[Franco7x]

Been racking my brain over this.

• Looking for a 40"+ LCD or Plasma that has acceptable audio out of the box. Speakers facing forward a plus.
  
  A brand name would be preferred.
  
  720p or 1080
  
  Will never be used for Xbox or gaming.
  
  Mainly for HDTV Cable via Comcast, so remote most used would be the STB.
  
  Budget is $750-ish.

Came close to pulling the trigger on Toshiba 40AV535U, but prices went back up and I was worried NewEgg would charge me to ship it back to them if there were any problems with the set.


Liked the Panny 42PX80, but the wife liked the crispness of the images in the LCDs better.


LG's 42" plasma did have a crisper image but I'm unsure about their burn-in and calibration hassles.


The 46" Sceptre at Costco is tempting, but I worry about it's longevity even after the 2 year extended warranty.


Also saw a refurbed 40" Sony from SonyStyle but their reseller rating was very low, so i passed on it.


Any help or info is appreciated, thanks.

 

[Jakeman02]

Stick with a named brand. You can sometimes find Toshiba in your budget, also Vizio is a good lower priced name brand. I would recommend staying away from the generic names like the Sceptre you mentioned even if you have to wait a while to find within your budget. As for acceptable sound out of the box, that's unlikely to happen with any set, depending on your definition of acceptable, however you can get an inexpensive set of pc speakers and greatly improve the sound.

 

[woodyjoe]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Franco7x /forum/post/15490529


Been racking my brain over this.

• Looking for a 40"+ LCD or Plasma that has acceptable audio out of the box. Speakers facing forward a plus.
  
  A brand name would be preferred.
  
  720p or 1080
  
  Will never be used for Xbox or gaming.
  
  Mainly for HDTV Cable via Comcast, so remote most used would be the STB.
  
  Budget is $750-ish.

Came close to pulling the trigger on Toshiba 40AV535U, but prices went back up and I was worried NewEgg would charge me to ship it back to them if there were any problems with the set.


Liked the Panny 42PX80, but the wife liked the crispness of the images in the LCDs better.


LG's 42" plasma did have a crisper image but I'm unsure about their burn-in and calibration hassles.


The 46" Sceptre at Costco is tempting, but I worry about it's longevity even after the 2 year extended warranty.


Also saw a refurbed 40" Sony from SonyStyle but their reseller rating was very low, so i passed on it.


Any help or info is appreciated, thanks.

The toshiba 525 model can usually be found in your range.

With plasma you'll get more reflections.

Not sure about the sceptre but I'd buy one of them before I bought a refurbished tv.

 

[rmae]

The Toshiba 40RV525U 1080p LCD is on sale a lot at many places. A friend of mine got one at Fry's for $697 right after Xmas.

 

[Franco7x]

I want to thank everyone for their help and suggestions.

It looks like the Toshiba 40RV525U will be my main focus barring a sudden price drop of a comparable name-brand unit.

I just wanted to make sure that I wasn't missing some other model that was common knowledge to be a good deal in that price range.


I wish they still made just monitors w/o the tuner at a lower cost. Some of us will never use the built-in tuners that are included with these sets. I know Panasonic does but those are pricey commercial displays.


Anyway thanks again, if you happen to see anything else please feel free to PM me.

 

[ultralight1]

I do not believe Toshiba does not do 1080P via the PC VGA input.


The 46" Sceptre does - perfectly, pixel for pixel.


UL