MAG Innovision 32" LCD TV

[flash75]

Gosh, I just registered and what a crummy "search" feature this site has! Regardless, I looked through many posts and didn't find what I was looking for.

Has anyone purchased or know anything about this LCD TV? It can be found at this link:

http://www.bestbuy.ca/catalog/proddetail.asp?logon=&langid=EN&sku_id=0926HDS0010062075&catid=23244

It's $1400 cdn and the picture looks incredible from when I was looking at it at Best Buy. The thing is I am typically a brand name person and know that Sharp, Sony, and Samsung make the best LCD's, however they are also $1000 more.

Has anyone heard of MAG? Apparently that have been lcd computer monitor manufacturers for a while. From what I hear, they buy their lcd's from others like sony, panasonic, etc, and then slap them together in asia or mexico and put their own label on them. I also did a bit of research (not much i could find online), but they are made by one of the 3 largest computer manufacturers in the world - Proview?

Any help is appreciated. I sit about 7 feet so i'm thinking a 32" would be great, especially at this price point. Otherwise I will have to spend a bit more and only go with a 26" Samsung.

Furthermore, how do brands like Acer and Viewsonic compare in the LCD TV world? There is a Viewsonic 27" at Costco for $900 cdn, and an Acer 32" at The Bay for $1400. Just trying to get a feel for what other people think about this.

THANKS!

[edtyct]

It seems like these high volume computer monitor manufacturers or parts suppliers are crawling out of the woodwork to get a piece of the consumer video market. These low-profile companies don't necessarily skimp on the features, but their implementation often leaves something to be desired. A lot of technology goes into putting one of these panels together. For instance, this one mentions that it has motion-adaptive video deinterlacing, which on the surface is a good thing, and sophisticated, but how well does it perform? Does it have 3:2 pulldown for film deinterlacing? What color or shade does it use for black? How extensive are the user controls? Does it scale well? At the very least, I'd check out CNET to see if a review is available.

Every once in a while, there's a diamond in the rough among these subterranean companies, but, on the whole, you get what you pay for. Do you want to be the guy who takes the chance? Maybe you do, and maybe it will work out in your favor. But for $1300, you can leave the flawed flat-panel world and go to tried and true direct-view CRT for a 32" screen, no? The one-year warranty on the MAG isn't very long, and who is going to honor it?

Ed

[EdwardGein]

I originally had a 27" regular TV for my bedroom about a year ago & I thought I'd replace it with an widescreen HDTV about the same size. The prices were about right. When I actually went to soem stores looking at them, thank God I didn't order one online sight unseen, they're way to small, much relatively smaller than my 27". I wouldn't get one smaller than a 30" HDTV.

Can someone explain to me again, what the visual difference is between say a 30" CRT widescreen HDTV and an LCD one?

[Pyrrho]

I originally had a 27" regular TV for my bedroom about a year ago & I thought I'd replace it with an widescreen HDTV about the same size. The prices were about right. When I actually went to soem stores looking at them, thank God I didn't order one online sight unseen, they're way to small, much relatively smaller than my 27". I wouldn't get one smaller than a 30" HDTV.

Can someone explain to me again, what the visual difference is between say a 30" CRT widescreen HDTV and an LCD one?

TV screens, regardless of the type of technology used, come in two standard aspect ratios in the U.S. The old one is 4:3, and the new is 16:9. The first number in each represents the width and the second the height. It is good if you can remember your high school geometry, with the Pythagorean theorem of:

a² + b² = c²

where "a" and "b" represent the legs of a right triangle, and "c" represents the hypotenuse (which is the "diagonal" or the line opposite the right angle). With TV sizes, they are given as the diagonal measurement, regardless of which aspect ratio one has. To find out the actual width and height on a particular screen, you will need to know which aspect ratio the TV has, and then plug into the formula for "c" whatever the size is listed as being. Thus, with a 4:3 aspect ratio, one uses the formula:

(4x)² + (3x)² = c²

Solve for x, then 4x will be the width, and 3x will be the height.

For a widescreen TV, one uses the formula:

(16x)² + (9x)² = c²

Solve for x, then 16x will be the width and 9x the height.

