Price Paid:  $1499.00 from Sears

Summary:
INITIAL NOTE ON PRICE: Yeah, you read that right, $1499 at Sears! Seems I had went there early last year (2001) and someone had bought one and brought it back becuase of problems. It was ''supposedly'' repaired and it was being sold as a ''used'' model! After discussing it with the salesperson I purchased this beast and tacked on a 3-year, at home service warranty and took it home! Sure enough I ran into the problem that was reported by the previous owner, so I contacted Sears service and after 3 unsuccessful attempts to fix the unit I had bought dirt cheap, they delivered me a BRAND NEW UNIT! (Their cost last year new: $3499) I''ve had zero problems with the new unit so I''m basing my review on this matter as I knew I was taking a ''chance'' on the used unit. Thanks to the saleperson for recommending the 3-year at home service agreement I added for $300 still getting me this unit for about half of it''s normal selling price and informing me that if it doesn''t get fixed, I get a whole new unit! REVIEW: New unit worked like a charm! I finally got my DVD player hooked into the composite video inputs and setup my remote to control ALL of my AV related equipment (JVC VCR,JVC DVD Player, JVC Reciever, Cable Box). Picture quality is excellent playing back DVDs, just also added a new JVC XVS60 Progressive Scan DVD player and the picture is the best I''ve seen so far. I''m still waiting to add HDTV Satellite Dish soon, but waiting to get a good deal on the equipment. I love the widescreen format, my movies have never looked better! With this acquisition, the movie theaters are a thing of the past! Now I can have cheaper popcorn and have a cocktail while watching my favorite movies, and getting a better picture than you see at the theaters along with my Dolby Digital sound to boot! Really happy with this acquisition, and it''s great to have friends that will go rent the movies, bring the popcorn and cocktails just to get to see the movies at "My Theater"! I highly recommend these new Mitsubishi sets!

Strengths:
Widescreen, HDTV Ready, Inputs can be labeled on screen, several available composite inputs, great multifuction remote that has nice ''back light'' feature! Great looking set! Price I bought it for! No more expensive trips to the theaters! Friends/neighbors love to bring new releases and other necessities over for ''movie night''.

Weaknesses:
No firewire inputs or digital tuner on this model, however Mitsubishi will upgrade for a ''special'' price. Constantly having friends/neighbors over for sometimes unplanned movie nights!

Similar Products Used:
Sharp, Panasonic, Sony, JVC, GE, Toshiba, Hitachi

Price Paid:  $2500.00 from audio king

Summary:
Have had the 55809 unit for almost 6 months now. You really have to have the TV for a few months to understand how to tweak the settings so the picture is as good as it can get. At this point I think this TV is a an excellant HDTV for the price. The picture looks very good using satellite TV and the DVD''s look phenominal with a SONY 700dsp progressive scann player. There are enough imputs to go around. On thing to not here is that to use PIP with satellite you need 2 cable boxes which I dislike. As far as the red push problem goes I found the reason lies in the default video settings. The red push is real bad unless you turn down the brightness and color. Contrast also needs to be turned down a bit. You have to adjust this for every imput as well. I used the THX audio/video optimizer that is one DVD''s such as Fight club and Star Wars PM. Also, you need to adjust the 64 points of convergence. You also need to do this in a dark room to do a precise job. After doing this the picture improved. Only problem is if the power goes out you need to adjust the convergence all again. Takes about 10-20 minutes to do a good job.

Strengths:
Picture quality, number of imputs, munues easy to use, good remote

Weaknesses:
setting convergence is too difficult and has to be reset if power is lost.

Price Paid:  $3999.00 from soundadvice

Summary:
mitsubishi WS-55805 55 inch hdtv with 16:9 format. Tremendous picture in both standard digital and hd.

Strengths:
widescreen hd, high resolution .52mm pixel spacing

Weaknesses:
none!

Similar Products Used:
none.

Price Paid:  $2999.00 from the hometheater store

Summary:

Like I said I actually own the VS-60805 which is a 60in 4:3 digital TV.

First thing I will tell anyone shopping for a Television is:
GO TO THE STORES AND LOOK AT THEM, LOOK AT THE BACK INPUTS, PLAY WITH THE REMOTE, ADJUST THE SETTINGS.

