VIZIO M220VA 22-inch Full HD 1080p LED LCD HDTV REVIEW

By Jonathan C. Huang

I recently purchased the new VIZIO M220VA 22-inch LED TV, and so far it seems to be a solid performer. Of course, I feel that it is my obligation to point out that this model is NOT meant to be a high-end set. If you purchase this with such an expectation, you will be disappointed. However, if you are looking for a good, affordable LED LCD TV with great picture quality, you would have a difficult time finding a better bang for your buck than this.

Let me start by expressing how very annoyed I get when I read reviews that get so caught up in only pointing out superficial flaws and never even touch upon the most important aspects - picture and sound quality. Yes, this TV does have it's quirks: the remote is a little stiff and can be a little fickle sometimes. The stand is difficult to put on and literally took me a good 15 minutes to figure it out. However, despite these flaws, this television does deliver where it matters.

Picture quality is quite good, especially for a TV in its price range. Standard definition content looks sub-optimal, but this is due to the nature of how SD video is scaled by HDTVs in general, and nothing to do with this model specifically. High-definition content looks excellent, and I have had good experiences watching 720p/1080p movies from my laptop (through the VGA output). The picture is bright, crisp, and contrast is great. Blacks are rich and solid, without losing the subtle detail in the content. Keep in mind, though, that in order to get the most mileage, you will need to spend some time to calibrate the settings to give you an optimal picture quality. Games look great and there is no ghosting with the TV's fast 5ms response time.

The screen has a matte finish, which is great if your environment has lots of lighting, as the matte surface will suffer far less from glare than a glossy screen would. There is a never-ending debate over whether one type of screen surface is better than the other, but I'll leave that for another day.

Sound quality on the other hand is nothing to write home about. The speakers are a bit weak, but this is easily solved by using a set of external speakers. I am currently using an old set of computer speakers hooked up via the headphone jack on the TV, and they sound infinitely better than the TV speakers after turning off the "SRS TruSurround" option (some sort of faux-surround sound simulator).



The VIZIO has a decent number of inputs in the back, with 1x Composite, 1x Component, 2x HDMI, 1x VGA w/ Audio, 1x USB (for photos), and an optical input for a home theater sound system. It is worth noting that HDMI and component inputs are located directly on the back of the model (composite inputs are on the side), so if you are planning on wall-mounting it, it may be difficult to plug in the necessary connections if you don't leave enough room between the wall and the TV.

Also, it is worth noting that the previous reviewer stated that there is no way to remove unwanted channels individually. This is FALSE. Under the "Master Channels" menu, you have the options to "Mark All", and "Unmark All" channels. Hitting right on the controller allows you to move up and down on the list to select individual channels to add/remove.

All in all, this is a good TV. It is certainly not perfect, and if you have more money to spend I would encourage you to shoot for a higher-end model. But for what it's worth, the VIZIO M220VA is a tough beast to beat in its division.

LG 42LD550 42-Inch 1080p 120 Hz LCD HDTV REVIEW

By Frank O.



I bought this TV a few weeks ago after reading many nice reviews about it, and while it's nice, I found its features disappointing.

To start with the good part, this TV indeed looks great both on and off: its no-frills design is very elegant and will make it look good in every living room, its picture quality is amazing. I can't really comment on the sound since I don't have good speakers, but I'm not even missing them with the built-in speakers. Its TV-related functionalities and interface is also nice, with zillions of options to set the picture and sound to your liking.



However, the selling point of this TV is supposed to be the built-in software for online applications (called Netcast), and Netcast on the 42LD550 is a major letdown. At the time of this review LG doesn't have model-specific information on the Netcast features available, only a generic all-promises page with the fine print "features vary by model and product category". Now, Netcast in principle has at least three different video-on-demand services built-in, as well as internet radio, and many other great features -- but this TV has almost none of these included! (I'm using the latest software version, as it updates itself automatically.)

Netflix is included (that's the one extra star), and there is a dumbed-down version of Vudu, which only includes the movie rental features, but nothing else. (For example, there is no Pandora, even though it is included in the "real" Vudu application, it's only left out of the LG version). The rest are useless "apps" and a few selected Yahoo Widgets (all the good ones are missing, the best is probably Weather), Flickr, Picasa, Youtube and Twitter (twitter on a TV??), and that's pretty much it. But there is no Amazon On-demand, no TV On-demand, no internet radios, and I am listing only missing features that are available in some TVs with Netcast or Yahoo Widgets, but are not on this one.

Another (minor) quirk is that this "wireless-ready" TV requires an extra USB wi-fi adapter (LG AN-WF100) to actually go wireless. This is also made pretty clear in the specifications; the only problem is that it's not easy to find this adapter anywhere! (At the time I bought the TV it was only available from a third-party vendor through Amazon marketplace, and it wasn't cheap.) So if you want wireless, check first if this adapter is available.

At the end I'm not sure why would most buyers get this model. If you just want a sleek TV with great picture and sound, then there's no use paying for the internet-related features, and you can get a better or larger TV for much less money. It's perfect if you are considering buying a great TV with no internet features and a Netflix box - it may or may not save you money, but you get everything in one package, saving you the set-up or cable issues. But you may have cheaper options using a Netflix box, or if you already have a video game console, or by connecting your PC to your TV and using some media center software.


If you expect all the bells-and-whistles from your internet-connected TV, then you have to get another model, because this one is really just a beautiful TV with a built-in Netflix box.

Toshiba 15LV505 15.6-Inch Widescreen LCD TV REVIEW

By B. Colonna (Somewhere in NJ)



If you are looking for a very small LCD TV, this is a nice product. If you have room for a 19", by all means I would go for the larger screen. Keep in mind that, even with the abundance of digital and high def signals out there today, many channels/programs will be broadcast in 4:3 format. Since this TV is a 16:9 profile screen, a 4:3 display will appear that much smaller on this 15.6" screen.



