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LCD HDTV Review: Pricey, Midrange and Cheapo
Folks, it's finally here. As the bad boys from Prison Break, the hotties of 90210, and all those ultra-violent cyborgs on Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles are testament to, the new TV season has begun. What better time to invest in a new HDTV?
It's better than you think. Prices for HDTVs are in freefall. Even the best sets cost less than half what they did just a year or two ago. To get a snapshot of where the market is today, we set out to evaluate different tiers of LCD HDTV sets, looking for features, quality and value within what we’ve noticed are three categories. For our testing, we didn’t pick brand-new models, but chose 1080p sets that are probably hitting that sweet spot of having the latest tech inside while sitting in the middle of the downward pricing pressure.
The top tier of LCD TVs gives you the swankiest styling, sharpest picture, lots of adjustability for each of its numerous inputs, and the best contrast ratio — that is, the blackest blacks while the whites remain bright. The midrange gives you a good balance between the best features and value pricing, while the bottom group of sets are priced so low that sometimes it’s hard to believe. To represent each category, we reviewed HDTVs from Sony, Samsung, and Vizio.
At this level, what you get for your money is sheer picture quality. Our challenging Blu-ray video examples revealed no “jaggies,” and the blacks were so deep and rich, we thought we were looking at a plasma set. At the same time, the whites were almost too bright to look at, without appearing to be blown out so much that you couldn’t see any detail within bright objects. We’re convinced. This is as good as any LCD screen available today.
If you’re looking to install a PC in your home theater, this Sony HDTV won’t disappoint. Its high resolution cranked out near-perfect images from an HDMI-equipped PC, playing back 1080p video whose quality was indistinguishable from Blu-ray, if not better. Plugging an Xbox 360 into the Bravia’s VGA input was also a pleasant experience, delivering the same sweet resolution we noticed through its HDMI ports.
Then there are the excellent Xross (pronounced Cross) Media Bar menus, showing up as a sliding lineup like that of a Sony Playstation portable. It’s simple to navigate to its multitude of settings. The most important of those adjustments is the ability to tweak each of the inputs, letting you change the way the TV handles over-the-air video, Blu-ray, PC or Xbox inputs, giving each their own custom set of adjustments. The Bravia is near-perfect., showing that you can get a lot of TV for your $3200.
The 5281’s picture was excellent, though it revealed slightly more video noise than the Sony set. It also handled jaggies differently, slightly softening diagonal edges rather than boldly keeping them sharp as Sony does. The Samsung uses a more advanced type of backlighting, with LEDs shining light behind the screen, and brightening and dimming according to the scene being displayed. This is a good idea in theory, but didn’t work as well. The result was the blackest blacks we’ve seen this side of plasma, but whites that were not as clearly defined.
The TV’s controls were much simpler, too, not giving you the ability to control the way each input handles its video. When we plugged in our HDMI PC, the Samsung just couldn’t handle it very well, having trouble registering the 1080p video. The effect was especially pronounced on computer text, no matter how we adjusted its settings. We had even worse luck with the VGA input, where our Xbox 360 looked like it was no longer feeding a 1080p signal. One other potential problem is the TV's glossy screen (see it in picture above), potentially problematic if you have windows in the back of your viewing room.
Unless you place the high-end Sony Bravia and this Samsung 5281 side-by-side, you may not even notice the quality differences between the two if you’re watching HDTV or Blu-ray. But if you want to plug a PC or Xbox into your HDTV, you might want to spend the extra money on the more-adjustable Sony Bravia or one like it.
It's got guts. In a previous Vizio set we reviewed, the value factor was high, but picture quality was at times compromised to our eyes — we suspect because of the signal processing. Would the same thing happen here? No way. While watching over-the-air and cable HD footage, we didn't see any pixelization or motion blur during fast-moving action. Excellent.
The remote control is outstanding. It's really one of the best we've ever seen for a set at this value. While it doesn't have buttons for every input, it does have buttons for each type. Makes things easy for us, since all we have to press is "HDMI" to cycle through all our gear. Also, the remote's backlight is most appreciated. Our only complaint would be the way Visio put the picture-size controls only on the remote, and not in the onscreen menus (we spent an hour looking for them!).
Even the best LCDs have trouble rendering proper blacks, so it didn't surprise us that the Vizio struggled here, too. What did stick out for us, though, was how much the picture adjustments and color-temperature settings helped mitigate the shortcomings of the pixels. Watching True Blood on HBO last weekend, the night scenes were dark enough to do their disturbing work.