TRY AND AVOID BUYING A BIGSCREEN ON THE NET OR VIA-MAIL ORDER.

These things are big and heavy but still fragile and they all need calibration. If you buy from the store a guy will go and set it up and calibrate it for you. Those guys have secret codes that allow them to do things you cannot.

On to the Review:
PICTURE
Blows away hitachi, ge, rca, philips, toshiba
The only things that compare are sony (bad experience with new sony tvs) and Panasonic very nice but more money for a smaller TV.
This TV has a built in line doubler which is why you can get up to 2 feet away and not see scan lines. The set has plenty of brightness and color to suit anyone.

SETTINGS ADJUSTMENTS
Menu is easy to use.
Customized settings per input, FANTASTIC!! One of the best features. Why you ask? Because the signal coming from your VCR, Sat, DVD and antenna NEVER MATCH! One will be brighter or another will require more color or one will need the noise reduction.
The trick is to buy the AVIA or Video Essentials calibration DVD use it and try to reproduce the settings on the other inputs. And guess what, chances are that to get the same quality picture you will have to use different settings.

SOUND
Adequate, but hey go buy a surround system

INPUTS
Mine has 6 inputs plenty

QUALITY
Good better than the GE, JVC and Sony Picture tubes I had before (they broke down in less than 2 years each).
When I got my Mits I noticed a purple dot in the middle of the screen. I showed it to the install guy and he changed out the TV the very Next day (this is why you should buy bigscreens from a store).

I only have one complaint, NO lockout for buttons on the TV (problem if you have a 2 year old who likes to push buttons). I ended up taping a piece of wood over the front, crude but effective.

Strengths:
Review for VS-60805
Best picture out there in this price range.
Only the Pioneer Elite is better but 3 times more money.
Customizable inputs, more adjustments than any other tv, great viewing angle vertical and horizontal.

Weaknesses:
Expensive...Not really...If you want cheaper looking Picture go buy a GE or RCA or Philips.
YES it is built in mexico..guess what so it sony, hitachi, ge, rca, ect. I think the only bigscreen built in Japan is the Panasonic (which was my second choice but same price for 25% smaller screen)
NO lockout for buttons on tv (problem if you have a 2 year old who likes to push buttons)

Similar Products Used:
I shopped around A LOT for almost 4 MONTHS.
But this was my first Big screen

Price Paid:  $4000.00

Summary:
My husband wanted this set, me I really didn't care. Once we got it about four weeks after, we purchased it. Apparently Mitsubishi was backlogged. The set looks great, and was performing good up until about a month ago. I was watching CNN on 9/12 when I got this funny burning plastic smell, then my picture got a rainbow effect on the bottom. My entire picture looked like I was trying to view one of those 3-D picture books. I called the good guys who sent out a tech. 10 days later. He said six circuit chips in the main frame of the TV had fried out! He said that it would probably be easier to replace the whole board but The Good Guys requires them to repair at all cost before moving on to the next step. NeedLess to say I am really disgusted that this $4000 set broke down so quickly. But my biggest complaint is that the Premier Performance Guarantee we purchased from the Good Guys is anything but that. Can you believe the tech. came out on 9/22 ordered the parts on 9/26 and the parts didn't arrive until 10/10 (because they neglected to overnight them) now I am waiting another two weeks for the tech. to fit our repair into his schedule. I realize these kinds of repairs always take long, but the Good Guys sold us on a 5 year insurance that guaranteed we would get priority repair service, over other customers. So if we are the priority, I hate to think what kind of service you get if you are not. Basically my advice is once you have decided if this set is for you research the warranty that covers it, and DON'T BUY IT AT THE GOOD GUYS! Can you believe their service center tried to tell me they couldn't overnight my parts because the FAA wouldn't let them, which of course was an outright lie. I had already spoken to UPS and Fedex who said they were currently delivering overnight packages. When I told them that they then tried blaming Mitsubishi, but as my warranty was with the Good Guys that info. was also wrong.

Strengths:
Awesome picture, feels like you're in a theater. Love the widescreen effect.

Weaknesses:
That it broke down 20 months after we bought it.

Similar Products Used:
none