However, if you have a tight space, like on a kitchen counter under cabinets, this TV is perfect. It included a built in DVD player, which is a nice perk. The picture is vivid and HD display on it is excellent. At this size there is absolutely no reason to go for 1080p. For a 15.6" screen, or even a 19", 720p is fine.

At this screen size, Toshiba's competition tends to be "store brands" or no-name brands. This is the lone high quality name brand TV in this class (size).

What included in the box:
* 15.6" (measured diagonally) flat screen TV.
* Attached stand.
* Remote control.
* Power cable.



The TV comes with a QAM tuner so you can pull any unscrambled analog and digital TV signals from your cable company. The TV accepts coax and ColorStream component connections.

PROs:
* Vivid picture
* Fully adjustable backlight and picture format, as well as all the usuals (brightness, contrast, audio, etc.).
* Excellent sound.
* Matte finish screen reduces glare so screen is viewable in bright and low light situations.

CONs:
* Tuner is fairly slow when switching stations.
* Stand is not adjustable for different angles or height.



Overall, this is a nice TV for the price and has many of the functions you'd want. An adjustable stand would be nice but at this size its not a necessity. I'm not sure why the tuner lags as much as it does, taking approximately 2-4 seconds in between channels. If you channel-surf often, this will annoy you.

I would have rated this a 5 had it not been for the slow tuner.

AmazonBasic High-Speed HDMI Cable Review

By A. Cohen (Portland, OR)

It is a relief to find HDMI cables that are inexpensive and deliver high quality video. I paid $40 for a 4ft cable at Circuit City a year ago, and less than half that price for the 10ft cable from Amazon.

As an electrical engineer I can tell you copper is copper. Unless Monster cable has coaxial wire for each signal line, which they don't because then the cable would be 10x larger than it is, then it's just copper wire inside a shield. There's still going to be crosstalk and capacitive coupling and all that stuff. All that "gas filled" stuff doesn't matter either. If you look at the mathematical equasions for the frequency response of an unshielded wire, you'd know none of this stuff makes any major difference.



The biggest thing to avoid, if you can, are ferrite cores on a cable. Ferrite cores are those black blob things that overmold the cable near one or both of the connectors. Ferrite cores act as high frequency filters and may cause signal degradation. They are typically used to comply with FCC laws and other regulatory bodies' radiated emissions laws. They add cost to the cable and typically degrade performance.

Regarding expensive cables, HDMI or otherwise, what no one asks is the most fundamental question - Why? Let's assume Monster cable isn't lying and they can provide 300 GHz bandwidth or whatever they claim. Why do you need a cable that outperforms so much? It's like owning a car that can go 1000 MPH but the speed limit is 55MPH. In my field, that's called "over-engineering" which equates to unnecessary additional cost, which is exactly the problem Amazon has solved by sourcing this simple low cost HDMI cable.



While I'm soapboxing, gold plating isn't necessary either. Silver is the best conductor, followed by Copper, and then Gold (third best). Stainless Steel isn't far behind. The only reason gold plating is "better" is Gold does not corrode (but neither does stainless steel... they actually gold plate the stainless steel, how dumb is that?). If you are using your cables in a house where the humidity & temp is relatively constant, you should never need gold. As far as I can tell, Gold is just a gimmick to charge more for cables.

VIZIO SV472XVT 47-Inch Class XVT Series TRULED 240Hz sps LED LCD VIZIO Internet Apps HDTV REVIEW

By J. Gowan (Bay Area, CA)

I've had my Vizio SV472XVT TV for around 2 months so far (I bought it directly from Vizio in a special deal they had pre-release). I can't say enough good things about it.



First, the LED backlit screen produces an excellent picture. I would go so far as to say it's on PAR with any Samsung or Sony that I've seen. Blu-ray movies and PS3 games look perfect.

The collection of "widgets" is amazing. Netflix Streaming, Amazon-on-Demand, Vudu, Pandora, Rhapsody, Twitter, Facebook, eBay, Flickr, various Yahoo widgets, the list goes on. Some games like Sudoku and Texas Hold'em, which are neat, but would be better if you could watch TV while playing them. They have even added widgets since I bought the TV. That was actually an unusual experience seeing my TV doing an automatic firmwear update. My TV is connected to the internet through my wireless G router and a cable internet connection and streaming video quality is excellent. I've taken to watching a lot of Netflix HD streaming (there's a good amount of TV shows that stream in HD. The movie selection isn't as great), but I've also watched streamed HD video from Amazon on Demand and Vudu (HDX on Vudu which is 1080p). I haven't had a single video quality problem streaming from any of these sources.


The bluetooth remote is a bit of a love/hate relationship though.
The Loves:
1. Having a full qwerty keyboard is awesome, especially while searching through the widgets, or posting to twitter or facebook through the TV.
2. The bluetooth connectivity is great. I don't have to point it at the TV to change the volume or turn it on. It unfortunately still needs to be pointed at the cable box. That's something I can live with.
3. It was very easy to setup.



The Hates:
1. I was hoping a bluetooth remote to be able to communicate with my PS3, unfortunately I'm still using a PS3 controller when watching blu-rays.
2. It's just not very comfortable. It's square and there was no thought to ergonomics. And the shiny finish is a fingerprint magnet.
3. It doesn't have all the buttons that I would like from my cable remote. Page Up/Down and Day +- are the main ones. The absence of Page Up/Down can be a drag and at times leaves me reaching for the cable remote, the Day +- isn't as much of a loss.



All-in-all, it was absolutely worth the price and I would buy it again. Although, I would consider the 55-inch as well.