vizio m501d-a2r lcd panel pricelist
Internet App Vizio Remote with QWERTY Keyboard XRT302 0980-0306-1060. For use with Vizio TV Model numbers (but not limited to NOTE LG & Vizio TVs must be plugged in for 5 minutes before it will turn on . ).
The Vizio M501d is not the smallest of the M series, but it is the smallest that incoportates all of the advanced features like 240Hz processing and Theater 3D. The smaller TVs still have local dimming, but only feature a 120Hz panel. This 50 inch also presents an excellent value for a TV with a fast refresh rate and 3D for less than $900. That"s going to be hard to beat this year. 50 inch TVs from Toshiba, Samsung, LG, and Sony are going to be the biggest sources of competition for the M501d.
Game – Some TVs have hidden the Game mode but Vizio makes it easy to find right there in the Picture mode settings. It"s specifically designed to reduce lag time during gaming using a combination of LED lighting, panel refresh rate, and internal processing.
The effective 240Hz panel speed did a pretty good job eliminating judder and motion lag when combined with the Smooth Motion Effect setting. When viewing anything but live sports, you will likely want to turn the Smooth Motion Effect setting off as it adds the unwelcome cardboard cuttout fake effect by eliminating too much background blur. The effect is more subtle on the Vizio M551d than on many LED TVs we"ve reviewed. It doesnt overcompensate as much. We noted just a slight amount of lag in fast motion material.
The M501d features a panel with a 240Hz effective refresh rate from what is likely a 120Hz panel. We think this is a great addition to the overall picture quality on this LED TV. Sports programming is one of the biggest reasons to have a 240Hz refresh rate. Gaming also benefits from a fast panel in a big way. There are many situations where this extra push in image processing won"t be needed, luckily it can be disabled. This way unwanted side effects in programming that doesn"t include a lot of fast action won"t be an issue.
The M501d uses Vizio"s Theater 3D. This is the passive 3D method for displaying 3D content. We have noticed better 3D picture quality on passive 3D TVs from LG, Vizio and Sony than the active variety. Plus it"s less complicated, you get 4 pairs of glasses free, and extra pairs are cheap. The M501d has a very nice deep rich 3D quality picture and I highly recommend this aspect of the TV to those leary about 3D.
The Vizio M series pushes the Vizio Internets Apps, or V.I.A. smart TV platform. It brings just about all the Premium Apps you are really going to use, or need, to the living room. Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Hulu Plus, M Go, Netflix, Pandora, Rhapsody, VUDU, Amazon, and Yahoo! TV Widgets are a few of the long list that can be accessed right out of the box. Vizio"s Apps selection and menu seem somewhat out of date and with the exception of the dedicated Apps buttons on the remote does not work extremely efficiently. The V button in the middle of the remote accesses Smart TV function is not labeled.
The M501d has an ultra slim black bezel that surrounds the edge to edge glass of the screen. The base and neck are made out of metal to give it a solid construction and feel. The profile is razor thin and competes with the best LED TVs on the market. Unlike other manufacturers Vizio places their logo on the bottom right of the TV which leaves the middle bottom front looking somewhat empty. Overall a good B-grade design.
This TV includes Wifi Direct universal remote. That means the remote works with the TV"s built in wifi. You won"t need line of sight like traditional remotes for the TV to pick up a button press. It"s a great addition and adds to the ease of use Vizio is going for.
The picture the TV can produce is also impressive for its price, with excellent shadow detail and fairly deep blacks, and is worth the extra money over Vizio"s entry-level E-Series for more-natural image quality. Panasonic ST60 series of plasmas.
With its new M-Series, Vizio has shown that it is determined to deliver a good-looking TV with unexpected performance for the price. If you need a large screen with design and picture smarts, the Vizio M551d-A2R and M501d-A2R offer compelling combinations.
For the last few years, Vizio"s television designs have lagged behind its competitors, whether looking simply fuddy-duddy, or at their worst, quite cheap. But the company has amended that this year with both the E- and M-Series looking up-to-the-minute and much more expensive than they really are. The M551d-A2R is particularly striking, with a bezel as thin as a smartphone. The ends are finished in a brushed-aluminum cap and the effect is very tasty -- it rivals LG"s designs at a fraction of the price. I particularly like the subtle Vizio logo tab on the right side; it looks like it"s straight out of your browser"s window.