To give an example, a 27" TV that is 4:3:

(4x)² + (3x)² = 27²

16x² + 9x² = 729

25x² = 729

(Notice that on the left of the equation, so far, nothing about the TV size has entered the calculation, so one can use 25x² = c² for 4:3 TVs.)

x² = 29.16

x = 5.4

Thus, a 27" TV will be 21.6" wide and 16.2" tall.


An example with a widescreen, say a 32" that is 16:9:

(16x)² + (9x)² = 32²

256x² + 81x² = 1024

337x² = 1024

(Notice that on the left of the equation, so far, nothing about the TV size has entered the calculation, so one can use 337x² = c² for 16:9 TVs.)

x² = 3.04 (this is rounded)

x = 1.74 (again, this is rounded)

So the 32" widescreen TV is approximately 27.84" wide and 15.66" tall. Notice a 32" widescreen TV is slightly smaller vertically than a 27" 4:3 TV, so if one is using a 27" 4:3 TV now, and is switching to a widescreen TV, one must get a widescreen TV that is larger than 32" in order to not have ordinary (NTSC) TV broadcasts any smaller than that to which one is accustomed. Obviously, the 32" 16:9 TV will show a much larger widescreen image than a 27" 4:3 TV.

[flash75]

Thanks for the quick reply! The reason why I want to abandon "tried and true" crt world is simply because I think the lcd picture is much nicer. There is much less flicker and i don't even want to start with geometry issues. Simply lcd has much superior geometry out of box, a nice brighter more detailed picture, and the size/weight thing too.

I think i might try my chance with the MAG. The picture did look amazing, even more so than others in the store (maybe had a better signal) and for the price, i can always return it within the month. I'll let you know!

[Pyrrho]

Thanks for the quick reply! The reason why I want to abandon "tried and true" crt world is simply because I think the lcd picture is much nicer. There is much less flicker and i don't even want to start with geometry issues. Simply lcd has much superior geometry out of box, a nice brighter more detailed picture, and the size/weight thing too.

I think i might try my chance with the MAG. The picture did look amazing, even more so than others in the store (maybe had a better signal) and for the price, i can always return it within the month. I'll let you know!

When buying an LCD TV, pay careful attention to large areas of black on the screen, and to fast motion. Those are traditionally the weak spots in low quality LCD TVs. (You don't need to sell me on LCD; I use an LCD monitor for my computer, and I will never go back to a CRT.)

[edtyct]

More power to ya. But the clarity/detail element would only be true subjectively with a the panel's pixel complement completely filled without scaling. Your're dead right about the brightness and geometery, and an LCD is not simply progressive but simultaneous. But a lot more is happening under the hood, and I'll be interested to read your impressions. A good test disk like DVE or AVIA would help get a good reading on it.

Ed

[EdwardGein]

I got my Samsung widescreen CRT 30" HDTV on sale for $700 about a year ago for my bedroom and the picture is very good & I haven't had any problems with it. If I didn't have this and knew I could get a 30 inch HD LCD for under $1000 I would, I just feel ridiculous paying lthat much as my Mitsubishi 48" widescreen HD rear projector was just $1600 including shipping & installation and is fantastic.

[flash75]

ok, so I went back to Best Buy and stared at the MAG and Insignia for a long time. Actually there were 2 Insignias and also a Panasonic near by. The MAG had the best blacks (but maybe the Insignias were set too bright). Whenever there was a black background the MAG was the only one that didn't leak any light. One of the Insignias was really bad for that. The Panasonic looked horrific it was too bright (set bad i guess). There was only one Insignia that was comparable to the MAG but the mag was still better and $300 cheaper. I did some more research. It's made by a company called ProView.

http://www.proview-usa.com/lcd2.html

This looks like it might be a diamond in the rough. I'll be picking it up tomorrow and hooking it up to some custom components on an HK DVD 22 and will let you know.

[flash75]

ok thanks to great refund policies and credit cards I purchased (and returned) 3 LCD TV's, so here are the brief reviews:

1. MAG Innovisions (Proview) RX326 32" purchased from Best Buy

This TV is actually pretty good for the $1400 cdn. The blacks are very decent and the picture colours are awesome. This would be a keeper if it wasn't for 2 things. One, is that the vertical overscan sucked and couldn't be adjusted. This was noticeable on 16:9 DVD's where there was a 1cm black bar only on the bottom. So obviously a service menu tweak was required. I couldn't get tech support or cust. service as the 1-877 number only works in the US. The other thing that bothered me but might be normal on bigger tv's was grainy images on some dvd's. Backgrounds seemed grainy and especially my seinfeld dvd's! Terrible. I was using a brand new HK 22 dvd player progressive scan with high quality component cables. I also noticed grain on a regular interlaced tv so i'm guessing it's the dvd's and this is normal?

