Hurricane Katrina caused enough roof damage to my in-law’s house that water leaked in and ruined their entertainment center and television. Once they settled with their insurance company, they bought a beautiful new wood entertainment center. When they got home with it, they found out that it was made only for widescreen LCD or plasma televisions because it wasn’t deep enough for a CRT television. I think it was all part of my father-in-law’s master plan to get a flatscreen TV since his wife, my mother-in-law, liked the entertainment center so much. After shopping at nearly every electronics store in town (Sears, Circuit City, Rex, and Best Buy) they ended up purchasing this Vizio 37” LCD HDTV at Sam’s Club and have been happy with it ever since.

I’ve been over to my in-law’s house more than enough to experience this television. They have owned it for several months now. I’ve watched several movies and countless hours of television shows and sports while visiting. When my father-in-law is away, I get the remote and play around with the menus and change settings to see what it can do. For some reason, he doesn’t like it when I do that in front of him. There are just so many options that I couldn’t resist. I’m mentioning this to you now so that you’ll know I’ve spent a good bit of time with this television being put to use in a home, rather than me just playing with a display model in a store.

This TV currently sells for $999.87 at Sam’s Club. The price has dropped a few hundred dollars since my in-laws purchased it, and I expect the price to continue to drop. For the money, this is a great deal. You can pay twice that much for a similar 37” LCD HDTV from a more well-known brand, but you won’t really get any better performance out of it. I looked up the Vizio company and they aren’t some off-brand subsidiary of a larger company, like how Sanyo is really Panasonic, but seem to be just a new brand on the market.

This TV features a 1,366 x 768 resolution with a 600:1 contrast ratio. The contrast ratio is how many times white is brighter than black on the set. Compared to a lot of other models, 600:1 is actually kind of low. For example, some televisions have ratios in the thousands. So what does this mean to you? It means that the picture quality may not be quite as good as other more expensive models. A higher contrast ratio deals out more vivid images, but a lot of that depends on the image source. I think this one still looks good, especially if you don’t want to spend more than $1,000 on a television.

This is a High Definition Television, or HDTV, and supports the major screen formats of 480i (Standard Interlaced), 480p (EDTV – Enhanced Definition), 720p (HDTV), and 1080i (HDTV). If you connect a regular cable line, which uses 480i, the results are varied. Depending on the station, the picture is sometimes good but often very grainy. It all depends on the broadcast. What happens is those signals come in at much lower than the actual capability of the set, so this TV has to blow up the images. Anytime you blow up an image, there will be quality degradation. Don’t buy this TV if all you’re going to do is watch basic cable because it won’t look good.

One thing I really like about this TV is that its Active Matrix display supports a 176 degree viewing angle. 180 degree is flat, so if can stand to the side of this TV and still see the screen. This makes it a great choice for living rooms where people might be viewing it from different angles. This is one thing that makes these type televisions superior to rear projection models. It also features an 8ms response time, which is very good, especially for playing video games.

Vizio was generous with the amount of inputs they included on this TV. It has two standard RF connections, an HDMI, two sets of Component, three sets of Composite, 1 S-Video, 1 RGB, and even an RJ-45 connection that is for servicing. For the best image quality, use the HDMI to connect your DVD player, or use the components. If you have a digital cable or satellite receiver, you should also use the components for it. If you are connecting a video game console like an Xbox, you can also use the components. It just depends on what you’ve got to connect to this set. For a VCR, all you need are the composite connections. The remote control is just like any other television remote and it is easy to manage all the settings.

I think the picture quality on this set is very good, just so long as you realize that a standard cable connection won’t really look good on any big screen HDTV. We hooked up my wife’s 5.1 megapixel digital camera and the photos looked bright as crisp on the giant screen. As much as I would like to hook my Xbox up to it, I don’t think my father-in-law would appreciate that.

The sound quality is also very good thanks to the two 10-watt speakers mounted on the lower front of the case. It features individual bass and treble controls, accessible via the on-screen menu, so you can tweak out the sound. The bass isn’t thundering, but it is still very clear. If you max out the treble, it does sound a little tinny. If you’re going to invest this much into a television, you might as well get a home theater system to go along with it. Treat yourself!

All in all, I am very impressed with this television. I currently own a Samsung CRT HDTV, but will eventually upgrade to an LCD or Plasma. I like that the prices continue to drop, and I will definitely consider Vizio when the time comes to shell out the big money. I also am very fond of the return policy at Sam’s Club.

If you’re still not sold on this television, then this ought to clinch the deal. Check out this customer service story: Last week, my father-in-law accidentally hit some button sequence on the remote and got a black box on the corner of the screen that he couldn’t make go away. I think it had something to do with the Picture-in-Picture controls. So he called Vizio’s tech support line and instantly got a live English-speaking human being on the phone. The tech joked with him as he walked my in-law through the menus to remove the black box. The entire support call lasted just a few minutes. That’s awesome service. I think this Vizio company is one to watch.


Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 1299