It’s not. Screen resolution sucks. Go to Costco and see for yourself.
Panasonic or Samsung. You will not be disappointed.
Not Sony? My dad has a sony and it is great. He got it in 2007.
Sony has had a tendency to be over-priced for televisions. You’ll get a better product for the same money with Samsung or Panasonic.
Another thing to consider is what sort of content you’ll be watching. Do you use Redbox, Netflix, etc.? What about a cable subscription? You’ll be able to get HD feeds from over-the-air broadcasting, but you may want to upgrade your cable service to include HD channels (if you have cable). It is, IMO, absolutely worth the price. My wife was really hesitant to do so when we got married - but she now says “I’ve ruined her forever” when she accidentally tunes in to the non-HD channels.
If you Redbox or get Netflix, consider finding a bluray player. They can be had pretty cheaply now if you don’t want top of the line. But make sure you get some cheap HDMI cables now (monoprice.com is the best deal around), so that you don’t feel pressured to have to run to the store when your TV arrives - you’ll vastly overpay for them in a brick-and-mortar retail store.
That Dell samsung deal above hit slickdeals.net front page - so it is a good deal, and a great way to get a good TV and sound bar- buy the TV and then just wait till they send you the gift card and use it to buy a sound bar (which dell also sells).
I agree about Samsung, but Panasonic’s LCD/LED rep isn’t that good. They are (were) the best for plasma TVs, but I understand they ramped down that side of the business.
In case you see plasma TVs, they are much heavier and are considered “old tech” these days. But if you are viewing the picture from the side, plasmas are still better.
Regarding Vizio, they basically have 2 model series - the E series (model number starts with E) and the M series (model number starts with M). The E series is okay (although I find the picture to be kind of lifeless) but the M series is much, much better. It might be tougher to find an M series Vizio in your price range, but worth it.
What do you guys think of this Samsung?
I actually have a $50 gift card to Best Buy already and wouldn’t mind using it. It comes with another $50 gift card, which I may apply to the stand(we don’t have a stand yet, either). Anyway, does it look reasonable?
Mahaloth
It’s only got 2 HDMI inputs. Be very, very sure you’ll never want more than that before buying it.
You can do better for the price. Use the Best Buy gift card to get either a stand or sound bar.
Along with the one I posted yesterday, here’s a better deal:
http://dealnews.com/lw/artclick.html?2,1062426,10671453
Using coupon code “SRC128116” cuts it to $599.97.
All gone. slickdeals.com must have killed it. That was an amazing price.
It’s adequate, keeping in mind it’s an E-class Vizio, which is their lower-end line.
Since you mentioned having a Best Buy gift card, what about this one? That’s a 55-incher for less than most 50" TVs, and as I mentioned RCA’s LED TV performance exceeds their reputation.
Or the step up model, Vizio M551d-A2 now $685 at Sam’s club (currently $999 at Wal-Mart). Not only is it bigger, but it has a much better picture, and is highly rated at CNET.
Something which hasn’t been mentioned: look at the “plugs” in the different models, make sure they’re compatible with the devices you want to use to input video. I was recently looking for a new monitor for my mother’s computer, the CRT having given up the ghost; the computer’s old enough to have VGA as its most modern video-output. The only brand I found that still took VGA without adapters was Samsung.
(Nevermind, misread a post)
I dislike my Vizio. Way too often, when the cable signal ‘glitches’ the set either loses sound and I have to go to another channel and back to the one I was watching, or even worse, reboots itself
(goes off and then comes on again). Other tvs on this cable system never did this.
Huh, I may consider this one. I hope RCA’s aren’t a bunch of crap, but at $450(after my card), that’s not too bad. I don’t know how much a service plan is for it, but if that isn’t crazy, I could apply the card to that.
Is that a smart TV? It appears not to be, but that is not a deal breaker for me.
I just picked up this Vizio about two months ago and so far I’m really happy with it. Great picture, good functionality. The apps occasionally get buggy but I mostly only use Netflix and that’s fine 95% of the time. The price on Amazon has gone up about $80 since I bought it, but it’s possible it’ll go back down. I got that and a surround sound system (also Vizio) for about $900 total.
You can buy an A/B HDMI switcher on Amazon for $20. Don’t let the number of HDMI inputs be a deciding factor.
It’s still there…
I will likely make a purchase this weekend, folks.
What kind of cables do I need? I have looked at this site:
Which should I get?
On a related note:
We’ve got two HDTVs here in Casa de Lightnin’. They’re both fairly old, so I’d like to replace them with one new TV. The only problem is… what do I do with the old ones?
I don’t particularly want to deal with Craigslist. I’d prefer to donate them. Any ideas?