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"Incredible value at $799" on by JJP80
Pros: Clear picture, good sound, great price.
Cons: I wish is had a piano finish.
Summary: My relatives had purchased this TV a few months ago and I was able to watch a range of programming while visiting over the holidays. I watched HD Football, DVDs, as well as regular TV and I have to say I was very impressed. I bought one for myself as soon as I got home.
The native resolution is only 720p but when I was at BestBuy debating over various TVs I was very hard pressed to notice a difference between the 1080 TVs vs. 720 TVs. I will say that TV's costing $1800 looked a little brighter, and a little sharper, but that's over DOUBLE the cost of this model. It turns out, this TV is actually an LG covered in Insignia clothing. If you go to the TV menu in the store you'll notice it's identical to the equivalent LG model. The LG sitting next to it was $996, while this one was only $799. I'll keep my $200 and sacrifice a piano finish.
Since setting mine up I've noticed several features:
1) the new cover is black, not gray anymore, which for me is a good thing. It's not piano black, but it still look sharp and the speakers along the bottom remain grey.
2) It has surprisingly good sound out of the box, even though I'll be hooking up a surround sound system in the next few days. 3) I love the zoom features. You can tweak the picture to make it fill the screen or show original 4:3 aspect ratios, but I'm guessing this is fairly standard.
4)HD looks excellent on this TV. Since programmers are only broadcasting HD in 720 anyway, the extra resolution is wasted unless you're watching Blueray or HDDVD and even then, the difference is minuscule. Trust me. The difference between your old CRT and 720 is so dramatic, that the difference between 720 and 1080 ends up being almost negligible.
The bottom line is that for $799 at BestBuy, this is an absolutely incredible deal. The picture is bright and clear, the blacks black, and clean sound out of the box. I was looking at TV's for around $1000 and this one stood out as a fantastic deal. For $996, Insignia offers a 1080p with piano finish, but I opted to save the $200 for the tiny, and I mean tiny, trade off in picture. Three years ago this TV would have cost $3,000 or more and here we are in 2008 with a range of 40" and 42" televisions costing under a grand. God bless capitalism. -
"Much Better than CNet Seems to Think" on by rmay483
Pros: Great picture, decent sound, easy setup, bargain price
Cons: Occasional ghosting, but not nearly as bad as CNet depicts
Summary: Sometimes I suspect CNet's "testing" of products is driven not by facts and observation, but by advertising dollars, personal bias, the weather, or possibly little green men. Their "data" makes this TV sound like a piece of junk with the picture quality of a 1950's-era black-and-white. My experience so far does not jive with this assessment at all.
Let me say first of all that I don't have any data to share with you. I only can report what my eyes see--and what they see in this TV is a great picture with vivid color. Perfect? I guess not, but for $800 I can live with "close enough." Granted, I don't sit there for hours on end, looking for tiny nit-picks and flaws, so maybe I'm just missing all the video noise and other picture issues that seems to irritate the CNet testers so. The picture with an HDTV signal from Dish looks stunning, and even standard-def channels look pretty good, better in fact than my larger, more expensive JVC in the living room. Movies played through a Sony upconverting DVD player look similarly great. I haven't yet watched anything and thought, "Gee, this picture looks jagged," or "Gosh, look at all that noise!" Aside from some very minor picture tweaking for color temperature, I haven't felt the need to change anything. Actually, I'd be perfectly happy just picking one of the color presets and sticking with that. The "cool" temperature setting is a little on the blue side, but it's an easy fix.
As for the ghosting issue--yes, I have noticed this phenomenon. This was due to me leaving up a DishTV menu screen for about twenty minutes while I got distracted by something else. I turned the TV off, came back later, and did see the faint outline of the menu. I was somewhat concerned, but a quick "whitewash" from the screen saver menu cleared it right up. Now I leave the screen saver on "orbital" (it was on "normal" previously) and haven't noticed any ghosting. CNet is accurate in noting this issue, but I think it's WAY overblown, at least so far.
The other stuff about the TV is just fine. The sound is very good for built-in speakers. Connectivity is enough for a couple HDMI sources like a DVD and satellite. If you want more (game consoles, PCs, etc.) you'll need an HDMI switch. The case and bezel are nothing to brag about, but not obtrusive either. The remote control is nicely laid out, but it would be nice if it was lighted. The on-screen setup menus are very simple and intuitive.
Take any of CNet's evaluations with a grain of salt. If you peruse their reviews, you will find numerous examples of products whose owners seem far happier with them than CNet's test lab does. Personally, I tend to give more weight to the consumer reviews, since they're not getting anything for free and sure as heck will let you know if there's a problem.
I've owned this TV since Christmas and have been very pleased. Hopefully my comments will be of some value to shoppers who, like me, wouldn't stand for parting with their dollars for a garbage product. All smiles here so far--time will tell if it's a reliable unit. -
"What is this world coming to?" on by dirty55409
Pros: Cheap, turns on
Cons: burn in, ugly cabinet, best buy sells it
Summary: I'm mortified to see that people are lowering their standards so much, that they are happy with this TV. Don't get me wrong I'm a thrifty and smart shopper but sacrificing quality for low prices, now that's just sad.