If you ever used the Yahoo apps on previous Vizio TVs, you"ll know what the company is going for with its new menu system with its drop-down boxes and smartphonelike notifications. The TV now offers some helpful wizards, but they are confined to a left-hand window in most cases and often feature very small text. You should probably keep your glasses handy during setup.
Vizio says its remote will gain wireless connectivity and learning functions with a forthcoming firmware update that will let users program their devices into the remote through an onscreen wizard.
Smart TV: Vizio has made some tweaks to its Smart TV platform, now named Vizio Internet Apps Plus. Most notably, you can now see more apps on the screen at once; the ribbon that appears at the bottom when you tap the V button now holds seven apps instead of four. Tap it a second time and you now get the new All Apps view. The company has also added a swath of new apps to its "store" -- mostly local news stations, but most notably it now includes Crackle video, 3D video-streaming service 3DGo, and music-streaming app iHeartRadio.
I"m not a big fan of the platform that Vizio"s smart TV service is built on: Yahoo Apps. It squashes most of the information into a small rectangle on the side and still has the "widget" smell about it. As such, this makes a lot of apps, such as 3DGo, look and behave in a homogenized fashion, and it"s not as intuitive as using native apps like Netflix.
Picture settings: In the past, Vizio targeted its TV products toward sports enthusiasts, with pictures of Nascar drivers on its merchandising and sports-specific picture modes. But with the M-Series the focus has shifted, and nowhere is that more evident than in the new picture settings. Instead of a dozen different modes, there are now only six, and none of them are sports-themed. Instead you now get two Calibrated modes for the AV enthusiasts as well as a dedicated Game mode.
However, despite the TV now being Vizio"s top-of-the-line series, there is still very little advanced tweaking available, offering only a two-point grayscale under Color Temperature, with zero advanced color calibration.
Connectivity: The Vizio has four HDMI ports plus two USB inputs for external disks and keyboards. You also get a component/composite port, an Ethernet port, and a digital optical output. While this television may look like an all-in-one PC, there"s actually no RGB input; most computers come with HDMI now anyway.
Black level: The smart dimming of the M551d-A2R may not have the absolute blacks of the cheaper E-Series -- which has just had a firmware update -- but the M-Series" picture is much more natural. The Vizio E500i-A1 has an etched look to the edges between the boundaries of light areas and dark -- and this is not evident on the M551d-A2R. Shadow areas also have more gradations on the M-Series than on the E-Series, where the smart dimming can obscure some low-level detail.
At 45:54 in "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2," the M551d did a better job of displaying the very dark mountaintop sequence with more consistency from a dark scene to a light one. The E500i, in comparison, kept the mountain too dark and then the backlight ramped up obviously once the processor decided there was enough white detail to activate the backlight. But the M551d wasn"t entirely fault-free; there was some of this ramping-up "iris" effect on it as well, which could be distracting compared with the other TVs in the lineup, which all lacked the aggressive smart dimming of the Vizios.
As with the earlier Vizio M3D550Kd TV, the M551d has a problem with blooming around white or lighter areas on a black background. This was particularly evident with single images in the middle of the screen, and it was something the E500 didn"t do. For example, at 20:38 during "The Tree of Life," the entire midsection of the TV bloomed when there was a single red image in the middle of the screen, but none of the other TVs did this.
Video processing: The Vizio M551d passed 24p successfully with smooth movement overall and just the right amount of judder in the flags on the deck of the ship during our "I Am Legend" test. In comparison, the image from the E500 was very jerky and unstable. When presented with the 1080i deinterlacing test, the M551d had an excellent hold on moving bars -- and equaled the other best in the lineup (Panasonic S60) in quality. Meanwhile the next scene of a slow pan of a sporting arena did exhibit some moire in the stands; the E500 did much better here.
When large screen LCD TVs first came out, I admit, I didn"t see the appeal. Prices were much higher than plasma even though screen sizes were generally smaller. Not to mention the picture deficiencies: uniformity problems, motion artifacts and black levels that can only be described as medium to dark grey. But as with everything, technology marches onward. Prices fall, picture quality improves, and feature sets get richer and richer. And here"s where Vizio"s L42 42-inch LCD TV comes in.
I"ve seen Vizio at my local Costco but I never paid their TVs much attention assuming they were another one of those unknown brands that sacrifice performance to reach a low price point. But at the Digital Life press preview this year, I saw a couple of Vizio plasmas and one LCD model up close and personal, and in better lighting conditions, and I thought they looked pretty good, particularly given their low prices. The L42 is one generation beyond what I saw at that show, and it"s got a lot going for it.
