Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)This is my first review. Purchased this TV as a gift for my mother.
Out of the Box - easy to assemble TV. Vizio has the best boxes. No tape to cut. Just pull out 4 clips and lift the box top off. TV assemlbes easy. Screws for stand can be turned by hand, no tools needed.
Internet Connectivity - Lots of problems here. TV would find our Netgear router, but would not connect to it (the security password was correct as I could connect other computers, phones and Blu-Ray players to it). Called technical support. First wait wasn't too long, but the person I spoke to wasn't trained to support internet TVs. After a much longer wait I spoke to a person who was trained. That person said that the TV doesn't work with Netgear routers (allegedly due to some Netgear firmware upgrade). Very upsetting. But its a pain to ship it back so we bought a Linksys router. Well, that didn't work either. Called Vizio back. Long wait to get to first person who then had to re-transfer me to a person who could deal with the internet. That person was no help. Offered to send a repair person out. I just said I would rather send it back. He said fine.
I was frustrated, so I decided to see if I could figure out the problem. After trying lots of things, I then tried turning off the router password and all of a sudden the TV could connect. I then tried changing the password to 8 a's in a row. That worked. The password we were using was three words with a space inbetween the words. I then changed the router passord by deleting the spaces and then the TV could connect. Yeah! But meanwhile I probably had 4 hours into trying to make this TV work, counting the calls to Vizio.
TV Connections - first it was disappointing that the TV only has one set of non-HDMA connections. The one set doubles as both component (3 video cables) and composite (1 video cable). I could get the Wii to work with the component cables directly connected. However, when hooking it up to a surround sound receiver and then hooking the receiver up to the TV through component cables (receiver doesn't have HDMI) the picture was awful--shaky, blurry with too much color. I also hooked up the DVD player using component hookups. It was also terrible in the same way and it didn't matter whether it was connected directly to the TV or through the receiver. I was using Amazon Basic Component Cables. I tested them on another TV and they worked fine. I called technical support for a third time. They were no help and said I should take 2 pictures of the problem and send it to them. A special department would get back to me in a day or two. That wasn't an option since I was going to be leaving town. (I did tell them about the password issue and not using spaces, so hopefully they can pass that suggestion on to other customers. I also spoke to a supervisor to tell her that while her people were friendly, they could not do very much and that contrary to what they say, they don't have "first in class" customer service.)
I never could figure out the component input problem. In the end, I bought a Blu-ray player and used the HDMI connection. That worked fine. I also used an optical audio cable to connect the TV to the surround sound receiver.
Also, the Wii connection looked terrible initially. But an internet search told me that there was a firmware updgrade for the TV that wold fix this. Once I got the internet connected, the TV automatically downloaded an upgrade. The picture was fine then.
Internet Applications - a lot of them are really nice. Netflix and the Amazon Prime service worked great. Weather and CNBC also. I could not get it to log me onto facebook for some reason. It would not recognize my password (and it has no spaces). But other than that, I liked the apps.
Picture - Picture quality is really good, once one adjusts the settings. Very pleased.
Sound - seemed ok, but didn't use it much because the surround sound was set up. I couldn't really here the simulated surround sound from the TV.
Remote - very basic, but ok. Has a nice big button to activate the internet applications.
Overall - if you set this up with HDMI cables and you have a non-Netgear router with a password that doesn't have spaces, then the TV is great. If you have equipment that need component input, pick another TV. Now that the TV is working, I would give it 4 stars. But the technical support drops this to 3 stars. Now that I know the issues, I would consider this TV again. But I would consider other TVs with built-in internet. However, the pricepoint for this TV is very attractive. For $600, it was worth it.
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Internet-Ready Television