Can you really not hold out for one more paycheck and squeeze out another $350 for a decent Panasonic? Or even go with the 42" Westinghouse that's 1080p, if you like Best Buy products so much.
It's an affront to technology when consumers disregard the abysmal flaws of a product because it's cheap, and not shop around for similarly priced higher quality items. Heck you could buy my 42" Samsung 2006 model, online for $900-$1200!!
Say it with me, "I will not buy an HDTV just because it's the cheapest, I still have standards." Go ahead and buy the cheapest one you can find, just look at it critically and make sure it's going to make you happy for a very very long time(LCDs and Plasmas Last Decades) Any amount of money spent on a TV should be considered a long term investment. -
"Nice Plasma Set for the bucks" on by herr_howard
Pros: Image Quality, user settings
Cons: Plain-Jane features, some minor IR
Summary: I purchased this set just after Christmas for a little under $800. Nothing else seems to warrant the $400 extra I'd have to pay for a Panasonic, or even the extra $100-200 I'd have to pay for an LG. As the other reviewer already mentioned, this set is also an LG under the covers (the LG 42PC3D-UE is the panel ID that comes up under the advanced user menu).
I am now approaching 1 year of use with this television set and I have the following things to say:
Don't leave the set in torch mode...do yourself a favor and use one of the user configurable settings (settings stick for each input type, BTW) and turn the contrast, brightness, sharpness, etc. to 50 or lower for the first 100-200 hrs. Also turn the power setting on the menu to 'Low' which will automatically reduce the brightness of the set by 30%. Doing these things will help greatly reduce the possibility of Image Retention (sometimes called burn-in in an unjustified way
)
I watched the BCS Championship and several playoff football games on this set. They look stunning, even at 720p, using the built-in ATSC digital tuner and my trusty over-garage antenna. I also bought a $50 Best Buy upconverting DVD player (also made by LG) and it seems to work pretty well in tandem with this set.
All in all, I think I got a great deal on this set. We'll see how it holds up long-term, but for the price and for the quality, I couldn't be happier!
Updated on Nov 13, 2008
- Picture quality is still great
- IR is only a minor notice now that I've calibrated the set and have my contrast and brightness balanced
- Blacks could be a little blacker, but it's not killing me
- Still glad I didn't spend an extra $500 for a Panasonic set (like my father-in-law did)
- No problems with sound pops, 'red sparkles', etc.
- Kids play PS2 on it with no lingering effects (i.e. HUD burn in for Ace Combat 4)
- Still admittedly not as posh as the Kuros and Vieras of the world, but this is a darn good little set for what I got and how much I paid for it.
I didn't settle for mediocrity here. I bought a good set within my budget that met my needs. With the economy the way it is today, more people could learn a little something from that model instead of chasing the holy grail of TV tech. Because guess what...today's new set is obsolete tomorrow.
Updated on Jan 7, 2009I've had my set officially for 1 year now. Shows some IR upon INITIAL SET TURN-ON or TURN-OFF...ONCE THE SET IS ON, IT ONLY SHOWS A BEAUTIFUL HD IMAGE! I think I've only whitewashed 4 or 5 times over the course of the year. I've watched 4:3, 16:9, letterboxed, etc. and no problems. No service calls. No unusual power surges. It's been a solid performer hooked up to Verizon FiOS, PS2, Dreamcast, camcorders, PCs (streamed from Netflix through the VGA port), anything I've thrown at it works well and looks great.
All of the negative reviews of this set seem to have come from people who never owned it and flamed it based purely off of this review. I'd love to have spent twice as much for (in my opinion) slightly better image quality, but I'm glad I showed some restraint and purchased this set. It can't be purchased anymore, but it was truly a great deal at the time and has held up so far.
Updated on Aug 4, 2009Now I've added a HTPC to the mix. I am playing blu-ray and regular DVD and streaming content from Netflix, Hulu, etc. directly to the set. Still works great, still only have minor IR from time to time, nothing horrendous and nothing permanent. As far as I'm concerned, this set still performs admirably across the board for me and my family. I'm still glad I made the purchase and still stand by it as a solid performer for every-day use. -
"all the insignia TVs are worthless!" on by neo6972
Pros: flat panel and cheap.
Cons: durability, tech support are clowns, sound is not very loud, expensive to fix when it breaks.
Summary: All of the flat TVs are breaking within or shortly after a year and the tech support and warranty are almost non-existent. I bought mine, 8 months later the power board went out (common problem), so I ordered a replacement part for $60 because there was not warranty. Well the replacement would not work and I feel like I spent $500 for a TV for 8 months. I should have read the reviews before I bought it. It would have save me some money and headache.
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