Mitsubishi WS-55857 55 in. TV

* Great Screen Size
* Widescreen
* Beautiful picture Quality
* Reds are a little too bright
* Lots of connectors
* HDTV
* Remote is nice
* Easy to move around

My wife and I bought this tv about 6 months ago after doing a week of research. We chose this because of a salesman's recommendation. This particular tv wasn't rated on epinions then, but similar Mitsubishi tvs were, so we thought we'd go with it. We also liked the fact that Mitsubishi stands behind their products. They guarantee that if something new comes out, they will try their best to make it available through an upgrade to current customers.

Picture: Very sharp. Very large. Beautiful colors. My brother and I play both the xbox and dreamcast on this tv, and when he goes home, he complains about the quality of his direct view tv. There are tons of controls in the menu that allow you to fiddle with the picture until its just right for the location that you're in.

Quality: This set is built very sturdy. At the same time, it is very easy to move around. My wife and I rearranged our furniture after placing this in our apartment with no problems at all. I've banged into the front screen and the set has suffered no ill effects. (I'm a little clumsy... ;) )

Ease of use: This tv is so easy to use. Mitsubishi went to the trouble of including a very nice menu setup system. I keep the inputs off that I'm not using, since there are so many of them that I don't want to spend 10 minutes getting to the one I want. The menu allows you to set up (among other things) favorite channels, which inputs are on, closed captions, video items like convergence and brightness, audio items like simulated surround sound (which is pretty good), clock, naming of channels and inputs so that you don't have to remember the numbers, vchip functions, and color temperatures. This is but a small subset of the many functions available. Suffice it to say that Mitsubishi went out of their way to allow the user to adjust as many things as possible. They also tried to automate things that normal users would not be interested in, such as setting of contrast and brightness. (Advanced users may tune this by themselves, if they wish, as with other automated features.)

Remote: The remote included with the 55857 is durable and a good layout. All of your tv functions are included here, as well as the ability to control other equipment through the universal remote features. The remote has a backlight when a button is pushed, allowing use in a dark room.

Connectors: This tv comes with a vga connector, 5 s-video connectors (1 up front), 4 RCA jacks (1 up front), 2 Component inputs, and a DTV component input. This gives me more components than I'll really need, even with a few game consoles, a camcorder, and other equpiment.

Reproducing non 16:9 inputs: This tv has several modes to reproduce non 16:9 inputs. Standard fills the screen, stretched stretches the outside a bit, narrow displays the signal with bands on the outside, zoom displays most of the center of the picture, and expand crops some off both the top and sides to display the picture. I usually watch on standard and very rarely do I notice any real problems.

Sound: This tv includes 2 small speakers (I believe that they are 5") in the front of it. While these speakers produce passable sound and a pretty good simulated surround sound setup, they aren't gonna match up to a good surround set. For casual viewing they'll do just fine, but for a home theater, you'll want to get a good surround set.

All in all, this tv is really a great set. It completely and faithfully reproduces movies. Combined with a great surround sound set, you'll find yourself going to the movie theater less and less. If you've got the money, go for it.