Give your TV a new home from IKEA
- Average user rating: 4.0 stars out of 68 reviews Back to product review
- My rating: 0 stars
Full user review
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22 out of 22 people found this review helpful
4.5 stars
"Great Performance, Best bang for the buck!"
Pros: Price, picture quality, lots of connections
Cons: Currently no 1080p using the Xbox360 HD-DVD
Summary: Impression: This LCD is AWESOME!!! You can't beat the price and both the picture and the physical appearance of this unit are excellent.
Pros: Price is of course the biggest advantage when buying a Vizio TV. The 1080p picture on this set looks great. The number of inputs on the rear are more than I can fill at the moment. The OTA ATSC tuner works beautifully and is very sensitive.
Cons: According to Vizio, you can do 1080p using the VGA port if you set your video cards' color space to "video." Sadly, this means that at the time of this writing, using a VGA cable with the Xbox 360 will not give you 1080p when using the HD-DVD add-on. 1080p game play does work fine however. Some users have also reported an audio hum when lowering the backlight on other forums. My set does not seem to have this problem at all. Blacks also will not be as deep as you may see on a plasma set, but this is a disadvantage to LCD in general and is seen on many sets. Blacks happen to look great on this set with a little tweaking.
***TIP***: If you experience "backlight leakage" or "cloudiness" when viewing all-black scenes upon first using the set, give it a few days. It seems that possibly the foam packaging causes some pressure buildup on the glass that settles within the first few days and clears up any backlight leakage. Not everyone has this problem, but it does seem that those who experience this see the issue clear over a day or two of use.
Summary: I would buy this TV again in a second. I previously had the Vizio GV46L TV and this thing blows that set away. It's about the same form-factor except that Vizio has given this set another inch of screen, a metal back, and a TON of more settings to tweak your picture than on the GV46L. None of the other problems I had with the 46 exist. No backlight leakage, no popping on startup.
Bottom line, buy it if you're looking for a great set at an awesome price. If you have money to burn, get a "higher end" brand for a lot more money.Updated
I have used both AVIA and the THX Optimizer DVD to tweak this set. Interestingly enough, each time I spend almost an hour tweaking this set and I end up arriving at settings that look exactly the same(or darn close) to me as the "standard" preset from the factory. It looks like maybe Vizio got a preset right this time around!Updated
I'm not sure I completely understand why the disparity between Cnet's rating (6.6) and the users rating (8.6) is so great.
I think that anyone who seriously puts these types of devices through a serious super-difficult scientific ringer will find a ton of flaws.
I think that for the "average Joe-User," this set rocks. I have not had one person that has come to my home, seen my Vizio GV47L and said "Wow....oh, yup...I saw those false-contouring lines on that one scene ten minutes ago." Or, "Gee- that really has poor defeatable edge enhancement." I've never once heard a complaint about the black levels from any guest or family member.
Bottom Line (AGAIN): Don't freak out by reading the lab-review of sets like these. Go take a look at the set. If you like it and enjoy the picture BUY IT and forget about what the "TVophiles say." That stands for any LCD/Plasma manufacturer. It is unlikely that any of them would be happy spending less than $5000 on any set.
Again, the price and performance along with the "It looks excellent to me" factor make this a set worth checking out for the money.
- 2 replies to this review
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I just purchased this set to replace my Toshiba DLP set (me and the service man had it the same amount of time), and I love it. It is a smaller screen size, but views about the same as the 52 inch. I would recommend it. I used the costco 250 off and got it for $1649.
Thanks for the "Tip" Airshark. I am having the corners show grey when there is all black and I came here looking to see if anyone else had that same issue. Sounds like time will help. I will update in a couple of days. -
Note: This unit is on coupon at Costco 01/07/07 thru 01/12/07 ONLY ... $250 off = $1644.00.
Pro:
? Picture is simply stunning!
? 8 ms response time!!! (Excellent for sports/action)
? Aesthetically refined and elegant.
? Very easy to set up. Contrast 800:1 (Dynamic 1500:1)
? Tweak settings for optimum performance.
Con:
? Built-in speakers were disappointing (2x10 w + 20 w sub-woofer) - but who cares anyway since you're using an independent 5.1 sound system or better.
? Output is dependent upon source input: does not up-convert (ie: feed 480p and you get 480p).
>> Go-around: To enjoy 1080p you'll need a BlueRay/HD-DVD (too costly at this juncture). Solution, the Dish ViP622 DVR? will up convert output to 1080i (480i thru 1080i) solving problem (includes standard definition and off-air).
>> Use Toshiba HDMi DVD player (480p, 720p, 1080i) $64 at Costco (includes HDMi cable) will provide surprising results!
NOTE: Avoid Using YPbPr / Component ( 3 pair)!!!
Why? Best performance requires HDMi. Using YPbPr / Component ( 3 pair) will lead to bottle-necking through-put, choking and pixillation.
Demo at Costco is a loop using YPbPr. Any pixillation viewed on demo will be virtually be eliminated w/ HDMi (and of course, source).
Enjoy!
