Rated 
Affordable 1080p!
Price, picture, quality construction
black levels, speakers
Posted Dec 28, 2007 - I purchased this TV from Sears on sale at $899 and it has been a great overall tv for the past 3 weeks. This is my first hdtv lcd purchase, so all comparasions are to a standard 27" tube tv. I've used it primarily with over-air tv, dvds, and xbox360(hdmi) The over-air tv looks great and not as bad at all as I've read in other reviews of HDTVs playing standard television. Standard definition television is very watchable and is overall better than my older, smaller tv. This tv has a built in hd tuner, so you can also get hd signals over the air. These are simply beautiful as they are basically cable-quality digital channels over the air (for free!). Reception does not affect the picture quality - you either have enough reception to receive the channel, or you don't. An outdoor antenna is recommended, however not required to pick up the most hd channels in your area. Playing dvds and games from my xbox360 over hdmi is simply beautiful. I have no complaints at all for the exception of the black level. The bad part of this tv is the black level. As you may already know, black levels are a major weakness of all LCD tvs. Since the screen is constantly lit up from the back, light seeps through the black pixels, so they don't look completly black. Compared to other higher-priced tvs that I've seen in sears, this tv has an average black-level and not quite as good as the vizio 1080p or of course the televisions that were 1.5-2x the price. For optimal viewing, I needed to reduce the brightness to about 15%-25% of total. This got the best black level without reducing the quality of the other colors. A calibration dvd is recommended, however you can get this optimal black level yourself by simply decreasing the brigness until black stop getting darker. I was excited to see a black level enchancer option in the video settings. Unfortunately this does not make blacks darker, it simply makes other dark colors darker. The speakers are a bit puny on this tv and I recommend a home theatre/stereo/surround sound system if this will be your primary movie-wathing tv. The highs are a bit harsh while the bass is nearly non-existant with the default sound settings. To improve sound quality, I needed to turn up the bass to about 70% and set the rock preset. With these settings, the sound quality is no longer poor, but about average to me. Fortunately, the speakers are connected through external wiring and are detachable. So these can be replaced or moved easily if you wish to do so. Overall, this was a great purchase and I can recommend this TV to just about anyone who'd looking for a 1080p set for a good price. If you are looking for a great built-in sound system or excellent black levels, look elsewhere.
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