Bought the A630 just before Christmas, and unveiled it for the family on Christmas Day -- fantastic TV! Main reason for writing this review is to validate the comments on glare vs. the A650. We have a huge wall of east-facing windows directly behind the open TV-viewing area (den), and with the sun coming in the windows dark scenes will still have a bit of reflection (though I would not characterize it as a harsh "glare" -- it's still a matte effect). I never had the A650 in my house, but I did do a side-by-side comparison at Best Buy. There, the TVs are sequestered in a dark end of the store, with screens tilted slightly downward. But if you squat down and look up at the TVs, you can see the reflection of the gymnasium-style overhead lights elsewhere in the store, and the difference between the A630 and the A650 was striking: I knew I would forever be bugged by the A650's reflections, despite its slightly higher contrast ratio. If I had a home theater with controllable external light, I'd probably do the A650, but we don't have that option in our house.
The A630's amazing. Tons of menu options for the compulsive tweakers among us, but the default settings have worked well for us so far (and I don't think the default settings are the blast-you-into-buying big-box-store bright ones; for example the brightness defaults to 45%).
Zero-hassle setup: Christmas day, I pulled the old TV, put up the A630, hooked HDMI direct from the new (Panasonic) Blu-Ray player, ran the audio to my receiver, and dropped in the Polar Express Blu-Ray. Absolutely stunning out of the box with no problems, and we sat captivated by this near-theatre experience. Almost ran out of popcorn -- we were ON that train, holding onto the couch arms during the roller-coaster ride!
I need to give a thanks to all who have provided reviews of like models in Amazon -- the A630, A650, and the competitive models to those. These reviews were a significant source of research in my decision-making, and a huge help in addition to some others (like CNET). I'm grateful for those who took the time to provide thoughts on HDTVs; my research was made much shorter than my normal obsessive traits, and I'm extremely happy with the results.
If you're on the fence about the Samsung models, and you have any concern about the glare, grab the A630 and be done with it!
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