Westinghouse TX-52F480S

The Westinghouse Digital TX-52F480S attractively displays images and has a few nice touches, but it doesn’t match the better TVs in its price range.

The Westinghouse Digital TX-52F480S ($2550, as of November 4, 2008) is the second-most-expensive HDTV in its size category. Though it costs only $50 more than the Samsung PN50A760, this set falls short of the Samsung on image quality and features


Test Center evaluations, the Digital TX-52F480S denticulate adequately able-bodied admitting getting the alone 50- to 52-inch LCD HDTV we activated that didn't bear a 120-Hz brace rate, this archetypal denticulate additional in our achievement tests, outscoring such 120-Hz models as the LG Electronics 52LG70 and the Sharp LC-52D85U (Samsung's PN50A760, however, accomplished advanced of it by a ample margin.) The Westinghouse provided bland motion in our NASCAR analysis clip, area the advantages of a 120-Hz HDTV were a lot of acceptable to be discernible.
Our console of board begin added issues with the angel quality, though: Nearly every adjudicator acclaimed the reddish, sunburned cast the TV gave Caucasian derma tones; several board empiric pixelation and fuzziness. And the TX-52F480S bootless our HD HQV Benchmark Jaggies test.
In my hands-on use, this model's audio was wretched. At 61 percent of abounding aggregate (full aggregate was too loud for my health), the congenital speakers lacked activating range: The cine soundtrack I acclimated in testing articulate flat, muddy, and strained. Even at 40 percent of abounding volume, the aural ache was distracting. Anyone who buys this set should assets the centralized speakers for account and TV shows, and use a abstracted complete arrangement if watching movies and concerts.
The Digital TX-52F480S's limited ascendancy is middling. Westinghouse put the arrow buttons abreast the bottom, area they're difficult to reach, and the frequently acclimated Mute and Input buttons are tiny and agonizingly situated. In addition, the limited lacks backlighting and can't be programmed. On a absolute note, the limited has a Closed Caption button.
A bigger additional is the set's Autosource feature: Turn on a DVD amateur or added A/V antecedent that's affiliated to the television, and Autosource automatically switches to it.
Overall, the Westinghouse TX-52F480S is a appealing acceptable TV. But added models action added appearance for beneath money

LG Electronics 42LG60

This 42-inch HDTV's advanced features, impressive style, and very good image quality come at a cost.

Lots of thought has gone into LG Electronics' chic 42-inch "Scarlet" 42LG60 HDTV, as evidenced by everything from the faux-leather remote control to the useful and brilliantly navigable on-screen display menu. But the niceties come at a price: At $1800 (as of November 4, 2008), the 42LG60 costs $700 more than one of its two younger 42-inch siblings, the 42PG25, but $200 less than the other, the 42LGX.

The absolute aback of the LCD console is red, which produces red accents if you attending at the TV from an angle; the blush serves little purpose, though, because humans rarely absorb abundant time gazing at the aback of their big-screen TVs. The bezel is attenuate on the top and sides, but about three times thicker at the bottom, area LG hides the unit's superior-sounding, down-firing speakers. As nice as it is not to see apostle grilles, the extra-large basal bezel was confusing and unattractive, abnormally back aggregate abroad about the affectation looks stunning.
A amount of avant-garde appearance appear standard. Individual six-color controls are simple to acquisition in the Expert Control akin of the account menu. And with a individual bang of the remote, you can locate and acclimatize abounding accurately calibrated presets, from Sports approach to Movie mode.
Most sensors just admeasurement the accuracy of ambient ablaze in the room. But LG's Intelligent Sensor ambience uses a circuitous set of algorithms to admeasurement not just accuracy but aswell contrast, color, sharpness, and white balance. The affection formed able-bodied a lot of of the time, admitting on one break it briefly broken some images while ceaselessly aggravating to acclimatize the settings to bout its afflicted surroundings.
The set becoming a achievement account of Acceptable in our PC World Test Center lab tests--the aforementioned appraisement that the Westinghouse TX-42F430S, which costs about $600 less, received. Still, affair the Scarlet's college amount nets you acceptable angel quality, abundant card options, and added ports such as USB (which you can use to play music or appearance photos from any USB drive.)
Should you be advantageous abundant to add an LG Scarlet to your active room, you won't be disappointed.

Sharp LC-52D85U

The Sharp LC-52D85U offers good images but fewer features than some competing TVs.