2. Daytek 32" purchased from Coscto $1400 cdn. This TV really SUCKED. Although it didn't suffer the same vertical overscan problem as the MAG, the picture was VERY dark and dull. I couldn't stand looking at it for more than a few minutes.

3. Viewsonic 27" purchased from Costco $900 cdn. This TV is actually not bad for the size and price. My only gripes were that it was too small for my viewing distance of 7-7.5 feet AND the blacks sucked. There was always too much light coming through especially when viewing in a dark room.

Overall, I think I would have kept the MAG if it wasn't for the overscan issue. I'm going to have to research how grainy dvd's should be because I can't see it being my new HK dvd and i used a monster clean power centre. Seinfeld was terrible! I have found one more at the same price point and that is ACER, however i'm feeling it will have some problems and it might be worth spending an extra $1000 and going with Sharp or Samsung. Otherwise maybe back to a sony 30" tube?

[EdwardGein]

Wow, I give you credit for having the balls to buy all this stuff for try outs and returning it. Anyone give you hassles? Will you still buy more from the same stores to return if applicable? Would you buy more than 1 of the same kind of item from the same store to try
out? Do these places charge a restocking fee. You must have a large car and/or a friend to help you with this stuff. I wish I could do what you're doing, more power to you.

As I'm limited basically without knowing to drive a car (I'm from NY that's my excuse), I either rely in LA on bus, taxi or a ride from my sister if I ask her a few days in advance & she's free. I've returned receivers & CD players that clearly were not improvements over the equipment I wanted them to replace, but they were alot smaller then your TV (I carried the 2 CD players I returned on the bus). Anyway, I think it's great what your doing on the TV sets, and I'd do the same, if I could.

You might want to do this with a Harmon Kardon 31 DVD player- see if you get better CD & DVD sound then the 22- I don't know, I have the 31. I'm a bit unclear if you're limited to sets under 32" or so because I can vouch for a Mitsubuishi 48" HD rear projector widescreen TV that was $1600 a year ago and probably cheaper today. I'd also read reviews on circuitcity.com by customers as I found that of all the reviews anywhere, they are pretty overall accurate much more so then Amazon.com

[edtyct]

I've seen Seinfeld upconverted to pseudo-HD (on Fox's HD station) that looked pretty good; I'm betting that the Seinfeld DVD, however, was probably to blame, especially since you saw a similar artifact on another TV, though the MAG's scaling might have exacerbated any flaws inherent in the transfer. I assume that you tried well-mastered, colorful, and contrast-dynamic DVDs with the panel, and they looked okay. DVDs produced at a high standard would be a better, or at least a telling, test. The centering issue is a drag. I'd be surprised if it couldn't be adjusted fairly easily. DId you happen to notice whether MAGs in general suffered from it? You might have been able to get one that's properly aligned. Nonetheless, the warranty-customer service element might have been a deal breaker with the MAG, anyway.

The 30" Sony XBR CRT is a winner, and it's a 16:9. The Sharp Aquos panels are really . . . sharp. The extra money in this case would guarantee you decent performance in all areas. Thanks for the rundown on some of the available no-frills units. You probably don't need confirmation from anyone, but from this distance, you seem to have done the right thing.

Ed

[flash75]

Hey guys thanks for your replies. EG, to answer your questions. I received absolutely no hassles. Both Best Buy and Costco have fantastic refund policies. No restock fees. Sure it's a bit of a pain to take home and bring back, but when i'm spending a fair amount of money I want to be happy and it's worth it. I have a small coupe and only the Daytek fit full box in the back seat. The others I took out of the box and put in my trunk. Usually I left the box there. The tv's are only about 45 lbs so it's much better than the few 27" tubes I had to haul up to my apartment. I was going to buy an Acer today at The Bay but I noticed the display model had a bit of an overscan issue at the top of the screen (about 1/4 inch) which for me is a big deal cuz i'm picky! Oh yeah the DVD 22 and 31 are essentially the same except the 31 plays dvd audio.

