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75.126.130.58-
Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
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Exceptional Value, Best when used with HD/High Res sources
I purchased this TV today ($499 at h.h.Gregg - $100 less than the price yesterday) after reading numerous good reviews here and several other places.
MY EXPERIENCES/TESTING SO FAR:
I have watched 1080i and 720p HDTV sources, as well as 480p DVD, all via component (R,G,B) inputs, and they look great. I connected my laptop with an nVidia go7900GS graphics card, and found that the only resolution that was decent via the VGA connection was stretched 1024x768 - not so good. Via the DVI connection, on the other hand, the OS recognized the TV as an HDTV, and asked for the most appropriate HDTV resolution (720p) and it looks excellent (crisp, & not stretched), and a DVD played via Windows MCE looked at least as good as via a nice stand-alone HK DVD player. I also tested Windows Media HD sample content (720p & 1080p), and they look great, too. Standard Def, even digital SD are what most would expect from this sort of TV; okay, but not great. The speakers have received mixed reviews, and all I can say is that they seem fine for what they are - inexpensive TV speakers. If this is your main media display, by all means get a nice 5.1 setup, but if this is just going to be a secondary TV, the speakers are more than adequate. Overall, I'm very pleased with this purchase, and especially so when price is taken into account.
Rating: 
-
Good value
When compared to other LCD TVs, it's a great value! Overall, I'm happy with the purchase.
Pros: It has a great picture quality when connected with something besides coaxial cable. It looks great when viewing widescreen DVDs. Speakers are good. It's much cheaper than most other LCD TVs of the same size (at the time when this review was written). The power light remains off when watching TV. It saves different TV settings depending on the video source used, which is good. Good for high def video. It's much lighter and thinner than a tube TV of the same size.
Cons: When turned off, the extremely bright power light turns on. The power light doubles as a bright nightlight. I recommend several layers of masking tape or a bit of electrical over this light. When viewing off the air video through coaxial cable (instead of a DVD or PC video), it's very blurry (too many compression artifacts). The "HDTV Calibration Wizard" DVD helped to signifcantly reduced the blurriness. Switching video sources isn't as easy as other TVs. If you're usually watching low def video, most TVs like this won't be a good value for you, and a standard tube TV may be better for you.
Rating: -
Worth your money!!!
This is my 2nd tv, after a 20 inch 90's GE CRT TV. I tought i was just buying a generic lcd tv, but nooo this exceed my expextation on sound quality and picture quality. to the guy that give this TV a bad rating, try something called digital cable or even dish! DVD picture is amazing and Playstation 2 games becomes more real. The only downside of this tv probably the design.. hmm what can i say some silver or metalic color will probably makes this tv better looking rather than just plain black. Anyway for 500 bucks after lining up all nite in front of Circuit city on black friday, i think this TV is well off worth my time and money.
Rating: -
A very good value
At $499 ($699 minus $200 rebate at CompUSA), this model LT26HVX (not the HVE) with a decent spec (800:1 brigtness, 1200:1 contrast, 8ms response time) is worth every penny. The weak spot is perhaps the standard mode display which is subpar but only when compared with top of the line models only. I watched it alongside other top models like Sony, Sharp, Panasonic, Samsung and the diff is just 9/10. WHen used with HD OTA broadcast or DVD movies at home, I found the picture quality is quite nice.
WHen used as a computer monitor, unlike some complaints in here, I have had no problem using a DVI-D dual link cable at a resolution of 1280x1024. No additional software, no issue whatsoever. Any issue must be from the cable or the graphic card incompatibility. My DVI-D Dual link cable is only $12 from Buy.com
One nice thing about this TV is you can split sources almost at will, including both DVI and VGA allow me to use it as 2 monitors (yes TWO monitors) anyway I like. My Panasonic LCD cannot do this. However, this TV has only 1 SD tuner and no HD tuner.
Sound is so so, actually it is a bit loud. Remote is somewhat awkward.
At $499, what can I say ?
Rating: -
Great TV
I purchased this television as a spare DVD/HD set which doubles as a PC monitor and video gaming TV. It performs very ably all of these functions.
The color decoder is surprisingly accurate out of the box at "Middle." The unit calibrates reasonably well with DVE, though I have found that after switching inputs, sometimes the brightness setting is 'off' upon returning to say, the DVI input. It will display the brightness of setting '50' when the slider is actually at 46. A quick trip to the user menu to bump it one tick up or down 'restores' it to the proper brightness for the numerical setting.
The black level is average for an LCD panel - not as good as newer higher end sets, but much better than a normal PC monitor, and more than usable for movies. As with any LCD panel, the black level is much more forgiving during bright scenes than in dark ones. The viewing angles (which are not incredibly forgiving as far as PQ goes) play a role in this, also. The advertised 170-degree viewing angle is a gross overestimation - you see something, but not anything close to a high fidelity picture. I would say the real-world viewing angle is 100 degrees horizontal by 70 degrees vertical - still not bad compared to a projection CRT screen, or a laptop or small PC LCD monitor.
Buyers should know that this is a 15:9 monitor, not 16:9 - this has no impact on picture quality, it just means very tiny black bars on 16:9 dvds, and slightly larger bars on 2.35:1 material.
Nevertheless, for the price, I am stunned that this unit performs as well as it does. I am quite happy with my purchase from that standpoint. The build quality is also very good - this is a solid unit. Less discriminating viewers who make this (or a larger Syntax unit) their first HDTV will likely be blown away.
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