Design is not the Sharp's LC-52D85U ($2300, as of November 4, 2008) strong point. The on-screen menus, the remote, and even the manual could have used a once-over to make them more friendly. But this model does well on the most important criterion, image quality.
Test Center evaluations of performance, it angry with the LG 52LG70 for third abode all-embracing in this admeasurement category. Our board tended to accord it Good or Very Good ratings on a lot of measures, and one juror accurately accepted the set's accuracy in assuming details. Even so, our board detected some shortcomings: One acclaimed arresting artifacting, and addition complained that in a 480p DVD of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King arena (chapter 12), colors looked done out. I noticed pixelation and begin abounding scenes badly bright. And admitting this set has a 120-Hz brace rate, we saw no affirmation that the faster brace helped bland out motion in our NASCAR clip.
The Sharp delivers adequate sound, but there was no absolute abyss to its bogus beleaguer sound, and no action to an agency blast. Loud sounds suffered from slight harshness.
Unfortunately, architecture deficiencies accomplish Sharp's limited and its airheaded difficult to use. The limited is brindle with tiny, difficult-to-press buttons. Admitting it has a backlight, this affection doesn't accommodate abundant advice in the dark. Press the Ablaze button (which glows absolutely nicely), and alone the continued Volume and Channel buttons, additional four others, ablaze up. Since the labels aren't illuminated, it's cryptic which button is which.
Other interface issues abound. Click the Ascribe button, and you get a account of all accessible inputs, whether you accept any accouterments affiliated to them or not; worse, the inputs are blue-blooded ‘Input 1', ‘Input 2', etc., after any adumbration of which is an AV ascribe and which is an HDMI (at atomic you can rename the inputs). The chiral has a busy, airedale layout, and the absence of an basis makes award bare advice disproportionately difficult.
Furthermore, the Sharp LC-52D85U doesn't abutment picture-in-picture or any multimedia capabilities via USB, SD Card, or ethernet.
At $2300, this archetypal provides the best account for its amount a part of the 50- and 52-inch sets. It's not the easiest television to use, and it lacks some features, but maybe those appearance aren't account the added $200 you'd accept to pay for the Samsung PN50A760 (which has them). On the added hand, buyers on a account may be absorbed abroad by the LG Electronics 50PG30, a 50-inch plasma-screen HDTV that costs about $600 beneath than the Sharp.

LG Electronics 52LG70

The LG 52LG70 is a no-frills LCD HDTV that produces good-looking images

It bears a family resemblance to its plasma sibling, the 52PG30, but the LG Electronics 52LG70 LCD HDTV is clearly the more advanced mode


Whereas the 52PG30's capital card starts with six icons, the 52LG70 adds two more, Ascribe and USB. And clashing with the 52PG30, you can bung a beam drive into the 52LG70 to appearance photos and accept to MP3s.
This archetypal packs four HDMI ports (one added than the 52PG30) and two optical audio outputs into its 52-inch frame. But it lacks a picture-in-picture mode.
Setup is simple: Well-placed connectors and a bureaucracy astrologer that asks whether the set needs home or abundance enhancement advice things along. And the well-designed, analytic on-screen airheaded abridge day-to-day.
When you columnist the remote's Ascribe button to change from your cable ascribe to your DVD amateur (for example), the TV displays icons for all of your inputs; the inputs that are angry on are accent and aggregate calm at the front. Want to acclimatize the aspect arrangement or the TV's backlighting? Columnist the Q (for Quick) Card button for burning admission to these accepted options. Those buttons--and others on the long, attenuate remote--are of adequate admeasurement and are well-placed for the user's thumb. Though the limited lacks backlighting, it (unlike the LG 50PG30's remote) can be programmed for use with added devices.
Our PC World Test Center board rated this model's angel superior as average. I saw several faces with the aberrant blush and arrangement of an oil painting rather than animal flesh. All of the board noticed pixelation and added artifacts in assorted tests, abnormally during fast activity and dissolves. Some images in our tests seemed a bit soft, too, but in accepted we begin the angel superior pleasing.
The 52LG70 is a actual adequate HDTV at an adequate price. But a bigger TV in the aforementioned admeasurement class (the Samsung PN50A760) is accessible at the aforementioned price, and you can acquisition appealing adequate sets (like the Sharp LC-52D85U) that are beneath expensive.

Top 5 50- and 52-Inch HDTVs Samsung PN50A760

Samsung PN50A760

             Samsung's PN50A760 ($2500, as of November 4, 2008) combines air-conditioned multimedia capabilities and abundant angel quality. In our lab tests, this claret HDTV ashamed the competition. It is the alone archetypal in its admeasurement class to acquire a appraisement of Very Good for angel quality.

