Vizio VO320E review

The initial Movie setting of the Vizio delivered the most accurate picture, and in particular we were impressed by its relatively linear grayscale in that mode's default "Normal" color temperature preset. It delivered solid "before" numbers (see the Geek Box below), albeit with a pronounced greenish tinge. A few tweaks to the custom color temp settings, in addition to reducing light output to our nominal 40ftl level, were the major changes we made to the basic picture settings in our calibration. In the end we saw a slight improvement in grayscale accuracy (although we couldn't improve the top and bottom ends of the scale much, so "after" got a "poor" rating), removal of the green tinge, and very good gamma (2.18 versus the ideal of 2.2).

As part of our normal calibration, we typically disable settings that modify the picture on the fly, and the Vizio's DCR backlight is one such option. DCR did improve black levels slightly, but the fluctuations it produced were not worth the tradeoff, so we left it disabled.

We compared the Vizio to a few other entry-level LCDs we had on hand, including the LG 32LH20, Panasonic TC-32LX1, the Samsung LN32B360, the Sharp LC-32D47U, the Sony KDL-32L5000, the Toshiba 32AV502U, and the Westinghouse SK-32H640G. We also employed our trusty Pioneer PRO-111FD as a reference--obviously, it shouldn't be compared to any of these LCDs. Our Blu-ray of choice for most of the image quality tests in this comparison was the superb-looking "Baraka" played at 1080i (to ensure full compatibility) from our Sony PlayStation3.

Black level: The Vizio fell toward the bottom of the black-level pack. It showed a lighter shade of black than any of the other sets in our comparison except for the LG, Panasonic and Westinghouse. The differences were most visible in dark scenes, such as the sky around the eclipse at the beginning of Chapter 20 or the dark silhouettes of the temples in Chapter 22. In brighter scenes, the differences in dark areas evened out significantly, but we could still make them out, especially in areas like the letterbox bars.

On the other hand, the VO320E looked among the most natural in shadowy areas, revealing all of the detail in the darkened temple areas but not appearing too bright, as we saw on the Toshiba for example.

Color accuracy: The VO320E delivered one of the better performances in this department, anchored by its relatively accurate grayscale. The faces of the subway riders at the beginning of Chapter 11 provided a good example, with pale skin that was not too sick-looking, although it was slightly ruddy. We would have liked to see better saturation, especially in areas like the woman's orange blouse and jade necklace, or in the elaborate costumes of the tribespeople in Chapter 7. The Vizio's color decoding pushed red so we had to reduce the color control to compensate.

Primary and secondary colors came quite close to the standard, which helped lend realism to the lush green jungle plants and the pale blue sky in Chapter 4 .As usual for LCDs, the eclipse, the letterbox bars and other dark areas on the Vizio showed a bluish cast, which was less obvious in the Samsung, Sony. and Toshiba but worse on the others in our comparison.

Video processing: The Vizio doesn't perform much overt processing, such as the dejudder seen on higher-end LCDs, and since it has 720p resolution our motion resolution test isn't valid. We expect the Vizio would perform about the same as other 60Hz displays, and as usual we didn't notice any motion blur in our viewing.

We did appreciate that it lacked the moire artifacts we saw in 1080i mode on the Toshiba, the Westinghouse, and the Sharp, however, and like the other models in our comparison, it properly deinterlaced both film- and video-based sources according to our test.

Uniformity: We don't have any major complaints in this area. The Vizio's screen remained relatively even across its surface, with no obvious brighter areas, and off-angle performance surpassed that of the Panasonic, Sharp, and Westinghouse, remaining about the same as the Sony and Toshiba.

Bright lighting: Like most matte-screened LCDs, the Vizio performed relatively well under bright lights, attenuating ambient light admirably. It was no better or worse than any of the other sets in our lineup, which all have similar screens.

Standard-definition: With standard-def sources, the Vizio was an above-average performer. It delivered every line of the DVD format and details in the grass and stone bridge looked as sharp as we'd expect. It eliminated jaggies from moving diagonal lines and a waving American flag better than most of its competitors including the Sharp, Westinghouse and Toshiba. Its noise reduction didn't perform quite as well, however, leaving some video noise in the worst areas and softening the image a bit more than most of the other sets. The VO320E also engaged 2:3 pulldown detection quickly and effectively.

PC: The Vizio didn't perform as well as we expected with PC sources. Via VGA it failed to fully resolve a 1,360x768 source, showing less than the full horizontal resolution per DisplayMate and evincing softer text. Via HDMI we couldn't get the image to fill the screen at the native resolution using our test Toshiba T-135 laptop running Windows 7, and the small window that was shown looked cramped. Perhaps a different PC would yield different results, but the laptop worked fine on other displays in our comparison.

Power consumption: As we mentioned at the top our tests showed the Vizio didn't beat other LCDs' efficiency by leaps and bounds, outpacing the Toshiba 32AV502U by about $1 per year, for example. Still, paying to keep this TV in juice won't put you in the poorhouse.

Juice box
Vizio VP320E	Picture settings
	Default	Calibrated	Power Save
Picture on (watts)	87.404	51.608	N/A
Picture on (watts/sq. inch)	0.2	0.12	N/A
Standby (watts)	0.309	0.309	N/A
Cost per year	$19.17	$12.30	N/A
Score (considering size)	Good
Score (overall)	Good

How we test TVs.