[wes.coleman]

Ok, so I'm buying a new HDTV (my entertainment center limits me to a max of 26". My wallet is glad for that, lol) I've narrowed the choices to:

Vizio VW26L
Sony KDL-26M4000
Toshiba 26AV502U
LG 26LG30

The latter 3 are all in the $460-480 price range and all look fantastic in person, while the Vizio is a staggering $367! The Vizio looked great in person too, but I'm worried that I'll "get what I pay for". I'm also worried about it's reliability. I'm not too hard on electronics, in fact I've never once had a failure of any of my phones, iPods, hard drives, etc. I've heard nothing but good things about Vizio, but I wouldn't mind some tech-savvy feedback from you guys on here. Also, any input on the other 3 would be greatly appreciated!

 

[TheMarchingMule]

I'll be keeping a tab on this thread, because my family back home is trying to do the same thing, and I know they'll be snubbed by Best Buy employees.

On another (off-topic) note, I love your Location.

 

[grawk]

vizio makes good stuff

 

[smrtby123]

Vizio makes a great TV. Most people will not notice the differences getting a sony tv will make, if any. I know a lot of times there are only so many companies that make some of the parts for these things so who knows you might get the same components in both TV's.

I have a 52" Vizio and it is a great TV for the price. Lots of inputs, great picture, and hooking up my PC to play games works seamlessly.

Just keep in mind at that small of a screen size you will not get the full benefit of some of the high-def stuff. Most (if not all from what it seems) screens that small only do 720p (1280x720). You are going to need a larger screen to get into 1080i and 1080p if you care.

 

[Kirosia]

HDTV: Why You Shouldn't Buy Off-Brand TVs

 

[mr_baseball_08]

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheMarchingMule /img/forum/go_quote.gif On another (off-topic) note, I love your Location.

Yeah, which location is that? My best lives in Birmingham and it doesn't seem too bad there.

 

[wes.coleman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kirosia /img/forum/go_quote.gif HDTV: Why You Shouldn't Buy Off-Brand TVs

I'm not quite sure Vizio is a "tier three" brand. Probably in between Tier 1 and Tier 2. I mean, they do have LaDanian Tomlinson and Colin Cowherd promoting their stuff. If they can pay those guys, they can certainly afford to make good TV's.

I've also narrowed it down to the Toshiba (I already have a Toshiba upconverting DVD player) and the Vizio (it's sheer cost difference affords me the extra cushion of buying an extended service plan for it). I'll let you know my decision and try to post frequent "progress reports" for the one I choose.

Edit: Oh, and for those wondering, I'm in Huntsville . Birmingham is a really nice city, too, but I've lived in several parts of the state, and Huntsville is by far the best.

 

[ArmAndHammer]

I recently bought an LG 42", not sure the model number, but right next to the Samsung 500 series I could see no difference. I am very happy with my purchase and can't wait for my cable company to get some decent HD programming. DVD's look so much better now and xbox 360 is pretty incredible too. I bought the 720p rather than the several hundred dollar more 1080p.

 

[wes.coleman]

Alright. As it turns out, my first choice (the Toshiba) is on backorder, which is not as bad as it seems, because in both HH Gregg and Best buy, the LG had much better picture quality. As luck would have it, Circuit City--which as you guys know is closing up shop--had the LG in stock and highly discounted. (LG 26LG30)

I just got it set up and watched a DVD, played some 360 and some (standard) cable television. The 360 looks fantastic! I played a little bit of Fallout 3 with the picture turned to "Game" mode (which actually made tons of difference. In dynamic mode it was far too contrasty and you couldn't see anything at night at all) and was thoroughly blown away. This display looks twice as good as my brother's 46" DLP tv (albeit, much smaller). I have a standard DVD player that claims to "upgrade" picture quality to HD (which isn't really true, but it looks pretty good) and watched parts of "The Bourne Identity"; the action scenes were blur free (even with a speed of 60hz) and looked much better than my old CRT TV.

The real bummer, which you guys can certainly appreciate, is the sound quality. The sound on this thing is clearly inferior to my $99 Samsung CRT TV, which is somewhat of a letdown considering the $500 I dropped on it today. It's not the worst I've ever heard, so I suppose it'll do. Even more frightening is the humming noise it puts out. As soon as I power it up, the sound starts; it's not even a low-pitched hum, it's a hugely irritating high-pitched one. Does anybody know if this is common with LCD TV's? Will this problem go away with time, as the TV gets "burned in"? Anyway, they're just minor complaints, as it's a great unit. I'll update this thread from time to time and let you know the status and my overall satisfaction with it.

 

[kbug]

Check out the response time of each model. If it's too slow, you will not be very happy when you watch action movies.

 

[homers54321]

i have the Vizio VW26L and i bought it from walmart. It was a great purchase at $430 back when i bought and is an even better purchase at $367. I've had no problems with it so far (knock on wood) and I would recommend it. FYI, i bought it around May 2008.

 

[MCC]

My grandmother has a Vizio TV from Costco- it looks excellent with HD, but scaling from S-Video is very subpar. See if you can compare the different models on standard-def sources if you'll use them.

 

[intoflatlines]

Any HDTV looks like crap with SD content. You can upscale SDTV all you want but it still will look absolutely terrible.

DVDs on the other hand can look great upscaled. Honestly with some DVDs it is hard to differentiate between upscaled DVD and HDTV of the same movie.

 

[Seaside]

About 2 ~ 3 years ago, I bought a 32 inch vizio only because it was almost $200 cheaper than other brands. And I thought that was a good deal.

Well... that turned out to be...

Not that I am saying that was a bad deal, but I purchase new TV recently, and I realized the picture quality of my old vizio is noticably worse than my new name brand TV.

Not sure about recent vizio models, but I won't buy them again if there're not much improvement compare with their old model.

 

[grawk]

I'm guessing the 2 year old one was 720p and the new one is 1080p?