“Vizio’s VF551XVT offers full-array LED backlighting at a low price, if you can stand the grungy industrial design.”
Average
-
Affordable 55 Inch HD LED TV
-
5 HDMI inputs
-
Good, but not good image quality.
-
A surprisingly robust sound system
Against
-
The quality is not as good as the competition.
-
Bad design (missing silver decoration)
-
Remote control should be better
-
no internet capability
Introduction
All the talk of high-end TV in 2010 may be about 3D, but until those sets arrive later this year, LED-backlit flat panel displays are still the technology to watch out for, as these models offer decent picture quality. As long-time fans of plasma technology remains our yardstick, we’ve admired the way LED-backlit LCD HDTVs have closed the quality gap with plasma over the past 18 months. Finally, we see an LCD HDTV with deep blacks and excellent contrast. Our main complaint with LEDs, however, is the price, as these sets tend to be much more expensive than similarly sized flat plasma panels. Fortunately, Vizio has now stepped in to close the dollar gap. Vizio came out of nowhere to become the number two selling TV in the US by offering decent TVs at good prices. Following this success, the manufacturer is moving from cheap 37-inch screens to loaded screens that compete with the best from Samsung, LG, Panasonic and Sony. Let’s see if these youngsters can compete with the big boys.
Features and design
Vizio isn’t known for its high-end style. Utilitarianism describes it best, but even with that in mind, the VF551XVT is one of the ugliest flat panels we’ve ever seen. Please guys, get rid of the silver speaker grille and accents, then lose the color markings on the side/rear plug packs – the kit reeks of ’70s GM strumming. By contrast, Samsung, Sony and LG have no design issue at all. Here is a suggestion. Considering the company made a big deal about hiring Beyonce at CES 2010 as a spokesperson and consultant to help develop future products, the diva should spend some time with the company’s designers and help the poor. After all, this is a $2,000 TV, not a $99 Blu-ray player.
Looking further, it’s a bit thicker than competing games, but that’s not a problem. It measures 51.5 inches wide, 36 inches tall, and 4.9 inches deep (13.5 inches with included stand). The game tips the scales at 90 pounds with the stand, 78 without, so have a friend handy when you set it up in place.
Aside from the ugly speaker grill, there’s not much to the front other than an illuminated logo and remote sensor. On the left side is a color tow truck package that matches the illustrations in the owner’s manual. We understand the theory behind this, but it’s just as ugly as the main packaging colors on the back. You won’t really see this mess once you’re in position, but it does show the company’s computer monitor roots. More important is the fact that there are five HDMI inputs (four on the back, one on the side) that should drive all your HD devices. There’s no card reader, but the device accepts USB drives with .AVI and .MP4 files, among others.
Which is in a very large box.
Of course there is a TV and a stand. There’s also a 76-page user manual, a quick start guide, an AC cord, a cleaning cloth, and a learning remote similar to a candy bar. The control has a nice weight and backlight, but no LCD readout. We still strongly believe that manufacturers should offer better remote controls for their best models. It is worth mentioning that the supplied wire cable is so that you can fix it to the wall for safety. Speaking of cables, HDMI cables are not included, so keep those handy.
Performance and use
Clearly, we find the style “challenging”. However, this is not a statue at MOMA, but a big screen TV, and the screen is what counts. The 55-inch VF551XVT is a 1080p set that features a full-array LED backlight, called TruLED, as opposed to the CCFL system used in most other LCD TVs. This allows for “local dimming” so that selected parts of the screen match the source material. Vizio uses 960 LEDs divided into 80 blocks or sections. For the record, newer LED TVs, like the innovative Toshiba CELL TV (launching later this year) have 512 zones. When viewing any LED HDTV, look for more light and more areas.
With TruLED backlighting, the VF551XVT has a 240Hz frame rate to eliminate motion blur, which is actually 120Hz when combined with a scanning backlight, a 5ms response time, and a 2 million:1 dynamic contrast ratio. This is an absurd number hyped up by marketing types. What you can actually see on the screen is much more important, so we hooked up the FiOS HD box and BD player to practice.
Before we get into the details, let’s just say that Vizio is easy to set up with a logical menu system. Adjusting the color parameters is easy too, and while you can go crazy with the Custom option, we found Movie to be a good general setting. There was minimal reflection and off-angle viewing was pretty good.
We had a chance to watch the NFL championship on Vizio and on Panasonic Plasma. To the credit of the previous lineup, there was no blur during Peyton Manning’s pass, while the Saints’ black and gold uniforms stood out nicely. Plasma’s performance was better though, though if I were to look at the Vizio alone, there’d be no complaints. Other TV shows mirrored the source material, which is nice, but we found the LG LH90 55-inch did a better job overall, as did Panasonic’s model.
and we started The guards and dark Knight to see how they behaved on the set of Vision. Again, on their own, it was a solid viewing experience, but without the wow factor of comparable HDTVs from LG, Toshiba, or Panasonic. One bonus was the SRS TruSurround, which produced nice surround sound without a 5.1 system; It is rated at 15w x 2 channels.
Conclusion
At under two grand, the Vizio VF551XVT is a good deal for a 55-inch LED-backlit HDTV, but we’d definitely go with the $2,300 LG LH90, which we really liked and is much more aesthetically refined if given the choice; it’s just a better TV, like the Toshiba Regza. On the other hand, a quality 54-inch Panasonic plasma like the TC-P54S1 costs $1,799, money that could be spent on a BD player. However, LED HDTVs are much greener and consume much less energy than plasmas.
It’s great to see the dollar gap closing between plasma and LCD LED HDTVs; This is great news for all HDTV buyers. We’re not converts yet, but it’s hard to go wrong with this technology, though we’d pick another brand here. Note: Vizio’s long-delayed Internet-enabled kit should be available soon. The $2,199 55-inch VF552XVT has the same video specs as the VF551XVT, but accesses Vizio Internet Apps and has built-in 801.11n dual-band networking along with a Bluetooth remote with a built-in keyboard (which looked pretty cool when we saw it a few months ago). If buying a Vizija is in your future plans, we recommend that you wait to audition this model. If not, choose another manufacturer.
advantages:
- Affordable 55 Inch HD LED TV
- 5 HDMI inputs
- Good, but not good image quality.
- A surprisingly robust sound system
Against:
- The quality is not as good as the competition.
- Bad design (missing silver decoration)
- Remote control should be better
- no internet capability
Categories: GAMING
Source: newstars.edu.vn