Ed, I did some research and found out that all dvd's aren't the chrystal clear miracle picture I thought they were! DVD's like Lock, Stock and 2 smokin barrels is INTENTIALLY grainy and i read some other reviews of DVD picture quality of ones i have from www.ign.com and they fit their descriptions properly. Seinfeld, like many people say is grainy because of the transfer or film they used. Surely, on the fox HD it would look better - and maybe when they release some of the later seasons on dvd they will look better too. Afterall, we're talking early ninties here. So overall, -maybe- the mag made things a bit worse, or maybe that's just the way it is on dvd. i bet a cartoon animated dvd would be CHRYSTAL!

At this point, if it wasn't for the geometry of the MAG i'd be buying it. I will check out some more on the floor at various stores and compare...maybe mine was just bad. I have emailed their sales (since it's the only email i could find on the proview website) and hopefully i can get in contact with their tech support so i can manually enter the service menu and adjust. I should hope that the service menu's are possible like my old sony wega? if i can tweek and adjust the overscan then i will go back and buy the MAG as for he money it's the best LCD out there i think.

So if i go all out what do you think? Sharp or Samsung?

PS. Now i've heard something about dvd players that UPconvert to better quality? is this worth it? should i sell my HK DVD 22 and buy a player that has upconvert capability. will the increase in quality be very noticeable?

Oh yeah, another thing I just remembered. the MAG is HDMI and only has one set of components. Both the Daytek (which I hated) and Acer have DVI and 2 sets of components. I think the viewsonic had 2 as well.

[EdwardGein]

I'd definately hold onto your DVD player and not get anything else until you actually witness that an "upconvertor" will actually produce results & that the sound quality is as good as your Harmon Kardon. Everyone I've encountered at high end stores have all 100% told me that buying an upconvertor player at this time is a total waste of money and they don't do crap. On my HK 31 player, the picture is perfect on both of my HD TV's & I can't imagine it getting any better. As I said the sound is top notch. What I recommend you do however, is "buy" a few upconvertors once you have an HD TV set (I'm not clear if you actually have one) and then compare the picture (& sound to your Harmon Kardon). If you think its an improvement, yeah, definately buy, but based on what I've heard, I doubt you will. Whatever you do, don't sell anything before you know you have a decent replacement on hand that you're keeping. I lucked out in that I had a 100 watt Acoustic Research 108PS Sub that was perfectly good but not great & I bought an Orb Audio Super Eight 200-400 Watt Sub for $400 that was so much better (I had one for my living room set) but when I hooked this up in my bedroom it was way too loud, boomy, etc., because of the acoustics, walls, enclosed structure, and so I sold it at an $80 loss and was lucky I still had my Acoustic Research Sub on hand which I'm settling on that permanently- I live in an apartment & its decent enough but not overpowering & I don't get complaints.
Please let this board know when you've found an HD LCD that's a keeper as I may eventually follow your lead. I have a Samsung 30" HD widescreen CRT for my bedroom that's perfectly good but not great but was about the best I could buy at the time of a "Name" brand for $700 at CircuitCity. The Samsung works perfectly but I'd still like to get an LCD if I could afford it & sell my Samsung for $500 (which I doubt).
Oh, you may want to try the following, which I'm convinced will improve your picture & sound & will cost you around $30 & if you don't think its an improvement, resell them on Ebay & recoup 85% of your cost: 1. A glass fiber optics cable for your TV that will improve the sound (I connect my DVR to my receiver) that's about $20 from a regular seller on Ebay & a "regular" optic cable this one guy sells on Ebay for around $10 that produces better CD & DVD sound then any other cable I used (I don't use the glass optic cable for DVD player because its too powerful).
You should start your own consumer reports magazine based on your returns! You rule!

[edtyct]

Flash, right. Transfers vary like crazy, and transfer of a TV program from the 90s is a likely candidate for less than a perfect picture. Recent animated DVDs like the Incredibles, one of the Shreks, or Finding Nemo might be a good test for the Mag. They were all mastered, and transfered, impeccably, and they are all bright movies that would play right into the hands of an LCD panel. I would lean toward a Sharp if I were to spend the requisite money. Sharp has concentrated on this technology with great success for a long time, but I certainly wouldn't try to dissuade you from a Samsung if you got a deal, and it moved you.

