Customer Reviews

VIZIO VA370M 37-Inch Full HD 1080p LCD HDTV

5 star:		(30)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(11)
1 star:		(27)

 

 

I am very happy with the purchase and the TV was delivered promptly and works very well. Nice picture and sound and a great deal for a 37" 1080p flat panel. And as always my experience with Amazon has been tremendous.

My only issue is that the promotional information on Amazon and every other site that sells this set (VA370M) claims that it is 15000:1 contrast ratio. However, if you check Vizio's site it states that it is only 6500:1. When the set arrived I checked the manual and sure enough it is only 6500:1 with DCR turned on and 1300:1 on normal viewing. This is a huge difference from the internet specs from sellers of this unit.

Just wanted to give a heads up to all considering the tv. Still a good deal, but at least know the true specs.

WOW, I love this tv! I am a movie fan and generally broadcast tv doesn't hold my interest too long, but this set, coupled with cable hd channels certainly has changed that! I highly recommend this tv to anyone who is budget minded and still looking for a set size for a main room. The picture clarity and crispness is amazing and close or fairly far away the 37" screen shows it all and my only complaint is that some on air people certainly are not being treated kindly now that I see them in true HD lol. My only issue with the set is that I didn't get it sooner! The shipping and delivery was fast and it arrived in great condition. No dead or warm pixels and no complaints at all. The remote is very simply and aside from it using a c-6 style battery seems fine. I use the cable supplied remote for most everything, so not really an issue for me at all. I compared this same set with both 32" and 40 and 42" sets in a dept store here prior to buying and for the size, even the 42" isn't that much larger, certainly not enough to spend the extra, at least not for me. And the 32" just was too small by comparison. I hope this review may help someone else as I am very pleased and truly feel it was a great investment.

Pros:
Solid Build
Easy to mount/light weight
Good picture
Good Sound
Keeps me from having to share the living room tv with my wife.

Other Peoples Cons:
To address some of the complaints I've read, and give my input.
Complaint: Sound volume is too low even when all of the way up.

My take, our tv is in a large master bedroom, we keep the tv in the volume range between 15-25 out of 60, and I can hear it wonderfully. One thing of note is the tv comes with TruSRS enabled, which attempts to simulate surround sound through stereo speakers (lame), this is achieved essentially through tricks that may affect overall amplitude, people complaining about volume may want to disable that feature.

Complaint: The TV has a bright vizio symbol on the front that can't be turned off.

This is true, it is a backlit vizio display, though I wouldn't describe it as bright, more of a dull orange glow, similar to a ineffective night light. It hasn't kept me up at all and I'm pretty sensitive to light when I sleep. Seriously if it was that bad.. at being so cheap compared to other tv's I'd just cover it with a piece of electrical tape, tacky? maybe? but I doubt you'd even notice it because of the black finish.

My Con(s):
Why are all of the component inputs on the back? With an LCD that has a 50/50 of being mounted components on the back are kind of hard to access. The side inputs provide s-video and composite... who still uses composite and s-video? I thought they died with vhs.

This TV is an excellent TV marred by a dumb and short-sighted design choice.

Vizio doesn't make it easy to compare across models with their seemingly pointless array of models with overlapping audiences. Their website is also quite poor in that regard. When I couldn't find the "compare" button on their website after adding various models to the "compare list" I called their 1-800 number. Their rep also couldn't find the button!! It's been that way for the past two weeks.

Coming back to this TV -- the picture, sound, the looks everything is great with this TV. But I am really mad that they decided to leave out a simple analog Audio-out for such a high-end TV. It has FOUR HDMI inputs, two composite inputs, and a component input, and an RGB input -- going quite overboard as far as the inputs are concerned if you ask me, but inexplicably skimps on when it comes to the output side.

The USB input, which is functional in this model instead of "service only" as in many other comparable models, is okay for an occasional slideshow of a photo album or something. But keeping a drive (thumb drive, or hard drive) connected all the time would require you to press "okay" for a prompt every time you turn the TV on. Quite annoying.

I haven't had much luck with the pause-live feature which allows you to pause live-TV similar to Tivo if you plug in a blank USB drive. I am hoping it is because of some issue with the speed of the thumb-drive; Even then, if it means having to press okay every time I turn the TV on I would much rather skip using that. Please see above.

