HDTV Trends

Love It.
Bought this in December 2007, and it was money well spent. My wife wanted to upgrade from our 35" tube. I was reluctant, but am happy I went along. I had seen LCDs at friends and relatives houses, and was convinced that they were not that much better than what we had. Well they definately didn't have this.

The picture quality on the HD chanels is amazing. My wife, who does not watch sports, will watch now just to see the picture.

The sound is a little worse than what we had in our tube TV, but I knew that going in. If I want realy good sound, for a movie or music, I run it through our surround sound and its all good.

If you can find one of these at a discount for its age, you will not be dissapointed.

amazing television for the price
I bought this television 4 months ago at circuit city as an open box item for 0. It was an amazing deal, though I cracked the thing last night moving it through the house. Even though I had a three year warranty on it, CC won't cover the crack. It was great while it lasted... Very sharp picture with the ps3 hooked up and incredible color and brightness. I'm going to miss it a lot. Definitely recommend it, but always shop around for the best deal. Do your research and you might just find as good a deal as I did! And make for damn sure that your warranty covers accidental damage!

Bad LCD panel after 16 months
I purchased this TV along with a HD-DVD player in May 2007 and I thought it was a pretty good TV after doing extensive research and looking at the picture quality.

The worst case scenaio just happened this weekend during the football game- the LCD panel went bad a little more than 3 months outside of the warranty. After talking to Toshiba, I had an authorized tech out to check it. He voltmetered one connector on the main panel and said the board on the LCD is bad but they don't make that part so you have to replace the whole panel. The panel is not cost effective to replace since a brand new set will cost just as much. Toshiba would not offer any financial assistance whatsoever after speaking to a supervisor. They said the set is too old.

Bottom line- if you are going to buy this TV get an extended warranty. A TV this expensive should last more than 16 months. The TV and the defunct HD-DVD player were a total bust. AVOID TOSHIBA!

bad panel
I purchased this TV in June of 2007 and was absolutely happy with my purchase until about 9 months later when the panel went bad. A dark line showed up on the right side of the screen. While it was still watchable, it ws definitely annoying, and since I was still in my warranty period I took it to the shop to have it replaced. They took care of everything and even though it took a month for the new panel to be shipped (these are large, fragile items and have to be shipped through a ground freight company, so no matter which manufacturer and repair shop you are dealing with this is a fact of life), everything went well and I am satisfied with the repair.

One thing you have to keep in mind about the panel on your LCD TV is that there only a couple of companies in the world that manufacture all of the panels for the TV's. So if you get a bad panel, it isn't necessarily Toshiba's fault. They buy the panel, then build their brand of TV around it. If your panel has a defect, you were just unlucky and shouldn't give the manufacturer a bad review unless they handled the service poorly (which some people here have with Toshiba).

My Preciousssss!
I bought this TV about 3 months ago. I waited to write a review after putting it through a fairly extensive test period.

This TV is nothing less than outstanding. The picture is gorgeous. The set looks humongous since it replaced a 26 inch LCD. It is a little heavier than I'd prefer, but having a swivel base surely helps. The default picture setting is set to "sports", which has a very bright and unnatural color scheme. After playing with the regular setting choices, I found the "document" setting to be the best for my eyes. This set has many input choices, and I like the fact that it has a set of AV inputs on the side. This is very useful if you mount the TV to a wall, or it's hard to get to the back for any reason.

Hooked up to my standard cable connection, it picks up all the unscrambled digital channels. This means I am able to watch my local broadcast channels in their full HD glory!

Our XBox 360 is connected through HDMI, and games as well as movies are truly breathtaking. Because of the size of this TV, I came to realize that not all DVDs are made equal. The difference between poor quality DVDs and the "near HD" quality ones is suddenly quite obvious. I'm still going to wait to get a blueray (or whatever the next HD standard) disk player when they cost less than 0. Until then, I'll be very discriminating when purchasing DVDs.

I like the power saving feature in this TV, even though some reviewers find it annoying. It causes the TV to take a few seconds before it powers up. This delay also allows for the other AV components to turn on and get ready for the party. ;-)

If I have to pick something to complain about it would be the remote. Sure it has all the functions, etc, but it performs poorly. I find myself having to press a button several times to get it to register. Perhaps it's a problem with the batteries. Nevertheless, I am using a Harmony 880 remote instead, and it works fantastic. No problem.

I hope this TV is good for many years of moderate use. Time will tell. For now, I am a very happy camper (now bordering into couch potato territory).