Hi Craig_P,
I had an opportunity to compare the Toshiba with the Samsung and about a dozen other brands at the Texas Instrument's booth at the Consumer Electronics Show in January. All the sets were carefully aligned and had the same program material.
The Samsung, Panasonic and Toshiba all looked comparably excellent; the Mitsubishi seemed not to have quite as much "punch" to the picture. The Optoma was not up to the first three. A 61-inch RCA, the one that's 7 inches deep and hangs on a wall (expensive) also looked excellent.
I have had a 50-inch Samsung (HL 5063w) for about a year (it does not have an internal HD tuner) and it's generally excellent with HD programming and DVDs. Like many HD sets, standard definition stuff is variable. I particularly like the Samsung's picture memories for its many inputs, so you don't have to constantly re-tweak the picture settings when you switch inputs. Check that the Toshiba has memories for all its inputs. (I seem to recall reading a review that suggested it did not, but I may be mistaken.) I know some sets lack that feature. I would not own an HD set that didn't have memories for picture settings.
The newer Samsung models seem to have an improved and easier to use menu system (a friend just bought the 46-inch Samsung).
Incidentally, the Samsung demo of the improvement brought by 1080p was interesting, but it's subtle. You had to carefully compare the side-by-side sets (one 1080p, the other not) to spot the nuances.
Regards,
