After a week with this TV, I've decided that I'm glad that I resisted the urge to buy a more state-of-the-art, and more expensive, model. This meets all of my needs, plus adds some nice to have features that I didn't think I would get for this price.
The most important thing, of course, is the picture. I am very pleased with it. For example, I watched the OTA broadcast of the first game of the NBA finals, and the picture was as good as anything I've seen with the demo loops they show at the stores. Also, I'm pleasantly surprised that OTA SD content looks good, too. I've seen some other TVs at friends houses that do a poor job on SD content. It also does well with DVDs, and other non-HD content, such as things I have encoded over the years.
The picture is incredibly sharp and detailed with an Xbox 360. If there are any image blurring issues in games, they are beyond my eyesight.
This TV also has a very good viewing angle. I don't notice much of a drop-off of image quality, even when sitting almost completely to the side of the screen.
The speakers are another plus. Not spectacular, but plenty loud enough to fill the room, and of good fidelity.
Another reviewer criticised the remote. I agree with that. It is of the "lots of tiny buttons" category, and not as responsive as I would like. But after programming the TiVo remote for the TV, I rarely use it, anyway.
The various setup/tweaking menus could have been done better. For one thing, I don't understand why, on a 1080p-capable screen, the text of some items is almost unreadable. Thankfully, there's not much setup to be done, and for the most part, I'm too lazy to be a tweaker.
The Internet connectivity and apps features are a mixed bag. The Netflix app is at least as good as what I have on a Roku box, and I will definitely use it; but the YouTube app , and some others I have tried are pretty useless.
Vizio isn’t a brand I’m all that familiar with, but when I started talking about getting a couple of new TVs, one of my coworkers at Dish recommended I check them out. Now that I’m getting a Hopper whole-home DVR installed, and because it’ll send HD channels to every room, I want to upgrade the last of my TVs to high definition to make use of it. I can’t wait to have HD in every room either. After we upgraded half the rooms to HD a year ago the family always ends up in front of those two TVs, then invariably fighting over who gets to watch what. I expect new TVs and the Hopper to fix that!
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