Pricing Update: Wal*Mart is now selling Vizio and has the Vizio VW42LHDTV10A 42" LCD HDTV for $898 (purchase online, ship to your home or to your local store)
The best thing about it is the price. The list is currently only $1399 - this puts it on price parity with Vizio"s 42-inch plasma HDTV, which also offers excellent value, albeit a lower resolution. The L42 LCD model features a 1366X768 pixel panel, where the 42-inch plasma panel resolution is 1024X768 pixels. And speaking of pixels, Vizio also offers a "no dead pixel" guarantee, which is rare in the LCD TV industry, particularly at entry-level price points. I examined the L42 closely and was not able to find a single dead pixel, so kudos to Vizio in that respect.
As far as features go, the Vizio has pretty much everything one could possibly want in an HDTV, including a built in NTSC and ATSC (High Def) tuner which works both with over-the-air and QAM digital cable signals. It sports two HDMI and two component video inputs, one S-video and 2 composite video inputs, plus a VGA-style analog computer input. Putting that VGA input to good use, the L42 makes for one hell of a computer monitor in its native resolution (1366X768 widescreen or 1024X768 with a 4:3 input). Text is crystal clear and sharp even from 12 feet away. But I"m afraid it"s a little too large to sit comfortably on my computer desk. (We"re going to need a bigger desk...).
The Vizio also features a flexible PIP feature that allows you to adjust size and position of the PIP picture - even watch two identically sized images side by side (in case your spouse wants to catch "Lost" while you curl up with a nice chocolate cake and watch "The Biggest Loser").
The set-up menus are simple and straightforward. I was able to get in, get some basic picture controls tweaked, and get my local SD and HD channels added within a few minutes of opening the box, without referring to the manual. We also have a Syntax-Brillian LCD TV in for review, and I must say the Vizio"s GUI, while less fancy than that of the Syntax, is far more intuitive.
The Vizio also offers a rudimentary built-in HDTV program guide - hit the "guide" button on the remote, when viewing an ATSC channel on the TV"s built-in tuner and it will show you a list of the current and upcoming shows on the channel for the next several hours.
When I took this set home for review, plugged it in and set it down in front of our Loewe 38-inch Aconda 9383 CRT HDTV, my wife was not pleased. She"s become spoiled by arguably one of the best HDTV pictures in the business, and the Vizio just couldn"t match its picture quality. Of course the Vizio is also four inches larger, includes a flat screen, weighs less than half as much as the Loewe, and sells for roughly 1/4 the price of the Loewe, but that didn"t pacify her (her opinion softened over time, I might add, particularly after proper calibration).
As with all of the TVs we test, the Vizio definitely needs adjustment out of the box. The backlighting setting is high so it will "pop" on the showroom floor, but this only accentuates LCD"s inherent flaws (motion trails, graininess and poor black levels). Cut that down to somewhere between 15 and 30 (depending on your room"s ambient lighting conditions) and most of these digital nasties will disappear or become less apparent. Take the time (and spend a little money) to calibrate the set using a good calibration DVD like Avia Guide to Home Theater or a tool like SpyderTV, or SpyderTV Pro. It will turn an image that is marginally viewable to something that is actually quite acceptable.
Some content definitely looks better than other content on the Vizio. HD-DVD Movies on our Toshiba HD-XA1 looked excellent, with phenomenal detail and excellent color rendition. But live broadcast HDTV signals, particularly sports, seemed to look even better. Game 7 of the National League baseball championships ended badly for us Mets fans, but it was almost bearable to watch on the Vizio, with detail up the wazoo, and bright crisp colors.
Standard definition content on the Vizio is soft (as expected) but, with the TV properly calibrated, even SDTV was eminently watchable on the set. Not as sharp or detailed as on the Loewe CRT, but certainly as good as or better than other comparably priced LCD TV models.
The more time I spent with the Vizio L42, the more I liked it. It was a solid performer, with a straightforward, intuitive ergonomic design, pleasing aesthetics and solid picture performance. Its most likely competition actually comes from Vizio itself with their comparably priced 42-inch plasma HDTV model (P42HDTV). And each has its advantages. If you"re viewing in a light-controlled darkened environment, the plasma gets the nod in picture quality, including perceived contrast and color saturation. But if you want a strong all-around performer, with plenty of features and inputs, for use in a fairly bright environment, then the L42 is definitely worth checking out.
