Toshiba 55HT1U 55-Inch 1080p 120Hz LCD HDTV

Easily the Best LCD Value Available, February 7, 2011

Value – I purchased the Toshiba 55HT1U via the Amazon.com website for $999.99 plus about $80 shipping. I’ve seen the price as low as $888.88 on their website in the past couple of weeks. You can’t come close to the value of this set with any other product that I’ve seen, particularly for the screen size and picture quality.

Delivery – Abt Electronics filled the order for the Toshiba 55HT1U that I purchased about a month ago. A local Pilot contractor delivered the TV, but would only help me move it as far as the garage. The TV was well packaged, with no visible dings to the box.

Set-up – Initial set-up only took a few minutes, with little need to reference the very abbreviated set-up manual included with the TV. If you want the full manual, you’ll have to download it from the Toshiba site.

Before I received the TV, I read a number of reviews of the 55HT1U that complained of the set turning back on after being shut off. Fortunately, one of the reviewers traced the problem to the REGZA function. I turned the REGZA functionality off during the set-up process and have had no problems with unintended restart.

Picture – The 55HT1U comes with five preset picture settings – Sport, Standard, Cinema, PC, and Preference. The Standard setting looked pretty good right out of the box, but is a bit bright and the colors seem oversaturated. Sports setting is so bright that it hurts your eyes. I really haven’t spent any time watching PC or Cinema picture modes. I set the Preference mode using the Disney WOW DVD calibration disk. Here are my settings:

Contrast – 95
Backlight – 63
Dynalight – On
Brightness – 42
Color – 43
Tint – 5
Sharpness – 18
Dynamic Contrast – Middle
Static Gamma – about 55%
Color Temp – Cool
Clear Frame – On most of the time; however, turn off for upconversion from lower def sources (avoid soap opera effect).
Film Stabilization – Standard

These settings tend to dial the brightness of the display down and turn the color intensity down as well when compared to the Standard setting. The Cool color temp setting is my personal preference. Even with the reduced brightness, bright lights and sunlight don’t wash out the display in the least. I’m not sure how LED technology could improve on the 55HT1U LCD performance in this regard.

One final benefit of the WOW Calibration disk was the Delay calibration – I had some lag between the sound and picture coming through my A/V receiver. I was able to eliminate the lag using the disk by making adjustments in the receiver.

In general, I can’t say enough good things about the picture. However, this is my first LCD TV – I could be more easily impressed than some.

Audio – I find the audio performance to be much better than many other reviewers – although it’s still not that great. I set the Advanced Audio setting to QSound (Surround), which works pretty well. That said, I listen almost exclusively through my A/V receiver.

Features – The remote is simple to use and the on-screen menus are fairly logical. However, I used the numeric code for the Toshiba remotes to teach my A/V receiver remote to run the TV. As a result, I don’t need to use the 55HT1U remote during normal viewing.

I would have liked to have the full users guide available in hard copy – I had to bring my laptop downstairs to have the guide available for calibration.

Three rear and one side HDMI inputs more than satisfy my needs. I use a PS3 (connected to my A/V receiver via HDMI) for streaming, some gaming, and DVD/Blu Ray/CD playback. As a result, I only need one HDMI input for the receiver and the side HDMI input for my son’s XBox. See the notes above on time delay if you experience lag between the sound and picture when sending signals through an A/V receiver to the TV. The PS3 also eliminates the need for any internet connectivity in the TV. I do need to use the optical out on the 55HT1U to get the digital sound back to the receiver.

In summary:

Pros – Great price/performance/picture size value. Beautiful picture. Easy to use remote and menus.

Cons – No users guide in box. REGZA function could cause problems if you haven’t done your homework and turned it off.

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 Comments (3)

Excellent TV! Much better than the LG it replaced!, December 7, 2010

I ordered this TV on Black Friday 2010 and it finally came in last night (12/6/10 ). I had 2 LG flat panel’s before, both 47″, a 47LH30 and a 47LC7DF. This Toshiba 55HT1U blows them both away in every way. I would highly recommend this set to anyone, best deal on a 55″ out there other than plasma tv’s . The picture is amazing, I use HDMI only, so I can’t say what the other inputs look like. Gran Turismo 5 looks amazing on this set, as does Forza 3, Bioshock 2, etc etc. I fired up the Avatar Blu Ray disc, and my jaw just about hit the floor. The picture quality and amount of on screen detail is amazing. Very satisfied with my purchase, I was not expecting it to be this good! One word of advice, if you plan to wall mount this unit or use a vertical mount TV stand like I do, where the TV uses a VESA mount and the normal TV base is not used, you will need a set of 4, 20mm M8 screws, you can get them at Home Depot for 76 cents each.

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 Comments (6)

Good Value, December 22, 2010

By 

Scott Norris (Boston, MA) –

  

This is a large screen at a good price with no frills. The TV itself is reasonably attractive, and the picture quality seems good — colors seem accurate, and blacks are consistent across the screen. Not a lot of connections (if you have an A/V receiver you only need the one HDMI), and no internet bells and whistles (available on most Bluray players), but what it does it does well, and inexpensively.

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