Price Paid:  $944.00 from BJ's Wholesale

Summary:
Although it’s only been 10 days, I’m so far very happy with this TV. I bought it on “Black Friday”, but kept it under wraps until Christmas. I’m still trying to figure out all the features, but my initial observations are as follows.
• The HD picture looks absolutely great. Unfortunately, Cox cable only has a handful of actual HD content channels.
• The non-HD picture is hit or miss depending on the station and show. Some shows look pretty good, others not so good. I don’t think I can blame the TV for that.
• Watching conventional DVDs is definitely better than regular non-HD TV channels, but not as good as true HD. At first I found some live action movies to be rather dark, until I realized my DVD player (a Phillips) has brightness and contrast settings. Adjusting those made it much better.
• There are several functions to “stretch” the standard picture from 4:3 to 16:9. The best seems to be the “wide” function that stretches the edges of the picture without distorting the middle. However, regular TV shows seem to be broadcast in so many different formats, that I sometimes have to fiddle with these settings to get the best picture.
• The sound is adequate for our 12x20 den. We use the separate surround sound system for watching movies.
• We really only use it for TV and movie watching; no games or anything like that. The features seem to be quite adequate for our needs.

I paid $944 for this set at BJ’s Wholesale, and think it was a great deal. However I suppose it will be quite a bit cheaper six months from now.

Strengths:
Good deal. Great picture.

Weaknesses:
Really none so far.

Similar Products Used:
None