The lack of analog out, in my opinion, is very irritating, annoying, and frustrating. In fact, I have some choice words for the people responsible for this decision at Vizio, but Amazon would not print the review if I include that.

Because of this I cannot connect my wireless headphones which I would use for all my late night TV watching. This model does have a headphone out, but plugging anything in that disconnects the main audio. So it is all or nothing, and hence not usable for connecting something permanently. Now, I have to look for a digital to analog converter which retails around 70-80 bucks.

It is well known that many people hook up these TV's to home audio systems. Given that it is quite audacious on Vizio's part to assume that a single optical digital out is all is needed. So I am giving this otherwise very fine TV only 3 stars.

I have had this tv for about a month now and I like it. I use this tv with a small hd over the air antenna and the hd picture that comes in with just that is remarkably clear. This tv is user friendly and has lots of inputs for other devices to be added to it. The sound is not very loud but sounds pretty good. The only real problem that I have is that while this tv does have a usb port for a flash drive to be hooked up to it, when you first turn on the tv it has to take the time to "read" all of the files that are on it before it will display anything, that is very annoying to me because I wanted to leave the external drive hooked up to it all the time but because of this I have to unplug it when not in use.

I don't know why I had high hopes for this TV when I bought it. Sure, the specs are nice, and the price is incredible. Well, you get what you pay for. This TV is junk. After 2 weeks, even if I were able to ignore the mediocre picture quality (downright horrible in fast scenes) and sound, I couldn't ignore the fact that it just wouldn't turn on. That's right. The TV had a mind of its own. Sometimes it turned on instantly (well, not instantly, but after a few seconds), but others, it just wouldn't turn on at all. I would then have to turn it off, wait for minutes, or sometimes hours, then turn it back (with my fingers crossed). This was completely unacceptable for any TV, not to mention that this was a brand new one when it got to me. I decided to send it back before my 30-days return period runs out, or else I would surely have a miserable time with this when the manufacturer's warranty runs out.

DO NOT BUY THIS TV IF YOU VALUE YOUR TIME AND MONEY.

I've since bought a 40" Toshiba and it's night and day. The Toshiba, only slightly more money, is better at every single attribute than the Vizio -- and it works, every time!

My Vizio 37" 1080p HDTV is the best. The first thing I liked was the price...Even cheaper than Walmart, if you can believe that! My next purchase will be another Vizio HDTV for the bedroom. Great job, Vizio!

What a bargin!!! I purchased this 1080P for the same price as a 720P. The picture quality is great! It has all the features I wanted for this low price. The 37" looks great in the room. The sound is also great. I did however have it hooked up to my sterio, but used it for awhile just as it was. I almost didn't hook it up to my sterio becase the sound was so good. Delivery was within a few days. The delivery person was so kind and wanted me to make sure everything was okay before he left. Would I do it again, your darn right I would!!!!

I purchased my Vizio to replace another LCD TV that had a cracked screen. I thought that I would give them a try since I had read some pretty good reviews while I researched my options. Unfortunately I was sadly disappointed with the lack of quality of this television. I could not get the colors correct even after using a calibration DVD to get all of the settings optimized. The sound, or lack of it, was also a problem. Although the volume control went from 0-100, after 35 it did not get any louder. The most annoying problem for me however was the extremely small viewing angle. The only spot in the family room where the picture was decent was directly in front of the television. Any movement more than 3 feet from center of the screen either vertically or horizontally at 15 feet away and the picture would wash out to the point that skin tones were no longer perceivable and the entire picture took on a reddish tint. I will most likely never purchase another Vizio regardless of the enticing price tag.

If you have a home theater, then don't mind my review...otherwise, DO NOT BUY THIS TV SET!!! I connected my ps3 using an hdmi cable and used the internal tv speakers for my games. After a few minutes of constant play time, there was a buzzing noise. A REALLY ANNOYING BUZZING NOISE! After a lot of experimentation by changing the hdmi cable, changing my ps3 with a friend's, connecting the tv elsewhere...etc... i realized the problem was the tv.

So what did I do? I changed it for another one (the same model). After playing for a few minutes, THE PROBLEM WAS THERE AGAIN!!!!! I got rid of this piece of trash and got myself a 32 inch Toshiba... and now i'm actually happy.

DO NOT BUY THIS!!!!

p.s. if you have a hometheater with digital audio or anything that does not use your tv speakers or audio inputs, you'll be fine cuz the image is great.