One juror noted some pixelation in several of the tests, but even so she declared this Samsung the "best out of all tested," and noted that some images looked crisp and sharp. Another juror commended the set's excellent color balance. I admired its handling of fast motion in our NASCAR test. It had a notably wide viewing angle, too.
In my hands-on tests, the PN50A760 provided excellent virtual surround sound, close to what you'd experience with a dedicated speaker system. A movie soundtrack's sudden organ blast had a powerful, in-the-gut heft.
The PN50A760 is as well designed as the 46-inch Samsung LN46A650 is. Back connectors face out and are easy to reach from the side of the unit. A setup wizard helps you optimize the set for home use in your home (as opposed to in a store). The TV's menus are thoroughly readable, and the Input menu gives priority to attached devices that are actually turned on, so you don't have to scroll past a bunch of irrelevant options to select the device you want to use.
The PN50A760 has a host of slick multimedia capabilities, too. Press the remote's Content button to get a full screen of options, including scenic photos, recipes, exercises, and children's activities--all built into the TV's flash memory (and not updatable). You can plug a USB drive into the side-mounted USB port to view your own photos or to play audio files. Or you can plug an ethernet cable into the PN50A760 and view media from a PC set up as a DLNA server (the TV comes with appropriate software for this).
The remote is almost identical to the excellent one that comes with the Samsung LN46A650. Backlighting makes it easy to use in the dark; it is programmable; and it has a convenient jog wheel in place of the usual arrows. Regrettably, Samsung neglected to provide a picture-in-picture button, despite the TV's picture-in-picture feature.
Whereas the PN50A760's remote lacks an aspect ratio button (called P.Size on the LN46A650 remote), however, this model offers the aforementioned Content button. You can still adjust the aspect ratio from the Tools menu; it's just not as easy to access.
At $2500, the Samsung PN50A760 is pricey, albeit no more expensive than two less impressive 52-inch models--the LG Electronics 52LG70 and the Westinghouse Digital TX-52F480S. And with the Samsung, you get what you pay for in image quality and extra features.

vizio Vizio VO42LF

Competing HDTVs rarely beat Vizio models on price. A case in point is the Vizio VO42LF, a model we first reviewed back in July that remains a well-rounded package at a low price. At $1100 (as of November 4, 2008), this model has the same price as the newer Vizio SV420XVT. But it lags behind its cousin slightly in performance and specs


Our board anticipation that the VO42LF offered a natural-looking picture, admitting some images looked down-covered to our panelists. In one instance, artifacts and pixelation appeared about a analysis blow of affective cars. And in a David Letterman clip, beef tones looked a bit too saturated.
Good video deserves acceptable audio, and the VO42LF provides it, aural the limitations of any HDTV's congenital speakers. The complete was absolutely addled at abounding volume, but even the a lot of adherent heavy-metal fan won't be tempted to use that setting. At a added reasonable 50 percent volume, audio was still a bit muddy, but bigger than the complete of a lot of TVs.
The VO42LF disappoints in affluence of use and added features, admitting Vizio shows some advance in both respects over accomplished models. For instance, the aggregation has added some easy-access inputs to the ancillary of the TV. But those connectors are recessed, authoritative them harder to ability than added TVs' easy-access inputs. And the blow of the inputs face down, unnecessarily arrest access.
The limited ascendancy looks like a applicant for an Apple Computer Minimalist Design Award. It's smallish, with few buttons and a strange, pits-in-a-grid surface. But its attempted breach doesn't accomplish it acceptable or automatic to use. For instance, it has no Agenda button; so you accept to columnist the Enter button (which is labeled neither 'Enter' nor 'Menu') to admission the menu. And back the limited doesn't accept an Aspect Ratio button or a Account Size button, you have to go abysmal into the airheaded to zoom in on a 4:3 program.
You can't apprehend accomplishment in an HDTV at this amount (hundreds of dollars beneath than the Toshiba 42XV545U and the LG 42LG60 Scarlet), however. What you see is what you get, and the Vizio VO42LF shows you affluence after banishment you to max out your acclaim card.

Top 5 42-Inch HDTVs

Our Best Buy, LG Electronic's 42PG25 Plasma, boasts an attractive price ($1000) and impressive features. Image performance ratings run very close in this category, so be sure to check out our chart.

You can bung just about annihilation into the 42PG25. It boasts eight inputs (four HDMI, two composite, and two component), S-Video, and two optical outputs, additional a USB anchorage for examination your photos and alert to your MP3s. All of those plugs are simple to get to; some face apparent on the aback of the set, others are army on the side.
Once you've set up the TV, you can about-face calmly amid inputs. Press the ascribe button on the remote, and ample icons apery anniversary ascribe arise at the basal of the screen. The alive inputs--those that are currently sending out a signal--are aggregate calm at the alpha and are highlighted.
The added on-screen displays and airheaded are able-bodied designed, too, with large, easy-to-read icons. The remote's Q Card button brings up an abbreviated account of items that you're acceptable to use frequently, such as Aspect Ratio, Video Mode, and Audio Mode. Regrettably, though, the card items abridgement descriptions, so you accept to assumption what 'Clear Voice' agency or you accept to attending it up in the manual. Another drawback: The absence of a Display button on the limited prevents you from calmly blockage the accepted channel, program, and abstruse specs.
Surprisingly, the 42PG25 had a harder time with motion than the 42-inch 120-Hz LCDs that we akin it against--the LG Electronics 42LGX, the Toshiba 42XV545U, and the Vizio SV420XVT--which suggests that 120 Hz absolutely agency something. One adjudicator begin "motion becloud actual noticeable" on our NASCAR test, appraisement the 42PG25's becloud as "probably [the] worst" a part of the 42-inch sets. Two board noticed a "slight clashing bricks" in Mission: Impossible III's Vatican bank climb. And anybody on the console gave it a low account on our Jaggies analysis from the HD HQV Benchmark. Despite these angel quirks, however, our board rated its images Good overall; I frequently rated it Actual Good if motion wasn't an issue.
Though not the fanciest HDTV you can buy, nor the one with the best angel quality, the 42PG25 is an adorable set--and its low amount enhances its appeal