I disagree, at least a little bit, with EdGein's position on upconverters. First of all, an LCD panel, or any other microdisplay, will upconvert every DVD that it plays to its own native resolution. Some do a better job than others. A good upconverting DVD player can relieve a TV of a job that it may not do so well. A signal coming from a DVD player that already matches, or nearly matches, the panel's native resolution, can be a cleaner alternative to a TV's own scaler. Another benefit of a digital connection between a DVD player and a microdisplay, whether upconverting or not, is the avoidance of the D/A conversion that occurs via component, which can soften the picture to some undetermined extent. (This strategy does not apply to CRTs because they are essentially analog TVs, even if HD capable; no matter how the signal arrives, it will eventually end up analog.) The combination of DVI or HDMI and upconversion can enhance fine detail, both subjectively and in test screens. It's not just hype. However, as EdGein implies, it is not an automatic improvement. Implementation has a role as well. If you like your Harmon Kardon, swapping it for a player with a digital output may well be a waste of time, effort, and cash. If, however, you want to squeeze the last bit of detail and sharpness from your LCD panel when you get it, you could certainly give it DVI or HDMI a try. But not every properly outfitted DVD player will have the same success. Some suffer from macroblocking via their digital outputs; some lose detail in dark images; and some show the chroma upsampling error (CUE). It might take some research to get the right one. The Sony NS975V, for one, avoids these problems. But others may as well.

Ed

[EdwardGein]

Both of my HD TV's are CRT. Are you basically saying that on these type of TV's with an upconvertor you won't see an improvement but with an LCD you might, but there's no guarantee? When they come up with HD DVD players that are 1081, will you need a specially recorded DVD to see it in 1081 DVD or will a normal one perform that well? Will an HD DVD player perform that well then on a CRT HD TV?

I gots to know. Thanks

[edtyct]

Yeah, you're right, at least so far as probability is concerned. Since CRTs are analog-based, they don't get the benefit of an all-digital signal path, but they don't need it as much either. Unlike microdisplays, CRTs don't have to upconvert all resolutions to their native format just to display them; their scan rate is dependent on the source, not the sink (except for 720p, which CRT largely converts to 1080i, since it's too expensive for most CRTs to include). However, that doesn't mean that DVI or HDMI won't look very good on a CRT, perhaps even better than a particular TV's component output. You just can't tell until you try it.

Microdisplays are in a slightly similar situation at the outset; you can't tell how good their digital inputs are until you try them. But the decks are stacked in their favor, assuming that the digital platform is working correctly. Nonetheless, the intial rationale for digital output wasn't picture quality but copy protection, and, in that regard, CRTs are as dependent on digital delivery as microdisplays are.

I'm not quite sure what your second question is, but if I get it, HD DVD and Blu-Ray at 1080i, 1080p, or 720p is a completely different technology than what we have now, requiring proprietary disks and players. No regular DVD, upconverted either by a DVD player or a microdisplay's own scaler, is capable of true HD. It's just scaled 480 no matter how you slice it.

Ed

[EdwardGein]

So basically you're saying & what some guy who collects commercial DVD's I think said a while ago, is if they put an HD DVD player on the market, you'll have to buy special HD DVD's to watch them in this format & if you collect DVD's, this will be somewhat like replacing your record collection with CD's!

Thank God, I rarely buy DVD's & just rent them. The last DVD I bought (and did so because for some strange reason it wasn't available on Netflix or in any local rental store was the 3 DVD "This Is Your Life" 3 DVD Collection which I'm actually keeping as its a nice package with a large booklet & it is one of the few DVD's I'll rewatch on occassion- to see Laurel & Hardy, Abbot & Costello, Boris Karloff, Bobby Darin & other people like that alive again in their "Non Showbiz" real life, is priceless! The Darin one is especially a treat seeing as at the time he didn't know his sister was really his mother & seeing them together with her acting as his sister just barely containing herself & him thinking he's her sister! Sorry for digressing.

To me on my CRT HD TV's, the DVD picture (& sound) on my Harmon Kardon 31 is perfect & I can't imagine anything better.

