Vizio L37 37" HDTV LCD TV

So about six months ago I decided to start looking at large format TVs. Checking out every Plasma, DLP/LCD projection, and LCD TV that I could find in my local area; I opted out of mail/internet order because I wanted to physically be able to see the unit before I buy it, and for an item that is over a $1000 I wanted a local dealer to complain to if something went wrong.

As popular as plasma TVs are, I immediately dropped them from the list since I am not rich enough to buy a TV that I know will go bad in five years, if not sooner depending on how much you use the TV and whether or not the store turned the unit upside-down or you get a leak. LCD projector TVs looked good until you realize that you will be replacing a $300 - $500 tube every three years; DLPs had a cheaper tube but every one that I could afford seemed to have reviews complaining about focus and color bleeds around the edges of the picture over time, and the need to have a darkened room to watch it in. In all it was probably not a real issue, but enough to make me decide that an LCD TV would be the best choice for me.

So I started to look only at LCD TVs. The TV that I would be replacing was a six year old 25" unit. I did some basic math and some basic measurements and decided that I would like to get a 37" - 42" unit. So I started looking around while trying to stay under $2000; Philips/Magnavox, Polaroid, Westinghouse, Samsung, Gateway, Dell, Sony, a few Circuit City & Best Buy brands that I have never heard of. I was pretty certain that I was going to get a 37" Polaroid model, and then I walked into Sam's Club. I noticed on display there was a very nice looking Vizio 37" LCD TV, right next to a Samsung of the same size. The image on the display was actually better than the higher priced Samsung. At the time it was running around $1500 so it fell right into my price range.

So I wrote down the brand and model info and did some research. The Vizio brand is made by a company called V, Inc., and most of their displays and backlights are made by a little known company... Samsung. Everything that I could find out about the units and the company that makes them was positive; and there was more info on this company than most of the off-brand TV models that I have looked at.

So I made another trip to Sam's Club and really looked at the unit. Starting with the back; as with all big screen TVs it had the standard composite, component and S-video inputs, audio inputs incase you use the TV speaker (I do not since it all runs through my receiver), then I noticed a few variations to the norm, this unit had two coax inputs, because it has an standard turner and a HDTV tuner built in (many new units do not have any tuner built in, let alone two), it has a standard RGB input incase you want to hook a computer up to it, and an HDMI (High Def Multimedia Input); it also had a second set of video inputs on the right side of the monitor in case you needed to hook a camcorder or digital camera up to it. Basically it had all of the inputs that I was expecting to find, and a few more. I did have to laugh at the box. On every side of the box there was a large disclaimer "This is an HDTV, if you run a normal TV signal to it, you will not have a High Definition Image."

So I decided that this was the TV for me; still I waited another week figuring what was the rush, I had already waited six months. The next week I went in ready to buy, before loading it on my flatbed cart I noticed to my surprise the price had dropped all the way down to $1195. Not only was it a nicely configured TV, but now it was at a price no other model I had looked at even came close. The unit itself only weighs 65 pounds so I was able to self-load the box on the cart and into my vehicle. I also picked up an HDMI cable when I was there since they are only $22 at Sam's as opposed to the $35 - $100 they are everywhere else.

A funny thing happened in the parking lot; Now I shop at Sam's quite often, and have shopped there for over 15 years, as a man I have never had another customer offer to help me load anything into my car. Put a big screen TV on your cart and I tell you what, every man in the parking lot who wants their own TV like it, offers to help you load it. I actually had three different guys come out of nowhere to ask if I needed help loading it. Us men and our toys.

Got the unit home and first had to move the old TV out of the way. Let me put it this way, the new larger TV is much lighter than my old TV. Hooking the unit up was not hard at all. It used most of the same connections as my previous TV, except instead of using the component out from the DVD player I used the HDMI out. I had to use the remote that came with it to set it up since it wasn't yet programmed into my universal remote. Here came the next surprise. You can configure all of the settings for each individual input. So I can select surround sound audio for one input and stereo for another. When you switch through inputs in keeps the settings for each one.

The display was very nice. The local channels though my digital cable box where, like the TV's box said, defiantly not Hi-Def, but they never were, the digital channels were very crisp and clear, the HDMI display from my DVD player (it is up-sampled to HDTV levels by the DVD player) was incredible, not HD but very nice. After playing with it for a few hours I hooked one of my laptops up to it, and as advertised, it makes a very nice wide screen computer display that is easy to read across the room. Finally I decided to play around. I had read that some cable companies have HDTV channels, local and public cable, access being broadcast on their cable network. So I split my cable and connected it to my DTV coax input. Sure enough there were 16 digital channels that the Vizio built in HD receiver could pick up, including the local Fox, ABC, NBC and PBS channels. I tell you what, not many of the programs are yet in HDTV, but the ones that are come through beautiful.

All in all the TV works perfectly. Everything that I have thrown it's way has been displayed without issue. I now have my Harmony Logitech remote set up to control it and everything else in my poor man's home theater. (Note: if you have a Harmony remote they do not list a Vizio brand, select V, Inc instead) Now I am just waiting for Hi-Def programming to be the standard instead of the exception. Either way, I am glad that I made the jump to HDTV and widescreen TV with this television.