EARLY REVIEW, December 12, 2010

By 

David T. Fischer (Chicago, IL) – See all my reviews

  

I just purchased this TV and I’m still in the process of doing everything with it, but I’m here to give an honest first impression. I’m actually using my computer connected to this TV to write this review and let me say that in my tiny bedroom this TV is massive. It looks great with my computer connected via RGB and there is little to no lag. I just watched KROQ’s Almost Acoustic Christmas on the TV last night and the stream looked pretty good for what it was. The 2D picture is fantastic on this product and both my PS3 and Xbox 360 look amazing on it. The 3D needs work and I knew that coming into this TV. There is some ghosting of the image when watching 3D, but it does it’s job well enough. You will definitely notice ghosting on anything other than Blu-ray 3D and titles in general. I’m not happy about it, but what can you do? I’m not using a certified 3D HDMI cable, so maybe that’s an issue? I know it’s a high speed HDMI cable, so it should be good enough. I did just order an Amazon High Speed 3D supported cable though to see if there is a difference. I’ll update this review with my findings. I’d say the 3D is not a must for this TV, but is a cool extra. I watched a 3D Hockey game last night that was broadcast on Xfinity 3D in my area. It was pretty cool, but the ghosting is plentiful. If you don’t know what I mean by ghosting, well I mean that you can see a shadow of the image behind the 3D image and it makes everything a bit blurry. The score graphic on the Hockey game looked horrible as do the static titles in most 3D cases. I would not recommend buying the 3D GLASSES, WHICH HAVE TO BE PURCHASED SEPARATELY. I bought mine at Sam’s Club for about 0 and I was happy for that price. I still would caution anyone expecting perfect 3Dm which is a let down when you don’t feel it’s perfect after spending so much money. Vizio should really bundle at least one pair of 3d glasses, especially since the technology is not up to snuff. I tried some of the Vizio Internet Apps and the Yahoo Weather is cool, so is the Amzon Video(Thanks for the video credit!) Netflix seems to work, but it as SUPER SLOW for me through wireless connection and my bars are almost full. I thought the TV froze it was so slow. Maybe being connected with Ethernet directly would change this. Anyway, here are some pros and cons, if you have any questions email me at: Doofus88@gmail.com

PROS:

-Great 2D picture

-3D option is nice

-Works well with connected computers, PS3, and Xbox 360.

-Sound is pretty good, mind you I’m in a tiny room.

-Internet Apps are nice, but Netflix seemed slow over wireless.

CONS:

-3D technology not good enough for the high price tag.

-Expensive 3D glasses that are NOT INCLUDED.

SIDE COMMENT:

I also want to comment that Amazon uses Pilot for shipping and they really suck. DON’T EXPECT YOUR TV TO BE DELIVERED ON THE DAY YOU SCHEDULE ON AMAZON. I got mine Saturday and it was supposed to be delivered Thursday. Pilot’s costumer service was rude and the delivery man did not handle my TV with care. I just wanted everyone who orders to know that.

VIZIO 47-Inch Class Full HD 3D Full Array TruLED with Smart Dimming LCD HDTV 480 Hz SPS with VIZIO Internet Apps

UPDATE: 12-18-10

Just a few updates for my review here. One thing I did is add attributes for different aspects of this TV.

3D UPDATE

I got the new Amazon HDMI cable that supports 3D and is highspeed and the 3D effect is still the same. I think it works the best on Blu-Ray 3D movies. A Christmas Carol looks great and The Polar Express look really good. There still is some ghosting issues with them, although they have the least of it. I also have a PS3 and played Wipeout HD in 3D, which was ok, but still had lots of ghosting. Pacific Rift really did not look good at all in 3D though, lots of ghosting. I’m curious if it’s just that those games were converted and I’ll have to wait to get a game made for 3D to really get a great 3D game experience.

SOUND

When I was watching a Blu-ray on my PS3 I noticed some popping randomly during the movie. There are small, but still noticeable. I contacted Vizio and asked them what the best set up for sound through the TV would be. Their online chat is really helpful, really good service, and they told me what exactly to do. I think I still notice it sometimes, but overall I think it’s gone. I will update more on this since this could be a potential problem. I think I should be able to use all the settings on for this TV. My settings for anyone if they want to know are…

Both SRS settings off.

PCM for digital output.

Audio mode: Flat

Picture

Just a small thing to nit pick…

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Excellent television quality at a good price, December 21, 2010

After much research over the last year, and after having the set in my home for the past week, I am convinced that this Vizio television is as good as any on the market. I found that Amazon.com’s price was the best available, including free shipping, and after ordering the set, it was delivered 8 days later, in perfect condition. The shipping box was designed for easy removal of the set. Set-up was easy following Vizio’s instructions. I had already purchased and set-up the Vizio XWR100 wireless network router for my hi-speed DSL modem and it was immediately recognized by the set’s wireless Ethernet network. VIA (Vizio Internet Apps) worked well, although I haven’t used it much at this time.