[flash75]

Guys, thanks for your replies. Man, am I ever getting tired of the speed of technology! I'll definitely be keeping my HK DVD 22 since I just recently bought it. I think I might stay a little "behind" in technology as I know the new generation of HD dvd's are going to cost a premium. Lately i've been picking up dvd's for pretty cheap $15 cdn and sometimes $10 cdn (what for though I don't even have a tv now haahah). So all i need is an HD ready tv which has proven no easy task. I swear i should be writing for cnet! Now, for my latest review:

ACER 32" LCD bought from the Bay for $1450 cdn. I was hoping this would be my last purchase, but after an hour or 2 of tinkering, I packaged it up for return tomorrow. The geometry of the tv is perfect and the brightness sufficient. What really impressed me was that its scaling blew the MAG out of the water. Where the MAG was grainy, the Acer was acceptable. It wasn't perfect and chrystal but it was much improved over the MAG. The MAG however was brighter and showed colours nicer. What I didn't like about the Acer was that the black background showed too much light coming through, much like the Viewsonic I previewed. The MAG destroyed the Acer in this category. And most annoyingly was a fan noise that was audible at a low volume level and even more so was a high pitch tone coming from the back...enough to drive me crazy. SO overall I decided that I will NEVER purchase a non-brand name anything ever again. However I would buy an Acer computer/laptop.

It has been a pretty good learning experience the last week or so. So now I either have to shell out about $3000 for a Sharp or Samsung, OR decide to go the 26" route which I really don't want to. I looked at crt's once again but their inability to show straight lines turned me off. And for some reason I noticed some with flicker (although it might of had composite inputs). The size/weight thing turns me off as well. So i'll have to re-think my options. Since Costco has such a great refund policy (could go 6 months full money back no prob) I might go back and get the Viewsonic as a temp. solution until the prices fall at xmas and then get my dream 32" lcd.

So my advice is ONLY buy Sharp or Samsung. I would say Sony for LCD possibly because they do look good. One sales person said that Sony uses Samsung LCD screens? But I did see a 32" sony on display that had weird looking vertical lines in a black background.

The Seinfeld dvd's look terrible. What a pain. Hopefully they will only get better when newer seasons are released. Fortunately they make me laugh so hard that I don't pay much attention. I only watch them in their original 4:3 aspect.

EdwardGein, can you provide the ebay link for this audio cable you speak of? I was planning on using just a regular 75 ohm coaxial since I heard they sound a little better than fibre and that it either works or doesn't. But i'd be willing to experiment.

Anyways, i'll keep everyone posted of what i buy next! Probably a Sharp and Samsung review coming up! I had a couple of 24 and 27" crts before (sony and panny) but the major flicker and scan lines drove me crazy at 6.5-7 feet. I LOVE the look of the lcd picture however with the budget lcd's i have purchased I have not been amazed at dvd picture quality.

[EdwardGein]

I'm not sure about your size limitiations but I totally recommend the Mitsubushi 48" HD TV Mitsubishi WS-48315 which you can now get for less than $1400 including shipping. Its the best Tv I've ever had. This is a rear projector widescreen CRT.

[flash75]

hey thanks for the reccomendation, but yeah i'm pretty limited in a small apartment so i'm thinking 32" in the sweetspot. Plus, I don't really like the look of the "larger" screens...too much grain or screen door effect, although it seems like you are happy with the Mits.

I think i'm gonna "rent" the 27" viewsonic from costco until after christmas. I know lcd prices will drop big time come then and with boxing day sales i should be able to save $1000 I bet. I'll deal with the 27 until then...it's small and easy to transport and the only gripe I had was the black level.

[flash75]

Well, i'm back. This time it will be a review of the Sony 32" lcd from costco for $2500 cdn and the Samsung LN-R327 (last years model) from Best Buy for $2000 cdn.

The Sony is -definitely- not worth the money in my opinion. The scaler was respectable, but not as good as the Samsung. The black level was about the same, not bad, but the vertical overscan was off. The Samsung's overscan was bang on. So therefore, for the extra money, the Sony is completely out of the picture so I won't even continue with it.

The Samsung on the other hand is so far the current winner of all the lcd's I have "reviewed" to date. The only gripe I have with it is the "dynamic contrast" and "auto brightness" features...i think they are both completely useless. The dynamic contrast makes things look too dark and inky and the auto bright goes too dark as well. I guess you don't have to use them. With them off the picture is great, detailed, and the scaler is the best i've seen...VERY little grain. I'm sure this year's model is even better. Anyone know if they have improved anything?

