Lcd & Flat Panel Televisions

I posted the following review on C-Net almost a year ago and the TV is still going strong and looking great:

I got this TV through Best Buy right after the price came down a bit, ($1709). Now it’s on sale for even less. I have no idea what the reliability will be down the road, but this TV is the clear winner when it comes down to acurate colors and clarity when compaired side by side with other mid to lower priced high def plasmas. I read one review about a random pixelization on the screen every few minutes and did notice this on the HP PL5060N in the store, but I suspect this has to do mostly with the source signal. I have not had that or any other issues, but I’m only using it with an upconvert DVD player, and over the air HD right now. For the few HD broadcasts that I can reciece in my area, they are beautiful. I know there are some out there that swear that the previous HP model is superiour to this one, but having never compaired them side by side, I can’t complain about this TV, it is great. I use the included speakers attached for over the air broadcasts because the sound is pretty good for watching TV. Why pay hundreds or thousands more for a 1080p TV, when that signal is only available via BlueRay or HD-DVD right now, when this TV looks almost as good.

1 HDMI port for me is fine since I’m using a Denon reciever that upconverts all sources to it.

I had decided to purchase a new LCD television to replace my three year old Toshiba 46″ rear projection HDTV because the old Tosh was just too big and I was becomming more and more enticed by the newer, slimmer LCD televisions. To be fair I was also fed up with the Tosh’s convergence problems and horrible glare. Technology had come a long way in three years. So techrep, why this television? I’m glad you asked.

There were four main criteria I was using for my new purchase:

1) I wanted an LCD set,

specs:

32 inch 16:9 (widescreen) LCD flat-screen TV with built in ATSC and NTSC tuners.

.51 x .51 mm pixel pitch, 1200:1 contrast ratio, - 89 degree viewing angle (really!)

dimensions: 32 x 26 x 10 inches (aprox) weight: 40 lbs

formats supported: 480i 480p 720p 1080i

inputs: two 75 ohm antenna F connectors (one each NTSC and ATSC)

HDMI, 2 progressive scan component video, 2 composite (RCA) video, 1 SVGA, 1 stereo audio line in (1/8″)

outputs: headphones and optical S/PDIF audio — speakers rated at 10 watts

Ilo is a house brand of Wal-Mart and is used for many different models made by many different companies. One must not confuse that there are two TVs with very similar model numbers, the 32HD which is a more current model and the 3200 which is the old model. Many of the reviews here are of the 32HD. The old model (3200) was probably discontinued sometime early in 2006 and replaced by the 32HD which may have been made by an entirely different company (there not much, if anything in common between the two). The old 3200 lack an HD tuner and is merely and HD monitor. It is very possible that a given store may still have some of the old ones in stock depending on how fast they sell. This review is of the 3200, so none of the facts pertain to the 32HD.

Research:

I must say I went back and forth about whether to buy a plasma TV at all or if I should be looking at LCOS, DLP or LCD instead. Well after much research (I originally had my heart set on a sony KF50WE610 50″ projection TV) it seemed like they were having too much trouble with bulbs going prematurely on DLP and LCOS projection sets and at $200-300 each, I was not willing to risk this extra cost. The LCD sets looked promising but the largest I could get in the price range I was going to spend was 32″ (an I was not going to spend $2-3K for a 32″ 16:9 …..actually smaller than a 32″ tube TV which I was replacing), this is likely the way TVs will go in the future when production costs come down far enough. So I was left with plasma and the potential burn-in problems (they do also consume more current than most TVs, but mine only consumes 2-3 amps @120V max so that is not much of a worry for me). Well it seems as though they have done quite a bit of work on burn-in and the newer sets have anti-burn technology which minimizes this effect. I have tested it several times on my LG and I have had zero problems with that (I can pause a DVD for an hour and come back to play it with no ghosting).

Excellent picture. Better than at least 80% of the LCD pictures I compared it to. Very bright. Very consistent. The only negative I might note is that the deepest blacks tend to be flat. But I’m ok with that because of the brightness, rich color, and viewing angles it allows. There is no glossy screen protector so reflection is not an issue. It looks just as good in a well-lit room as it does in the dark.

When we bought this television a year ago it was just introduced. It benefited from the introduction of a new chipset which gave more features at a lower price. This set is available only through Wal-Mart. We have been watching it for a year now and think we understand most of its pluses and minuses.

What We Got

This has been an exceptional product for me. So far, I have used it as a huge PC Monitor, for an XBOX 360, for cable, a DVD player, and a VCR.

All of these can be hooked up at once through the wide range of inputs. There are two coax inputs (Cable and antenna), two HDMI’s, two component video, AV1 (Red/White/Yellow) in and out. It feels like overkill at first, but all of these inputs end up being very useful.

I was looking for small-to-midsize television to put on my porch. Went to Best Buy thinking that I’d buy a Sony, but found out they didn’t have Sony TVs smaller than 27″. Saw this Toshiba, and was impressed with its picture quality, light weight, flat screen, and sleek appearance. Ended up purchasing it, and couldn’t be more pleased.

My wife and I bought this Sharp Aquos on Memorial Day weekend from Best Buy for $1999. We really couldn’t fit anything larger on our wall than a 40″ TV. We went to the TV stores and examined the Sony, LG, Samsung and Sharp. We had read raving reviews about the Samsung and the Sharp. The thing I found the most odd about the Sharp was that at every electronics store, it seemed to be set off to the side so you could not directly compare it to the Sony or the Samsung TVs. It was almost as if they didn’t want to sell it.