Toshiba 42H82 42 in. HDTV-Ready TV

I bought mine online with OneCall 3 months ago, and so far I have been very impressed. Settling for the Toshiba was easy, since all of the professional reviews on it were very positive as well as most of the online surveys.

I was looking for a small RPTV that was HD capable at a good price. The 42" screen and small footprint makes it perfect for my family room. Although it is large, the traffic flow forces the seating area to be near the center of the room. That leaves only about 12 feet of viewing space. A larger screen would have been too overwhelming. I have it placed at a 45 deg. angle in the corner so it can be viewed easily from any part of the room and kitchen. The CRTs are bright and can be seen without any significant drop in brightness at any angle.

Out of the box the picture quality was very good and needed only a slight convergence. I wish, though, the set had a 49pt or higher manual convergence, but I plan on getting a professional calibration done in a few more months when the guns have "burned in" enough. I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the picture while watching on so-called "digital" cable (ATT in the Sacramento, CA area). Most of the channels were very sharp but with a slight graininess to them , but that is probably because of the weakness of the cable signal (my Terk TV50 antenna pulled in the same local channels without the grainy picture). As for DVDs, the picture is beautiful. I did notice minute horizontal lines on the screen during bright-white background situations (like when Obe-Wan Kenobe first meets with the Camino prime minister in Star Wars Episode 2). During black-on-black situations (man in a black trench coat in a dark alley, etc.), the power supply is not up to the task of keeping up the definition of objects. I saw things while watching the same movie on my friends 55" Mitsubishi, which has bigger CRTs and power supply, that I could barely see with my set. He paid nearly $1000 more than me, so I'm very willing to live with these minor issues to save that kind of money.

As an aside, my friend has DirectTV, and my cable picture is better than his for almost every channel. Neither one of us has a set top box. With a picture this good, I'm in no hurry to run out and buy one.

Also in the running for my cash were the Hitachi 43FWX20 and the Toshiba 42HDX82. I didn't like the fact that the Hitachi set didn't come with a stand, and its reviews were not as good as they were for the Toshiba set. The Toshiba 42HDX82's picture, even with better CRTs and screen, did not seem any better than its cheaper sibling. The 42H82 was a clear winner.

All in all, this set is well worth the price. Only an extreme videophile that has had the luxury of watching many different HD RPTVs would be able to find any problems with it.