After having owned this TV for over a month I decided that an honest review was in order,
First the Positives: This is an inexpensive LCD TV by a name manufacturer. It is lightweight, portable, attractive and easy to hook up. It has a wonderful picture provided that you are watching well lit indoor scenes or outdoor sporting events.
The remote control has all of the functions necessary to set up picture and sound preferences and is much easier than using the small buttons located on the right side panel of the TV.
Now for the Negatives: Most of the negatives can be overlooked as being relatively minor. Many have complained about the sound on this TV. It is not very good. It is rather tinny but keep in mind this is a small TV with not much space to put larger, better sounding speakers. You can adjust the bass and treble through the audio settings on the menu. This does help some. The solution to this problem is to just add external speakers through the audio out jack on the back of the TV or through audio output jacks on a cable box if you have one.
LCD TV's unlike old picture tube tvs have to be viewed from certain angles to give you the true benefit of the picture. If the viewer is much higher then the height of the TV the picture will look very bright and washed out. If the viewer is below the height of the TV the picture can look very dark. A "tiltable" base would have helped to remedy this issue. This again can be remedied by buying a wall mount.
The major complaint I have with this TV is the very poor contrast ratio that it has in dark indoor scenes as well as outdoor night scenes. Programs such as "CSI" which feature a lot of dimly lit indoor scenes are brutally dark. Blacks and Reds look inky with low contrast.
I spent a lot of time calibrating and recalibrating the picture options. I read up a lot on how to do this and although I finally improved somewhat on the picture it still is darker then what it should be.
Another important issue which I don't think anyone has mentioned. This is an energy saving unit...and although that is good for your electric bill it is not so great for your picture. Most LCD TVS have something known as either "AUTO DIM" or "DCR (dynamic contrast ratio)". What that does is automatically dim and brighten your backlighting as the LCD deems necessary. This annoying dimming and brightening is most active during well lit sporting events (such as a baseball game). Larger more expensive sets have a menu option to disable this. You cannot disable it on this set.
If I had too do it over again I would not buy this set. On the other hand I am not that unhappy where I would return it. For it's price it is OK.
For those interested the following are what I found to be the best calibrations for this TV (in TV viewing mode). Please note you MUST set individual calibration settings for EACH input (dvd, pc, etc.)
Brightness: 40
Contrast:30-35
Sharpness: 30
Tint: 5
Color:13-15 (personal preference..but anything higher seems "cartoonish"
Temperature: Cool (personal preference)
Backlight: 8 (the higher the backlight the more contrast you lose)
***DNR (digital noise reduction): OFF...The factory default is "ON". Having the setting "ON" will remove fine detail from your picture.
I hope this helps someone.