Loved it so far, beautiful clarity through the HDMI input, and smooth file browsing/accessibility/compatibility to my USB pen drive (buggers disabled reading HDDs, though some still work).
Audio is good enough to fill my small ~150 sft living room, though I'm looking at sound bars as well at the moment (inspired by you lot)
Settled for the E490 rather than the 15k more expensive E550, didn't do any research, more of an impulse upgrade
P), so didn't realise it's only 720p, not full HD at the time. But I'm probably not picky, so I've enjoyed the quality of the output from even 1 GB files, and the 3D is mindboggling as well! Only 700 MB files had ugly blocks/artifacts..
Enjoyed streaming HD music videos from my Samsung Note N7000 -> (wifi) -> Router -> (lan cord/wifi adapter) -> TV via either the default Samsung phone Video player, which can recognise when the TV is on the same network, and shows up as a small icon, or via "Skifta" android app, which allows my to browse my laptop collection (online via the PC MediaServer software) from my phone and send something to play on the TV.. Allshare server has been acting funny for a while.. In fact with the Skifta mediaserver software, and server enabled, even been able to browse collection directly from TV..
The audio 3.5mm out port didn't work too well for me when I tried, and regrettably didn't explore it enough, else could have tried to pursue an exchange...
Reflections from windows that ppl have mentioned are true here as well, was a bother earlier, but in it's current location, there are no direct reflections/etc..
Have a WDTV Live player which acts as my hub to connect HDDs, and to browse Youtube.
Apart from the semi-handcuffed USB port, other misses for me are the lack of HDMI ARC, and the port positioning at the back which means larger HDMI cables don't fit in easily..
Oh, and messed around with Autocalibration in the service menu recently, screwed up the A/V input colours, now got it back to usable, but there is some shortcoming.
Luckly HDMI is still fine.. (Warning to all- do not mess with the ADC -Auto calibration settings in the service menu, you will most likely regret it)
Otherwise I'm loving it...
Edit:
15A plug came with my TV too, bringing perplexion and inability to test the set when it was wall mounted.
Finally solved problem with a cheap 5A->15A converter multi-plug (Rs. 30-80 I think), which takes my TV, my extension box (which has the WD/Hathway/Router/chargers/amp etc. connected to it), and no problems since Sep'12). Only con is that it bulks up the entire plug sticking out from the wall ( cumulatively almost 10 cm out) , and slightly covers one switch on the board.
