carpan wrote:Okay someone please talk me out of the Vizio 46" 1080p 3d hdtv.
My girlfriend's roommate owns one, so I "get" to view it and play with it quite often. The ports and features are all nice, sure, but I don't like the TV overall.
~~~~~~My Qualification~~~~~~
I have a Bachelor's degree in Arts & Technology and am currently pursuing a Master's then Ph.D. in the field. I deal with tons of varied displays and display technologies on a daily basis, and am able to calibrate them by eye (with no equipment) to within <.2% of fully accurate calibration.
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~~~~~~The TV~~~~~~
===SPEED===
To begin with, its biggest problem is that it is aggravatingly slow to turn on. It is also as slow as molasses to change modes or do anything other than simply display video. It is actually faster for me to fire up my laptop from being completely turned off, attach it to the TV (while the TV is booting up) and navigate to my Hulu or Netflix account, log in, and start watching videos through my laptop than it is to simply turn on the Vizio and open the Hulu or Netflix apps.
It takes the TV about 45 seconds on average to turn on, and about 5 minutes total to navigate to a show that I want to watch (even if I already have the show and entire menu sequence in-mind).
Also switching between modes is laboriously slow, and often times I am left wondering if the RF remote suffers from connectivity issues as well, as sometimes (regardless of new/old batteries) the TV will just sit in front of me completely non-responsive to my input.
One of the more annoying issues with slow processing on the TV's part is the ~.5 second video delay. If you have a computer or Wii or other device cursor-oriented connected to the TV, you will find yourself constantly trying to compensate for the lag between your action and the display of the screen. Even doing simple things, like navigating the internet with a mouse, is unnecessarily difficult.
===DISPLAY===
The size is nice, and the 3D is neat, but the image usually suffers from a noticeably uneven distribution of light. Also, even with optimized, calibrated settings, the image often looks washed out and poorly representative of the video's content.
Additionally, the dynamic back-lighting is completely useless in any real application. Yes, it does effectively make the blacks blacker and the whites whiter (but not at the same time - it's one or the other at any given moment, which is to be expected with the technology Vizio employs). The issue is that, even with the ~.5 second delay I mentioned above, the dynamic contrast is reactive. The lighting does NOT change instantly with what is being displayed. This means that if you're watching a TV show and the camera angle jumps from a dark room to the street outside, there is a brief moment in which the sunlight looks sickly and dingy.
After about a second passes, the back light brightens itself smoothly up to the correct level. If the camera jumps back inside, the room looks very washed out and unduly bright until the TV can again catch up with itself. If a show cuts back and forth like this a lot, the effect can be sickening. Any Star Trek is a great example, as they frequently cut from the darkness of space to very well-lit rooms. I quietly disabled all of the options relating to dynamic back-lighting/contrast on my friend's TV.
The 3D effects is neat, but I personally don't feel like at-home 3D TV displays have matured quite enough to be very useful. My friend has hundreds upon hundreds of DVDs and a fast-growing collection of 3D Blu-Rays, but she rarely uses the 3D feature (despite having 6 pairs of 3D glasses, as well). I find the 3D to be average and acceptable for its price, but not nearly as effective as the likes of Samsung can produce.
===SOUND===
For the price of the TV, I cannot complain much about the sound. It is a bit tinny, but I have heard far worse.
===CONCLUSION===
The price is enticing, yes, and the features are neat when/if they work correctly, but there are far better bang-for-buck deals out there. I would not recommend this TV to a friend.
===OTHER THOUGHTS===
My television is a 32" JVC that I bought from Amazon for $290. It is 15" smaller than this Vizio, has half the refresh rate (my TV is 60HZ), has only 2 HDMI ports, has no Wi-Fi (or wired) internet connectivity, and has no "smart TV" features...but I consider it to be a vastly superior television in every regard. For two big examples, the picture is far more vibrant and crisp, and it only takes 4 seconds to completely turn on (compared to the Vizio's 45 seconds). If you're interested, look up the JVC Blackcrystal 3000 series.
If money is less important, though, Samsung is the king of the consumer-level market. Samsung makes the best TVs and Monitors out there in my opinion, but they come at a premium. That includes the display panels for some of Dell's highest-end monitors and, yes, the screens for Apple's Retina displays.
