FEATURED VIZIO M3D550KD 55-inch 1080p 240Hz Razor LED Smart 3D HDTV
- Theater 3D – Crystal clear, brighter, flicker-free 3D
- VIZIO Internet Apps with built-in Wi-Fi and 2-sided remote with keyboard
- Thin LED Design: TV with stand (Width x Height x Depth): 49.7” x 32.1” x 11.2”, TV without stand (Width x Height x Depth): 49.7” x 30.5” x 1.5”
- Includes 4 pairs of Theater 3D glasses
- 1080p Full HD
Bring that intense 3D movie experience home with VIZIO’s 55-inch Edge Lit Razor LEDLCD HDTV. Winner of Popular Science’s Best of What’s New 2011, Theater 3D is advanced, flicker-free 3D that’s better and brighter than conventional 3D. With four free pairs of battery-free 3D glasses, this HDTV puts next-generation 3D well within reach. Featuring Edge Lit Razor LED backlighting, 240Hz SPS refresh rate, 10,000,000 to 1 DCR and 1080p Full HD, this superb HDTV displays both 3D and HD content with amazing clarity, color and contrast. And VIZIO makes no compromises when it comes to sound with SRS StudioSound HD.
Comments
2 comments
M. Barnes
January 31, 2013
Hands down, the best TV at this price point!,
Let me start off by giving you some background. I have owned 3 Sony HDTV’s since 2006. The first was a rear projection LCD model that I purchased for about $3800 in mid-2006 and had a design defect with something called the “optic block” that ended up as the subject of a class action lawsuit. Sony extended the warranty for a year because of it. Some people got new flat panel TV’s for free or extreme discounts. Mine was repaired once and by the time it broke again, which was inevitable, It was out of warranty and Sony wouldn’t help me. I have bought Sony all my life and thought that sometime you just get a lemon, so I gave them another chance and in mid-2009 bought a KDL-52V5100 for about $2000. I had nothing but problems right out of the box. The TV’s auto dimming feature would make the screen so dim that it went very dark in movies and video games and you couldn’t see anything in dark scenes, EVEN WITH SMART DIMMING TURNED OFF! Sony sent me a firmware update, which didn’t fix it. Then they sent me a new TV, same problem. It was obviously a software/hardware design issue. They sent me a KDL-52W5100 as a replacement, which was a slight upgrade. I was fairly happy with that TV other than the 8-bit panel which did cause noticeable banding at times. Then, in May of 2012, roughly 3 years old it started exhibiting a picture problem where the whole left side of the screen would turn green and horizontal lines covering the rest of the screen appeared along with a terrible high pitched squealing noise. Sony, of course, refused to help me as this TV only had a 1 year warranty. I found out from a local shop that it needed a new LCD panel for about $1600, which of course meant that my 3 year old TV was now a big door stop. The Sony name used to mean quality, but after spending almost $6000 in roughly 4 years and then having no working TV is ridiculous. I decided I was done with Sony. It’s really too bad. I’ve been buying Sony my whole life.
Before this I didn’t really consider Vizio because it’s always been a pretty low end brand. I did some research and found the M3D550KD, which had the same features as the $2400 Sony KDL-55HX850 (except for Gorilla Glass). In fact it scored better than the Sony by far in native contrast ratio and black level. A review from PC Magazine gave it 4 out of 5 stars and the editor’s choice award. See review on pcmag.com.
**After connecting to my WI-FI and turning the TV off for about 10 minutes, when I turned back on it had updated itself to the latest firmware.
First thing I did was calibrate the TV using Digital Video Essentials HD – DVE HD Basics Blu-ray. The settings I came up with are below.
User Menu Settings:
* Picture Modes
o Picture Mode : Custom
o Color Temperature : Normal
o Aspect Ratio : Normal/Wide
* Picture Settings
o Backlight : 55
o Contrast : 50
o Brightness : 42
o Color : 55
o Tint : -1
o Sharpness : 8
* Advanced Video
o Smooth Effect : Off
o Real Cinema Mode : Smooth
o Noise Reduction : Off
o Color Enhancement : Off
o Adaptive Lumina : Off
o Film Mode : Auto
o Smart Dimming : Off
o Ambient Sensor : Off
**XBOX360 Users Note: One thing that kind of freaked me out when I first hooked up my XBOX was that if you set resolution to 1080p most of the advanced picture settings disappear from the menu. Not just greyed out/unavailable, the menu actually changes. If you set the TV to the input your XBOX is connected to, bring up the TV settings menu, then power on the XBOX you can actually watch the picture settings menu change! The picture mode (Custom, Standard, Movie, Etc.) in gone, the advanced picture menu is gone and the only options available are Contrast, Brightness, Backlight, Game mode and Ambient Light Sensor. I called Vizio and after finally getting hold of a engineer rather than tech support he verified that it was by design. Apparently the XBOX can communicate with the TV and takes over all these settings. It knows what the TV can and can’t do and takes full advantage of the TV’s capabilities. If I set the resolution to 1080i it didn’t do this. I was a little worried about this at first, but after setting to 1080i and using my tweaked settings I could not make it look nearly as good as the XBOX controlled settings when set to 1080p. The picture was amazing! The PS3 does not exhibit the same behavior when set to 1080p although still looks amazing with my custom settings.
PROS:
* Verifiable 10-bit panel, so no banding (most companies are not disclosing anymore).
* Very complete set of advanced customizable picture settings.
* Audio was surprisingly better than I expected and better than other LED backlit super thin TV’s I’ve looked at.
* Excellent color and black level.
* Bluetooth Remote with built-in QWERTY keyboard.
* 3D is…
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|I bought it
January 31, 2013
Great TV for me,
I’ve owned this TV for a month and I love it! Setup was very easy. The built in WIFI works great! The picture is bright and clear. I left everything set the way it was out of the box and we are very happy. Our room has three windows facing the screen and even on the brightest days, I don’t have any problems with glare or the picture not being being enough. We even have light about two feet away from where it’s mounted on the wall. No problem with that either. The sound for a flat pannel TV is pretty good. In fact I haven’t even seriously considered upgrading sound yet. It’s adequate for regular veiwing. The 3D is very cool. I bought Underworld Awakenings with my new 3D Blu Ray player. Again the picture was outstanding and the 3D works very well. The only problem I have is the keyboard on the remote doesn’t always register the keys I push. One out of ten letters will be lost. This is not a problem for me and if I had to have a problem, this is what I would have picked. You simply can’t beat the value with this TV. It has every current feature there is and in my opinion, works very well. I’m very pleased with this purchase.
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