HDTV makers and Net-based

Starting with the TVs, Panasonic announced two new connected TVs this year, as well as new direct-to-TV content agreements with Amazon movies, YouTube and others.
Similarly, LG announced direct-to-TV content arrangements with Netflix Watch Instantly, CinemaNow and YouTube. (A Netflix person I spoke to here at the show says his company intents to pipe its Watch Instantly movie service directly to every device "from toaster ovens to ham radios." LG also announced before the CES show that those same net video services could be accesses and viewed through their new connected Blu-Ray Disc players.
Sony's new XBR9 and Z-series televisions are both Ethernet-ready and will be able to stream video from the likes of YouTube, Amazon, and music from Slacker.
On the content side, Yahoo is leading the way with its new Yahoo ConnectedTV product, a platform allowing a series of "web widgets" to appear in a "dock" at the bottom of the screen of your Internet-connected TV. So while you're watching your favorite TV show, these "mini-applications" let you pop out to the Web and watch YouTube videos, social network on News Corp's MySpace.com, track stocks and sports teams using Yahoo's services, buy and sell on eBay, micro-blog on Twitter, or look at photos at Flickr.
Expect many other websites to develop widgets for Yahoo's ConnectedTV platform. I spoke casually with a Skype executive who wondered why his company did not already have one on display - a Skype widget would be a natural for Yahoo's platform.
Yahoo says that new connected TVs from Samsung, Sony, LG and Vizio will support its ConnectedTV widgets. Samsung will likely be the first TV maker to hit the market with Internet content on the TV this summer. Toshiba is said to have a separate agreement to provide Yahoo content on its new connected sets later this year.

Westinghouse TX-42F430S

The TX-42F430S is a great basic 42-inch HDTV, but it lacks the good looks and extra ports that higher-end models offer.

Westinghouse has established a niche for itself by producing inexpensive HDTVs that produce good-quality images but omit the advanced features and sophisticated style common to high-end models. The company's TX-42F430S ($1200 as of November 4, 2008) is no exception.

Test Center lab tests, the set displayed actual nice images, earning a account of Good. In fact, this Westinghouse garnered the aforementioned achievement account as the LG 42LG60. We did notice, however, that the TX-42F430S tends to skew against red in beef tones.
Also noteworthy were the set's speakers, which produced acceptable complete even if the aggregate was maxed out. In contrast, the aggressive Vizio VO42LF delivered acceptable but hardly addled complete at abstinent levels and more addled complete as the ambience approached 11.
The limited ascendancy fabricated abyssal the card and award advantageous settings (such as angel and complete adjustment) a breeze. The limited feels a cheaply made, as abounding remotes on low-price HDTVs do, and it sports a amount of buttons that serve no apparent purpose. I did acknowledge its committed buttons for bound alteration inputs, however.
The Westinghouse TX-42F430S performs able-bodied as an entry-level HDTV. If you aren't a stickler for style, personality, and added appearance such as a anatomic USB port, you'll acquisition that this bargain 42-incher delivers the basics absolutely well.

HDTVs and Internet Tie Knot in Vegas

There is no Elvis wedding chapel hosting the ceremony here in Las Vegas this week, but two technologies tied the knot: The Internet and HDTVs.
The marriage of TV and Internet content on one big screen in the living room has been a dream in the tech and telecom industries for years now. At this year's CES, a number of tech companies are taking the first major steps toward making that dream a reality.
Some of the most promising of those steps are being made by TV manufacturers introducing Internet-connected TVs, and media companies like Yahoo designing ways to get Web content onto those TVs.
A spate of new Internet-connected TVs were announced here at CES, including ones from Sony, Samsung, Panasonic, Toshiba and Vizio. Connected TVs come with an ethernet port on the back so that you can plug your DSL directly into the TV and watch YouTube videos, rent Internet movies from services like Netflix or view your Flickr photos from the comfort of your couch. You don't need a PC, a keyboard or a mouse, just a remote control.