SD Sony vs. Soyo LCD vs. Westinghouse LCD vs. Olevia LCD?  

I just got the 32" Soyo DYLT032B yesterday. I ordered it from Walmart online. It is listed as [EDIT], which fits under your 1000.00 budget with change to spare. My main purpose for this TV is to play my XBOX 360 in high definition. I originally had a 17" monitor with a 16ms response time, 250nit brightness, and 500:1 contrast ratio. It was okay for gaming, but I wanted something a little bigger and better. After months of searching, I found this TV at Walmart, but I was a bit sceptical. I did not want to spend 1500-1800 dollar on a 23" just because it had the word Samsung or Sony listed on the box. On the other hand, every HDTV I got from Walmart was sent back because of poor performance (stay away from ilo!). I took a chance on the Soyo since I know I can send it back if I don't like it and since it boasted all of its specs.

I ordered it Friday evening via a giftcard and credit card, both from Walmart. It arrived Wednesday, an entire day before it was supposed to arrive. I hooked up the 360 via the same VGA cable that I used with the 17" monitor. The VGA hookup to this TV was horrible for the 360. The specs boast of having a 1366 x 768 pixel resolution, but when I tried to use that setting it was unusable. The book, as well as the Soyo web site, states that you cannot use this resolution, so why the hell would they list it as such? It suggests using the 1024 x 720 setting, but the screen was still washed out. Also, the ghosting was worse than it was on my 17" monitor (the Soyo specs boast of an ultra-fast 8ms response time, but my 16ms monitor out-performed the Soyo with the VGA cable).

Fortunately, I had the premium 360 pack with the component cables. I hooked these up and saw a great improvement on picture quality. The Soyo has a standard setting, plus a vivid setting out the box that looks fine, but I always like to customize my settings anyways. the 360 automatically set the display at 480p, so i went into the 360 settings and set it at 720p and it looks great. Now back to the Soyo.......while in customization mode, you have a ton of settings to tweak around with, such as a backlight, contrast, brightness, color sharpness, color temps, etc. This allowed me to set the tv to my personal desired settings. Keep in mind that so far I have only played around with this set for an hour or so playing Call of Duty and Oblivion. Both looked great, but the only problem to me is the ghosting. Considering that this TV is supposed to have an "Ultra-Fast 8ms Response Time" it seemd more like 16ms. I know this for a fact since the previous monitor I used for gaming is listed as having a 16ms response time, and the ghosting, at least to me, is about the same or maybe just a tad bit quicker for the Soyo, but defintately not 8ms. The 8ms is grey-to-grey, not black-to-white-to black. So in real-world terms, it is probably 12-15 ms black-to-white-to-black which is fine for most gamers, but I am very sensitive to ghosting. I will say that the ghosting is not as apparant through the component jack as it is with the VGA jack (which was probably about 20ms). It should be noted that the response time given by most off-brand LCD manufacturers is often the fastest measured, and not the average or maximum response time (which may be significantly longer). I think that this is the case with the Soyo.

Overall, for the price, the Soyo is a great deal depending on what you plan to do with it. It has a ton of connections (including 2 component and even an HDMI), and spec-wise can match LCD's of almost twice the cost. The VGA connection is a disappointment, but the component is much better and allows you more power to tweek settings. The only issue I have so far is the ghosting, but I will play around with some of the settings to see if I can minimize this issue, but its not a MAJOR problem even if you are sensitive to ghosting like me. Trust me, I would much rather have a TV of this size and quality for 800 bucks with minor ghosting than pay 1500, 1800, or 2000 bucks for a name-brand system with similar specs.

I hope this review is helpful, and I'll do an update once I have had the TV for a few days to play around with it.

I still feel the same disappointment. It amazes me how unregulated electronics can be. THe advertisment states that it has an ultra-fast 8ms response time. This is the main reason I pursued this lcd, especially since the add stated that it is great for sporting events and online and video gaming. I expected to play my XBOX 360 in all its HD glory. Not true. The ghosting on this lcd is even more apparent now than it was when I first got it and it seriously takes away from the gaming experience. I can only stand to play on the TV a maximum of 20 minutes since the blurring gives me a headache. The contrast ratio is not quite 1000:1. Like I mentioned above, I do have a 17" lcd with 16ms response time and 500:1 contrast ratio and it outperforms the Soyo. Text on the Soyo looks crisp after playing with settings, but the slightest movement or motion during video games causes a smearing/blur effect. I would say for gaming, based on playing video games on several different types of models/specs, that the average response time is about 20ms, regardless of what settings you use. I am seriously considering taking this tv back, but its hard trying to find a good hdtv for gaming (I originally pursued HD CRT's but the only ones I have access to are cheap and have geometry problems). Its sad that a person is now forced to spend over $1000.00 just to have a good gaming TV, whether it be CRT, LCD, DLP, or Plasma.

After futher review, I give the Soyo a 2 out of 5 stars.

Are you using quality vga or other cables to hook up to your lcd tv? In my experience I have noticed that cheap cables are prone to ghosting issues. I had the problem hooking up to my 42 inch OLEVIA lcd tv. With a factory 6 ft cable from my monitor everything was crystal clear no ghosting. When I purchased a longer cable (Cables to go are the worst!) I noticed tons of issues including ghosting. Make sure you spend the extra dough for a quality cable. But if your broke like me try cables from Startech they make pretty good one and it's what I use now 25 ft with clear images and no ghosting and I think my TV specs are something like 11ms response not sure though... Hope this helps in one way or another. :)