TV settings are available as a VIA option and are easy to access and use. The standard picture mode provided an excellent picture with no need to make adjustments. Sound quality is very good but I am planning to add a sound bar in the near future to more closely match the sound quality to that of the picture, which in one word is “STUNNING”. Excellent blacks, contrast and color really make the picture “pop”. The Blue-tooth remote with QWERTY keyboard works well.

I will be adding a 3D enabled Blue-Ray DVD player in the near future, so I can’t comment on the 3D abilities of the set at this time. However I will say that I am 100 percent satisfied with this television and I recommend it highly.

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Amazing 2D, broken 3D., February 1, 2011

By 

J. Puckett (Kentucky) – See all my reviews

  

I’ve been in the market for a new TV for about a year now and have been waiting patiently for a decently priced LED LCD as well as 3D. This 47″ Vizio seemed to finally hit the price point and size that I was looking for, so I jumped on a pre-Super Bowl sale from a nationwide wholesaler. I picked up the TV along with a pair of the Vizio-branded 3D glasses.

A quick note before going into my review. My TV came with firmware version VIZIO_XP1.21.2.1.

I’ll start out by saying that the 2D picture is absolutely amazing. The blacks are black and colors are vibrant. The TV almost doesn’t need any calibration coming out of the box for those who like to tweak the picture. For those who never know any better, they should be very happy from the get-go. Thanks to the local dimming, I can see no issues of backlight bleeding/clouding/flashlighting on my set. Also due to the 160 local dimming zones, I’ve seen no hint of blooming on my set from my normal viewing distance of about 8′. The TV just absolutely shines with well-mastered blu-ray movies. So far I’ve tested Avatar and The Hangover, and both simply blow my mind with the quality present. I upgraded from a 4-year old 60hz 1080p LCD and watching blu-ray movies on this new Vizio is like experiencing HD all over again. I promise you this is not hyperbole, I’m that amazed by the clarity of the picture when being fed top-notch, non-compressed signals.

The remote feels a bit cheap but gets the job done. The slide-out keyboard is very nice for the Vizio Internet Apps (VIA) feature and works as expected. The buttons are a bit stiff though and the remote itself feels like it’s prone to breakage at some point in the future.

The motion interpolation control in this TV seems to be well done, frame transitions are very smooth and, from what I can tell, introduce no artifacts or juddering. You can turn the motion control completely off if you don’t like the “soap opera effect”, as it’s called. There are 4 settings for the motion control, “Off”, “Low”, “Medium”, and “High”. Changing between “Off” and “Low” produces the obvious intended effect, but I’m so far unable to perceive a difference between “Low”, “Medium”, and “High”.

The Vizio Internet Apps are merely OK to me, as I already have a lot of this functionality available to me through my Playstation 3 or XBOX 360. There currently is no Youtube or Hulu support on VIA with the 3D versions of these TVs, which is a bummer. I would expect them to be added in a future firmware update though, since the 2D-only XVT line has them. The Netflix app worked OK, no issues here. For the curious, it appears to use the interface of the old PS3 disc-based Netflix app, which is sufficient but not the best out of the many UI iterations Netflix has come up with over various devices. The Facebook app seemed highly useless to me, as it seemed to require too much navigation to view the stuff I wanted. The Twitter app actually seemed quite useful and shows the latest followed tweet directly in the “tile” when bringing up the VIA interface…a nice touch. The weather app serves its purpose well and the VUDU app was actually put together nicely, although it still pales in comparison to the slick PS3 VUDU app. It does fare better in a head-to-head comparison than does the Netflix app, though. I haven’t tried any of the other apps installed. All-in-all, I think the addition of VIA is a nice feature-add to the TV but not a selling point.

On to the 3D, which was the second-most feature I was looking forward to on this model. After giving it a fairly thorough testing across different types of media, I think it’s just plain broken. The crosstalk/ghosting is very bad through almost all content I tried, rarely looking great enough that I would consider it “watchable”. The problem seems to be with high-contrast screens, which includes almost everything you’re going to watch unfortunately. I’m somewhat leaning towards the Vizio glasses being the problem, as I’m not convinced they are opaque enough when closed, but the issue could lie in any number of places. I’m tempted to be silly and try using them along with some sunglasses to see if that helps block out any extra unwanted light from each eye, but even if it did help, that’s obviously not an acceptable work-around.

I’ve tried various 3D-enabled games, the n3D channel on DirecTV, and the free 3D demos available on VUDU. The only times I’ve watched something and had all forms of crosstalk disappear is with Super Stardust HD, some scenes in the Toy Story 3 trailer, and almost all of the Jim Carrey animated Christmas movie trailer (mainly due to it being mostly dark). Everything else has been bad enough to where I consider it completely unwatchable.

I had thought to try adjusting picture settings while displaying 3D content to see if I could minimize or eliminate some of the…

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