VIZIO M550NV 55-inch Full HD 1080p 120Hz LED LCD HDTV
We bought VIZIO M550NV on Memorial Day at a local store – price was a little cheaper than Amazon, plus no shipping cost, so we got a great deal. First off, the packaging for this TV is HUGE – the only way we could have put this in our van would have been to lay the third row seats down AND take out one of the 2nd row seats, as the box is too wide to fit in the aisle between them. Luckily we have a truck and had no problems fitting in it. If you plan to put this TV in a cabinet/entertainment center, you’d better buy a big one. Due to the shape of the frame, which includes the speakers on either side, this TV is wider than a typical 55″ – it measures about 55 1/2″ at its widest point, so is too wide for most cabinets that say they will fit a 55″ TV. Wall mounting or mounting on an open table setup would be no problem. OK, enough about the size of this monster – you get the picture 
Setup was a snap – got VIZIO M550NV out of the box, hooked up a Toshiba DVD recorder/VCR combo via HDMI and a standard def DirecTV DVR to the composite A/V (no HD DVR yet). On a HD signal, this TV has an incredible picture – bright image, great blacks (some TVs have problems with dark/night scenes, but this one handles them wonderfully). Standard-def images (480i) can be grainy, but that’s simply a factor of size vs. resolution and is only really noticed if you’re close to the screen. Viewing from across our family room (about 12′ from tv to couch) is fine. We also conterminous an antenna to draw in over-the-air signals. The tuner is pretty good, and picked up all the UHF networks in our area, about 30 miles away. The local CBS affiliate broadcasts on a VHF frequency and we can’t pick it up – but we can’t get it on any of our TVs, so I can’t say this tv is any better or worse in that regard.
Connection to our wireless network was quick and easy, and streaming from Netflix, Vudu and Amazon works great. I haven’t tried any of the other services available, but there are plenty to choose from. The Netflix software on this TV is better than on the LG blu-ray player we have connected to another TV – this one will allow you to find movies that aren’t in your instant queue, while the LG will ONLY play items in your queue, so that’s a bonus. Vudu plays well in SD or 720 format, but frequently pauses in 1080p – we need a faster internet connection to support full HD downloads. DivX movies downloaded in full 1080p look fantastic when played from the Toshiba player over HDMI.
VIZIO M550NV comes with a remote that connects to the TV via Bluetooth. It remembers which equipment is connected to the various inputs, and automatically changes the controls to match the input equipment – really nice! I found that it will control all my equipment, and since it works via bluetooth, you don’t have to have direct line-of-sight to the TV. Wish that the bluetooth part worked for my satellite equipement too! Programmable remotes will operate this TV, but depending on how old they are, they may not be able to hit all the features of the tv – our older directv remotes will operate the basic features, but only the newer models will change the input source – so you may want to use the remote that came with the TV. We have smaller kids, and wanted to limit their use of the tv remote, because it has a slide-out keyboard similar to those on some cell phones to make posting to facebook (one of the apps that comes on the tv) easy. Since our youngest is 5, we thought it might be best to keep that remote out of harm’s way.
All in all, VIZIO M550NV is a fabulous TV for the money – it’s an LED for less than many LCDs of smaller size. I was considering the new Sharp LED with the 4th ‘yellow’ pixel, but after seeing it in person, couldn’t justify paying nearly 50% more for a smaller (52″) screen. The LED runs mucher cooler than plasma – while shopping for TVs we walked through a local Sears store, and you could feel the heat radiating off the plasma screens – that alone steered us away from plasma. LED seemed too high until we found this Vizio – we’d gotten a 32″ Vizio with 1080p capability for our bedroom at Christmas, so knew that the Vizio had the quality of the bigger names, but without the price premium of Sony, Samsung or LG. When we get ready to replace our other tube TVs, we’ll be looking at the Vizio M-series as our top choice – just in a smaller size!
Free Over-The-Air HDTV
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