Apex LD4688T

I purchased this TV about a week ago at Target when it was $200 off, and am on the fence whether to return it and get something else. I may get another TV elsewhere and set up to compare them since this is my first flat screen. I have over the air antenna reception which is supposed to be better quality than cable or satellite HD signals, as they're not compressed. I get quite a few channels here. Out of the box, seemed some HD channels didn't look bad, and others are fuzzy. My neighbors have LG's and Vizios I think, and I never noticed their pic looking like that in HD and they have satellite. The screen seems to be brightest in the center and drop off in brightness toward either side. This is really noticeable on a solid color background, such as the green turf during the Superbowl when you could see it covering the while screen. Especially at the very edges a dim ridge. Wondering if calibration issues?

My main use for this TV will be as a big screen PC monitor, as it does have a VGA input, and seems to provide 1080 resolution for the PC, even though I keep it at 768 as 1080 makes some things just too small. I noticed some other brands say they only support up to 720 for a PC. But the user manual for this TV is lacking in this kind of info. I can really notice the uneven screen illumination in PC mode, even though everything looks better than the pic on my old 32 inch Zenith CRT TV I was using for the same purpose until the local electric utility (CEI) fried last month due to frequent power outages. In PC mode, I even notice for example, the tool bars in Firefox and Outlook Express gradually get darker on the right half of the screen. Pictures and Youtube videos don't seem to look bad, I tried all YT resolutions. However the change in uniformity can get irritating sometimes.

If I was given the TV for free or only paid maybe $100 or so, I would feel better and maybe "live with it". I tried all kinds of picture adjustments. I asked my brother who has a Vizio if he can try his PC in his TV, as he's the only other person I know that knows how to do this, and he said his PC pic was perfect, no uniformity issues.You can get good rich color, given the other shortcomings. I then hooked up my Zenith all-in-one digital tuner/DVD/DVR that I bought a few year ago to use as a "converter box" for my now fried CRT. It does 720p on it's TV tuner, which is what most major OTA networks broadcast when the air something in HD. Awful pic thru the HDMI cable using this as a second tuner. People's faces are somewhat blurry, any text is blurry. Now to be fair, not 100% resolved if the TV, the HDMI cable, or the Zenith tuner on this one.

The sound can get irritating as there is no bass at all, If just talk, not too bad. Any repetitive bass gets heard as a irritating repetitive bland mid range sound. I tried the equalizer and all the pre-sets, such as jazz, pop, rock, doesn't help much, and over-bassing it on the EQ will just make the whole thing sound muddy. Luckily it has RCA analog L&R outputs to hook up to my "old school" stereo system.

I then went to Best Buy and H H Gregg just looking for displayed TV's that may be showing a uniform white background. Most did not seem to show this phenomenon, but I seen an LG and 2 Sharps that dis this, while the other LG's and Sharps seemed OK. But it was generally restricted to the immediate edges, not a gradual difference starting more towards the centers. I only looked at CCFL LCD sets like the Apex has, not the LED LCD's or Plasmas.