VIZIO E551i-A2 fifty five.zero-Inch 1080p Smart LED HDTV

I just had a couple of observations about both the tv itself, as well as the process of buying it. First, I want to mention that I ordered this tv on an evening where the price was 1368…or close to it. Sometime during the night, amazon lowered the price to 1299 and this was the price I ended up being charged. To my mind, that’s just doing the right thing. Many companies would have just charged the higher price and waited to see if I caught it and called. So, credit to Amazon, well done.

Delivery and packaging was excellent. The shipping company wanted to deliver several days after my expected delivery date. But, upon learning that this was the date given to me by amazon, they quickly amended the ship date. The tv arrived in perfect condition and the crew was pleasant.

I really thought I was going to return this when I first powered it up. The picture was pretty bad and even though the settings are quite far off out of the box, it was more than that. But (and I’m not clear on why), after it hit the two hour mark or so, it really came to life. It focused, and most of the issues were corrected by this brief warm up period. It only happened the first time, and now it’s ready to go as soon as you power it on.

The tv itself is pretty solid as a budget led would go. Once dialed in, colors are good, picture overall is quite pleasing. This is a direct lit display coming in somewhere between edge lit and full array. as a result, it has good uniformity throughout and no light bleed on any edges. And, it does have a pretty thin bezel. The downside to the direct lit is the thickness. this tv is thick by todays standards.

I just want to be clear, it’s not a high end set. It doesn’t have the black levels or motion handling of a plasma but, it does have the advantages of being an led lit LCD panel. You can play games, hook up your computer, forget to turn it off, or pretty much view whatever you want without fear of burn in or image retention. Do plasmas still have burn and ir in 2013? You bet they do, even with pixel orbiters and screen wash. But, it’s a use case. I have a Mac mini and an Xbox on it, I needed the led. If it were movies only…it would have been a Panasonic plasma. All that said, for the money, it’s a pretty darn good tv.

A few small things worth mentioning. The remote is pretty particular about being pointed right at the lower left hand corner of the set to work. The set can be slow moving through menus. I have not tried the sound as its being fed from a pioneer receiver. Wireless worked great and connected to an apple AirPort Extreme without a hitch. I can’t really speak to the apps. I have them on a roku 3, Apple TV 3, oppo 103 blue ray player, and of course the Xbox. So, really…how many times do you even bother setting it up. For what it’s worth, the roku 3 is the way to go IMHO.

I bought this TV to use as a large computer monitor to use from my couch. Therefore, I have not connected it to the internet nor do I use any of the apps or “smart TV” features. To make one reviewer happy, I’m reviewing the 65″ version.

I just received this and finished setting it up. A few helpful notes:

1. One reviewer states that the remote is very sensitive to being pointed at a certain corner. This was not my experience. I can point the remote at the ceiling, floor, left, right and it still works (both the number pad and qwerty keyboard on the bottom). My TV is on a stand and not in a closet, which maybe the cause of that reviewer’s problem.

2. I managed to attach the stand and lift it onto the table by myself but it was a struggle and would have been much easier with someone else.

3. Pilot Freight, the company which delivered the TV was an hour early, arriving at noon when my scheduled delivery was 1-3 PM. Thankfully the TV arrived undamaged. I did not mind but it was unexpected.

4. I was initially shocked at the terrible input lag. I don’t game with this monitor but there was a solid 500 ms lag out of the box. It was frustrating even for basic web browsing/moving a cursor around. I turned on “Game Mode” which drastically reduced the lag. There is still some lag but it’s acceptable for basic use. I’m not picky about input lag and I came from a monitor which is known to have some lag but this thing is significantly worse, and even I notice it. I wouldn’t do any heavy computer gaming on it. I don’t know about console gaming.

5. The settings out of the box weren’t too bad. I ended up going with this:

Picture Mode: Any setting you want but keep in mind you can’t change the backlight until you disable the light sensor setting in advanced picture options.

Backlight: 40 (I sit relatively close so you may prefer higher, I’m writing this review 2 feet from it but I normally sit about 75-85 inches from it).
Brightness: 51
Contrast: 60
Color: 60
Tint: -2
Sharpness: 6

Color Temperature: Custom
Red Gain: 48
Green Gain: 48
Blue Gain: 46
Red Offset: 50
Green Offset: 50
Blue Offset: 50

Under advanced picture I turned everything off since I rely on my computer for most of those settings.

6. The speakers almost completely lack bass and are basically unsable unless you don’t care at all about sound. Even my crappy 4.1 computer speakers with a little 6″ subwoofer from over a decade ago are miles ahead. Just don’t buy this TV expecting it to replace any kind of dedicated speakers. This is par for the course for TVs so I don’t really count it against this TV. I wanted to address this because some reviewers were complaining about the speakers and you really shouldn’t expect much.

7. Some people complain about the stand but unless you try to knock it over or your kids hit it, it wont fall over on its own even if you nudge it. The stand is fine.

8. For the price and size, this TV is great.

9 You can get Dobly Digital from the optical output by going into the advanced audio settings and changing “Digital Audio Out” from “PCM” to “Dobly Digital”.

10. The remote is nice and basic. It’s sturdy, looks good, and takes two AAA batteries. I don’t use the qwerty keyboard but I don’t find myself in danger of pressing them while using the top side of the remote and even if I did, they don’t do anything unless you’re in the right menu.

11. The finish on the screen is anti-reflective but I would call it semigloss. Mine sits next to two windows and I notice some diffused glare on the black screen but none if there is a picture or anything other than black.

I gave this 4 stars because:
1. I wanted to turn the sharpness off but for some reason 0 was completely blurry and 6 seemed the most natural. This is annoying as I just want it to output the pure signal from my video card.
2. Input lag
3. I would have loved a lower price without the “smart” features. “Smart” features seem to be unavoidable these days. My computer is “smarter” than this TV will ever be.

Super Lightweight, easy to put together and an clean crisp amazing view! Its like having a theater in our house.