Amazing HDTV Picture, Nifty Features, Slim Design-All At an Affordable Price
Written: Feb 02 '08 (Updated Feb 02 '08)
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Pros: Great picture, decent sound, lots of inputs, plenty of features.
Cons: Static sometimes between signals, slow to start up.
The Bottom Line: A great HDTV option for the price.
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| Bruguru's Full Review: Vizio VX37L 37 in. TV |
It’s official. I must be getting old. I say this because most of the television I and my wife, the much-celebrated Beloved Barbara™, watch is in the bedroom. I know what you’re thinking, but I assure you it’s nothing like that. The real reason is that by the time we prepare for work in the morning, fight the morning traffic, slog through the workday, fight our way back home, and prepare a meal, we’re pretty much exhausted, and retiring to the sanctuary that is our bedroom is thus rather appealing, indeed.
That said, we decided to purchase a larger TV for the bedroom. And while we were at it, we thought a flat panel HDTV might be nice, thank you very much. And that’s how we ended up with our Vizio VX37L 37” LCD HDTV. This TV turned out to be just the right size for the space we intended for it, and we preferred the crisper detail of LCD over the more vibrant colors of plasma when we browsed.
To be quite frank, when I bought my Vizio VX37L I did not fully intend to keep it. We were shopping for our TV at Costco (and I highly recommend them if you are in the market for a flat screen), and their selection was a bit limited. Many of the flat screens we looked at were either too big, too small, or more than we wanted to pay. We arrived at the Vizio VX37L 37”, which Costco was selling for $748 ($20 less than Wal-Mart). The picture that was playing looked OK, but not spectacular, although to be honest the program playing on most of them was not delivering maximum impact anyway. I have this pet peeve about stores that do this kind of thing, but there you go.
At any rate, I decided to give this one a try, despite the fact Vizio was not a name brand with a long reputation that I was familiar with. Costco has a very liberal 90 day return policy on flat screens, however, so my plan was to give it a try, and if I didn’t like it, well, it was easy enough to return it and swap for another one. In addition, Costco adds another year to the manufacturer’s warranty, so my set would be covered fully for two years instead of one. Considering what some stores charge for extended warranties, this can actually pay for your yearly membership, and then some.
So, we got it home. Setup was a breeze, and about ten minutes after popping it out of the box I had it connected, up, and running. The stand is already attached, so really the only thing you need to do is plug in the power cord and connect to your signal source. Knowing we were about to buy this, we had Comcast bring out an HDTV capable box a few weeks earlier. Obviously, you are going to need an HDTV signal to get the best results. I recommend using an HDMI cable, too, and you really will see the difference between this and standard audio video inputs. The HDMI cable is not included, so you will need to pick one up (you do get one set of composite AV cables).
You can mount this TV easily on the wall, too, and some basic instructions are included on how to remove the stand if you decide to do that. For a fee, Vizio will come out and do it for you if you choose. For the moment, we simply have our set atop a stand with enough height that we can see it from the bed. The entire unit isn’t all that heavy (just under 50 pounds), and one person can easily maneuver it about. But the base is heavy and broad enough that the unit isn’t going to tip over unless you really work at it. Location is very important, and we have the set placed about 10 feet from eye level.
So now for the really important information: the picture. Although we were less than impressed with the quality we saw in-store, we were absolutely flabbergasted when we got our TV home. Although the Vizio has a resolution limit of 720P (1080P is full HD), we saw little difference. HD broadcasts from cable (most notably a Patriots playoff game, Star Trek Enterprise, and Barbara’s prized American Idol) were crisp and clear with more detail and vibrant color than a standard TV could ever possibly deliver. Connecting an HD DVD player like our Toshiba HD-A3 impressed us even more, with a picture so life-like that you’d swear you could step right into the action.
The sound, delivered in stereo from two speakers built in just below the screen, is actually not bad either. To be sure, for the full theatrical effect a surround sound system will be needed, but you’ll do ok with the two stock speakers here. They put out more volume than you’ll likely use, too; we rarely go higher than 30% and get a room full.
You have a number of ways to input signals, but we like the fact that some common inputs are side-mounted for easy access. This is great when you have a “guest” input, like a video game. These side mounted inputs are composite A/V and S-Video, if you’re wondering. Behind the panel, however, is where most of your inputs reside. They include the following: two HDMI, RGB for computer input, two component sets, an additional composite A/V, DTV post for cable or antenna. There are also two analog left/right audio out jacks, as well.
Accessing the menu allows you to choose your picture preference. This is very subjective, of course, and varies from individual to individual. But you can choose tint, color, sharpness, black level, and most of the settings you’re accustomed to on a normal set, plus the amount of “backlight” (brightness).
Basic controls for the set are mounted on the right side. These are on/off, menu, channel up and down, volume up and down, and input source selection. All of these features are included on the remote, as well, and that’s where you’ll find the real meat and potatoes set features. If you’re into PIP (picture-in Picture), there are a slew of buttons for it that allow you to engage or cancel it, change channels on the PIP box, swap PIP, and divide the screen between the two channels. You can even swap the sound from the large picture to the PIP.
You can add closed captioning, set a sleep timer, choose audio mode, and engage MTS stereo too. More helpful in our estimation, however, are the dedicated source buttons (one for each source, if there are multiples you can toggle through them by repeatedly depressing the button); mode, which allows you to choose between several pre-set picture modes; info, which provides source and programming data including definition; and wide.
The latter is perhaps the most controversial. Most HDTV signals are formatted to fit the 16:9 ratio of a widescreen TV like the Vizio VX37L. Standard TV, however, isn’t. Therefore, when watching a standard TV signal from cable or DVD (a TV series box set, for example), you will see two black bars on the side of the picture, much as you see them on the top and bottom of the screen when you view a widescreen DVD on a CRT television. The wide button in Zoom mode allows you to view the picture stretched to fit the entire screen-but you will sacrifice part of the top and bottom being “chopped off”. I must confess I do prefer watching Battlestar Galactica (the original, not the copy mind you) in full wide format, even if I do lose a little in translation. Purists, please forgive me.
Vizio claims that panel life is 60,000 hours to half the original brightness. If you watch the set for three hours a day, that works out to 7.8277886497064579256360078277886 years for all you Vulcans out there. They also guarantee every pixel on the screen for the one year warranty period, or more if you buy an extended one.
The only downsides we have noticed was tendency for the sound and picture to "pop" at times with static when we change HD channels. This doesn't happen often enough to be a huge problem, though. Then too, the set takes a few seconds after startup to identify the current signal at startup, so you may get a few seconds of blue screen before you get a picture.
So guess what? We decided to keep our Vizio Vx37L after all. With its superb picture quality, array of features, sturdy design, and very affordable price, we think it’s a real winner. And if you’re in the market for an HDTV of this size, you just might think so too.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 749
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