I have yet to review the Sharp 32" however from what i've seen it has better blacks (can't notice as much light coming through on a black background) however it seemed like the picture isn't as bright (obviously) and not as sharp as the Samsung. So it seems to be a trade off - bright/sharp or better black/soft.

The quest for the perfect 32" lcd continues. I've narrowed it down now to the Samsung LN-R328W or the Sharp 32" GA5U.

Any suggestions?

[EdwardGein]

You ought to have your own magazine or newspaper column. I love the idea of you "renting". Keep it up! Maybe you can expand to other things, too!

Hey some guy made good money proving to the world that with just a computer he never had to leave his apartment- big Fing deal. But you, you can take "renting" to another level! I salute you! :D :D :D :D

[flash75]

Hahaha...thanks! And to top things off, I just made over $500 because the girl was new and refunded me too much! I didn't realize it until I was home so now I have a little devil and angel on each shoulder...hehehe.

I just got back from future shop...sony has a 32" and 40" XBR1 lcd that simply looks amazing!

And now the LG's are starting to look real nice too...hmmmm...decisions decisions. What a fun hobby!

[EdwardGein]

This is the first time in my life I wish I knew how to drive a car because I'd do exactly what you're doing. I hope none of these stores have your name on their "List". Maybe you'll take requests too. Can you see what the differences are in $150 versus $350 DVD recorders? MP3 players (that one I can actually do but am too lazy). You're better then consumer reports!

[flash75]

Haha, thanks man. Actually, it's a pain in the ass. I have to take the tv out of the box and then either shove the box in my back seat or leave it at the store. Believe it or not, I HATE returning stuff. But the way I see it I have no choice. When I plop $2k down on a TV I HAVE to be happy with it! I'm thinking the next i'll buy will be the 32" Sharp, but i'm really hoping that's the last one. Apparently it has the best blacks but I know the Samsung is brighter. I hate deciding.

As for your mp3 question, I went through about a dozen of those! Haha. I settled on the Creative Zen Nano 256mb (little rectangular white one) for $99 cdn. It just came out and works like a dream.

Lemme know if you need more help!

[EdwardGein]

Wow Great Minds think alike. I just got the Creative Zen Nano Plus 512 MB for about $100 on sale at Circuit City and it works great. I also bought for about $35 including shipping online Koss PortaPro Headphones which are superlightweight & supercomfortable & sound excellent with this. My ears can't tolerate the feeling of earbuds. The PortaPro holds up fantastic when jogging etc.

Try a Samsung Widescreen HD 30" TV. I have that. Cost me about $750 including delivery and instilation on sale also at Circuit City. I use it in my bedroom. It's pretty good but doesn't compare to my Mitsubishi 48".

What you do to electronics, is what I've done to women in the past, but the problem is they give you grief when you "return them" after the trial run.
:D :D :D :D

[flash75]

Hahaha...yeah returning women isn't always easy! I can't thank you enough for the recommendation on the koss portapro. I have been having a "nightmare" trying MANY different kinds of headphones for jogging with no success and have looked into the koss. Believe it or not but i've been using these creative earbuds for running and it's driving me crazy from falling out. These koss are the wrap around neck style right? Do they go loud enough with the little creative powering them? What about sweat? Do they get soaked? Where did you get them online? I've also been looking at the sennheiser wrap around neck style.

[EdwardGein]

Yeah I had the same problem with the earbuds The ones that came with the Zen Nano Plus sucked and I improved them for $15 for Sennheiser MX-400 In-Ear Headphones but I still wasn't comfortable with earbuds, Anyway, I saw some great reviews on the Koss Portapro's and decided to take a chance and they're great. I can't imagine any better. They go on top of your head abd over your ears but they are so light and comfortable you don't notice this at all. Most comfirtable headphones ever. They also stay on firm when your running/working out. I have the ipod in my shorts pocket & with the length here its more than enough to put over your head and it stays on perfectly. No tangles, sweats, etc. The sound is pretty good. Not fantastic but pretty damn good especially if comfort is your main priority. The cheapest place to get this brand new online is J&R at www.jr.com for $40 including free shipping and no tax.
Put the word portapro on the search page there and it will direct you there. Very fast delivery too. I'm pretty sure if you don't like these you can return them but what's not to like. The only thing is, the only ones that isolate extraneous outside noise are more expensive uncomfortable earbuds. I'd definately try these out first. I'm sure there are headphones that give you better sound but not at this comfort level.