If you need to stretch your dollar in your hunt for 1080p, we have no problems recommending the Vizio. Its many convenient features, like the remote control and its four HDMI inputs, are friendly to HDTV vets and rookies alike. The above-average picture sweetens an already tasty deal.
(Vizio reviewed by Peter Pachal)
By Anony at 2:45 PM ON 09/15/08
Hello,
Thanks for your reviews. Is there a corresponding article for the TVs we should stay away from? Which TVs did these beat out? Are you receiving any income from These three manufacturers?
By Billbo1970 at 3:14 PM ON 09/15/08
What about smaller sized sets, do these manufacturer difference exist & at the same level of difference? I'm looking to get a 37" 1080p set. Did you look at LG at all? How do they compare?
By kerasine at 5:39 PM ON 09/15/08
Good info. I am curious why you chose the Samsung LNT5281F rather than the LN52A650, which is a superior TV in my opinion. It compares much more favorably to the Sony Bravia, but is on average $600 cheaper in most instances. I did a lot of research and side by side comparison before buying one this weekend.
By PeterPachal at 1:07 PM ON 09/16/08
Hey guys,
Thanks for reading. We selected these three models based on what the manufacturers' had available and which ones we thought were representative of our categories of pricey, midrange, and cheap. We did not look at other sets with respect to this review. And no, we are not receiving any income from these manufacturers.
Hope that helps!
By thexfile at 2:12 PM ON 09/16/08
mmmm nice i personaly bought a sharp aquos lc 46hd1e
in feb , and it was not cheap , but then it does have a built in hd , digital and analog decoder and it has a ful hd 160 gb recorder.
it comes in the same range as the sony shown , but was actualy 300 euro's sheaper ( bought it on the net ) then the model shown here but and then i got a 46 insh insted of the sony 40 insh.
i bought the sharp becouse i wanted a black lakerd model withe a built in digital hd decoder.
and although the sony has that , the way it looks and the extra room the nice glass takes up ( although it looks realy good ) + that for the same price i could get a bigger model withe a built in hd recorder made me opt for the sharp.
i have owned sony topline tv's prior to going to lcd.
and whel i'm not saying the sharp is perfect ( customar service is bad and sony menu is better designd ) but on the whole it gives me the viwing plesure i wanted...
looking at the pix shown in this review i'm glad i did not buy a samsung or sony....
diogonal viewing is even better then the models shown.
and although i never had a vcr , i love the recorder , it makes watshing tv a lot more pleasurable.
no longer have you have to wait for your tv , but it waits for you.... that brings that more rest in your life.....
i have mine hooked up to my laptop for bleuray , and for playing games and i have no regrets...
also have my htc x7500 pda phone hooked up to it and even that's great...
even withe a cheep dvd player i have a hard time spotting the differance.
it is if it upgrades the qualety... minde i do have it on 100 hz , film mode , picture improvemant , and outo light dimming , and dnr on hig.
the thing you do start to notice is that older programs are not recorded in hd or digital format , and ads seem to look like bleuray....
i never thought i would say this ( as i hate adverts ) but you almost want to watsh it.
bbc olympics just lookd realy good , as do movies shown on tv.... real dvd to bleuray qualety.... for me it's hard to spot the differance....
i love the big view on the world , now i finaly get lost in the picture insted of looking at the borders of the screen ( as i used to do )
o and you thought the vizio remote looks sweet ?
you havnt seen this 1 yet !!
it's the same black lacker and crome beeding , toped withe transparant fake crystal couler butons.
i have had some remotes over times ( even ones withe 2 sideds ) but trust me compared to my one the 1 from the sony set shown and the vizion looks like a cheap dvd player remote...
oke it's a bit long and i had to get use to it , but as it was stil cheaper as the sony model shown it's great.... every remote should look like this , and not just like a after thought...
i just wated to share this ... minde i do have top clase model ( that is stil cheaper then the sony model shown ) but trust me if you watsh a lot of tv and your pikey like me it's worthe it....
By Eckerman at 3:17 PM ON 10/08/08
I think the Visio is better than "Good". I have had a Vizio SV420XVT for several months now and can't say enough about it. Especially with the 120hz refresh rate, the picture is beautiful. I just saw this new review: //online.barrons.com/article/SB122307277314603571.html?page=2. You should check it out because the Visio is as good if not better (in my opinion) than the Samsung or Sony options.
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Eckerman:
I think the Visio is better than "Good". I have had a Vizio SV420XVT for several months now and can't say enough a...More »