How I found parts info for my Samsung HL-R4667W DLP television...

I thought it'd be easy, but it wasn't.

The first thing I ran into is that my model number isn't in any of their drop-down selection boxes on samsung.com. If you browse to www.samsung.com, select "Products -> TV -> DLP TV", and then either browse or drop down the "Select Model" combo box, you'll find HL-R4677W, but not HL-R4667W. Very frustrating. Yeah, you'd like to think that they'd just be interchangeable, but no...

Compare them at HL-R4667W and HL-R4677W on samsung.com, and tell me the difference! Other than that the 4677 sports the "ultra slim bezel cabinet", so it's a little smaller overall for the same picture size and is a few hundred bucks more, I don't see the practical difference. Maybe someone more educated than I am in the ways of the TV (or more patient to sift through the technical specs) can explain why I should care.

But here's when I *know* you want to care... They use two different lamps, which means that you'd be ordering different parts, depending on which TV you're ordering. So, quickly, I'll share the bottom line, then I want to focus on the process I went through to find this stuff out...

The Samsung HL-R4667W DLP HDTV uses Samsung part # BP96-00826A as its lamp. Buy it here.
The Samsung HL-R4677W DLP HDTV uses Samsung part # BP96-00224J as its lamp. Buy it here.

Here's what I went through to find that out...

First, I looked through my manual. Nothing.

Second, I downloaded my manual from samsung.com. Here is a link to mine. Find yours at Samsung's support site by entering your model #. Searched the manual to see if I missed anything. Nothing. Lots of help replacing the lamp, but none on which one to use.

Next, I googled for it. That totally sucked. First I tried things like, "Samsung HL-R4667W replacement bulb", "DLP replacement bulbs", etc. Nothing came close. Eventually, I learned that you call them "lamps", not "bulbs", but that didn't help much either.

Eventually, I broke down and called Samsung at 800-726-7864, or 1-800-SAMSUNG. They were clueless, but they gave me a new number (800-627-4368), which is the number for Samsung parts. Of course, they're only open 9-5, so that's no good, but that led me to a website I found NO links to from samsung.com. Easy once you know it, but until then... Samsungparts.com.

That was the ticket. Once there, I entered my model #, and instantly had the replacement lamp part number on my hands.

So, all that to say that if you own Samsung anything, then www.samsungparts.com is your friend. More generally, I found www.partstore.com (40% higher price for my lamp than at Samsung parts) and a few items on eBay, but nothing compelling enough to pull me away from the samsung-sponsored site.

Okay, that's it. Hope this is useful (and that I wasn't too long-winded).