I’ve had this TV about a month now and am generally pleased with its performance VS price. I purchased this TV to replace a 44″ 720P Rear Projection that was in my living room. This TV easily out performs that old TV. This TV is really very good when viewing HD sources. I matched a Visio Blu Ray player to use with this TV and there is amazing clarity. But, there is a noticable drop off when viewing non-HD sources like standard TV channels. Seriously, I don’t think there are many 1080p sets that offer great standard definition viewing performance. Also, please note that there is an illuminated VISIO faceplate on the face of the TV that stays lit all the time. Now, using the TV in my living room this is not a problem for me, but if I had the TV in my bedroom it would drive me insane as it would probably illuminate half the bedroom! So far the only way I know to turn that light off is to unplug the tv from the power source. Please note that the remote for the VISIO TV was smaller than the remote for the VISIO Blu Ray player-that just seemed a bit odd to me. I also have difficulty menu-editing as when you are done editing they tell you to hit a button with a symbol on it that does not appear on the remote! Note sound output is pretty good-better than my 40″ Sony Bravia, but I also am using a 5.1 HDMI theater sound system with it so I can pump it up even to higher levels when needed. On one BD I even had to turn the sharpness down bacause the main actor had 5 o’clock shadow that was so clear it was making me dizzy.

I had a 2 year old 37″ olevia aka spectra 720p tv I wanted to upgrade for christmas to a larger higher quality set for myself.

I bought this from amazon after doing a ton of research for 749.00 no sales tax and free delivery. The research seemed like it would be a good tv I had seen it in person in target the picture was decent. I was nervous about getting a vizio as it is well the low end product but everyone I talked to said vizio is a great brand to buy very reliable and good prices. HA It ended up being the biggest mistake.

First to start with amazons large shipping department is not like its reqular shipping. This is done by frieght carrier. I got a company called pilot. They lost the tv had lousy service and it took over two weeks to get to me. The people did a terrible setup job. Good note is that amazon handled this fairly well and discounted me 67.00 for my troubles. which made this a better deal.

The tv looked good after I fiddled with the settings. After the first day it shut off suddendly I thought I must have bumped the button. But not so it would just shut off at random. Three days it started loosing the sound in the middle of the show if I restarted the tv or hit the back button on my dvr it would fix the issue. I tried changing cables and then one of the HDmI inputs failed

Besides these issues the picture seemed decent the sound was decent it was a nice large size. For the price it was about the quaility I would expect but having a tv that loses power and sound isn’t so nice so I called amazon and they sent a replacement. This time it was from a company called ceva who had excellent service, setup and the unit arrived promptly.

I get it setup and on the second day I started having issues with random power loss and loss of sound. I had it For me 700 bucks is a large expenditure. I wanted something nice and that works well. I’m terminally ill and spend 90% of my time in bed watching tv. So I really wanted something to make my life more enjoyable. A faulty tv is not this something.

I called amazon and did an exchange. After alot of research I choose a Samsung LN46C650 for 840.00 with a free wireless lanstick adapter. WOW this blows the vizio out of the water. The image and colors are a huge improvement. You get alot more features including internet tv. The samsung is 46″ vs 47 on the vizio but you get so much more and the quality is 10x better. Even is you have to pay 0-300 more it is worth it to get the samsung.

Bottom line not reliable. Low price for low features and an ok picture if the unit works. Save some extra money and get the samsung LN46C650 or LN46C630. The vizio it is a decent picture where the samsung picture looks like you could walk right into it. Maybe other vizios are okay but this model is not it has big problem I got two units with power and sound loss and serval other reviews note the same issue. I won’t buy a vizio every again.

The only good thing I can say is amazon does have excellent customer service and they went out of there way to make sure I was a happy customer and to meet my needs.

So how about we get right down to it?

There are a few things with this set that are a little annoying:

- Sometimes, for no reason at all, the set will turn off and turn back on. The set will also turn off when going through the setup menu after pressing the ‘Ok i.e. Select’ button. The latter does not happen everytime, but it does it do it.

- This kind of goes along with the above. Startup is kind of slow at about 10 seconds. Time between channel switching is about 3 seconds, which also feels a little slow.

- The stand that came with this TV will not swivel to the right (when you are facing the TV), but will turn to the left.

- Setup. Took about 30 minutes for this to fully search, and program all of the analog/digital channels in my area (about 120). This is not an issue if you have satellite or a cable box.

- Sometimes when I am switching channels, the sound from the channel I eventually end up on distorts greatly and sometimes does not come on at all. To fix this, I have to switch channels and then back again.

****As you can see there are a few problems with this TV, and although I still do not consider them a deal breaker –only if the price of the TV is such that it is much lower than its competitors, note what you might be getting should you purchase this set.

However, because of the good price and relatively moderate annoyances of the above dislikes, this is still a great set to buy.

Here are the upsides:

- Picture quality. It looks fantastic on HD channels, and when watching sports. This is a 120Hz TV to help with watching sports and/or video games. On this particular TV the latter setting is called “Smooth Control”. I left the smooth motion on high when watching basketball and football names, which greatly reduced blurring so that it was not really noticeable at all. Moreover, there are three different settings to adjust the smooth control : Low, Medium, and High. I did not notice any difference between them. Yes you can adjust this setting to stay completely off, leaving your movies in their normal framerate (24fps) instead of the “soap opera effect”, which looks like 30fps. The setting is located under Menu—-TV—-More.

- Sound. Speakers on these TVs will never compare to aftermarket speaker systems, but I must say that the wait until you do purchase that system will not be terrible one. The audio, especially in surround sound, does very well at filling a room with a robust volume and with a variety of different sounds/instruments.

- Automatic picture adjust. Automatically adjusts levels of brightness/backlight to accommodate ambient light.

Comparing to TVs of all brands, this one is a must buy in the area of LCDs of the same picture size if it is 100-200$ less than its competitors.