Where to But Vizio HDTVs online:Vizio VW42LHDTV10A 42" LCD HDTV at Wal*Mart - currently $898 (purchase online, ship to your home or to your local store)
Irvine, CA - May 28, 2013 - VIZIO, America"s #1 large size HDTV company1 and #1 selling LCD HDTV Brand in the U.S. 2, today announced pricing and availability for its highly anticipated all-new line of M-Series Razor LED™ Smart TVs3. Featuring an ultra-modern, ultra-thin bezel that virtually vanishes next to the nearly edge-to-edge display, VIZIO"s enhanced HDTV line-up continues to demonstrate the brand"s leadership in HDTV technology and design-focused enhancements. VIZIO, ranked "Highest in Customer Satisfaction with HDTVs" by J.D. Power and Associates4, will begin rolling out its sleek new offerings this month.
VIZIO"s new M-Series Razor LEDTM Smart TVs are the ideal centerpieces for today"s modern families, giving rooms an instant "designer home" makeover. The signature M-Series design is available in a full range of screen size classes including 32" (M321i), 40" (M401i), 47" (M471i), 50" (M501d), 55" (M551d), 60" (M601d), 65" (M651d), 70" (M701d) and 80" (M801d) and combines enhanced picture quality and an all-new, more responsive, easy to use VIZIO Internet Apps Plus™ with an ultra-thin bezel for an immersive, near borderless TV experience. The base and neck feature unique interior metal construction for added stability, while the beautiful metallic finish complements the design and helps set the new standard for home entertainment perfection.
"The M-Series family offers an elegant blend of thoughtful design detailing and premium materials, presenting consumers with an HDTV they will be proud to showcase in their homes," said Scott McManigal, VIZIO VP of Industrial Design. "The ultra-thin bezel reduces peripheral distractions and enhances the rich picture quality allowing for a superior edge-to-edge viewing experience."
VIZIO"s new M-Series Razor LEDTM Smart TVs build on VIZIO"s position as the current#1 Smart LED TV brand in the U.S.5, with over 3.2 million Smart HDTVs sold since 20106. Featuring Smart Dimming™ technology to deliver deeper blacks and brighter whites for a richer contrast, the M-Series units offer full HD 1080p and up to 240Hz effective refresh rate featuring Smooth Motion enhanced with backlight scanning allowing for the sharpest possible picture. Consumers with 50" M- Series models and larger, will enjoy a flicker-free, 3D picture through lightweight, battery free glasses thanks to VIZIO"s Theater 3D® technology. Providing a crystal-clear and visibly brighter picture than conventional 3D, Theater 3D makes allows for a more immersive 3D viewing experience.
"As hardware manufacturers and content providers continue to align to provide consumers with a more robust internet capable experience, the market for "Smart TVs" will continue to evolve," said Stephen Baker, vice president of industry analysis at NPD. "VIZIO has been able to maintain a leadership position in LCD TVs with apps included for 2012 and Q1 2013."
VIZIO, being #1 in the Smart TV industry7, introduces the M-Series collection which boasts a best-in-class connected TV experience allowing consumers to instantly enjoy the latest hit movies, TV shows, music and more through VIZIO Internet Apps Plus. The new, faster VIZIO Internet Apps Plus Smart TV platform allows users of all experience levels to quickly and easily breeze through set-up and get connected. The intuitive Smart TV platform offers more apps than ever before, making it convenient to start watching TV or browse apps like Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, M-GO, Facebook®, HuluPlus, Pandora®, VUDU and YouTube® using the TV"s built-in Wi-Fi or Ethernet connection to the Internet. Additionally, the M-Series collection features a backlit Smart remote that is perfect for nighttime viewing. Coming Summer 2013, all M-Series model remotes will be enabled with Wi-Fi and Universal remote features, making it easier to control all home entertainment devices, creating a better user experience8.
"The new VIZIO M-Series televisions represent a significant step forward in terms of design, picture quality and connectivity," said Matt McRae, VIZIO Chief Technology Officer. "Our Smart TV platform has been upgraded with new apps, new features and new experiences such as dual screen control from smartphones and tablets. We also focused on the basics that matter to every consumer such as a newly designed remote control and class leading picture quality."
The all-new M-Series models are now shipping to retailers nationwide including Best Buy, Amazon and Walmart. For more information on VIZIO"s M-Series collection, please visit VIZIO.com
VIZIO, Inc. is headquartered in Irvine, California. In Q2 2007, VIZIO skyrocketed to the top by becoming the #1 shipping brand of flat panel HDTVs in North America and in Q3 2007 became the first American brand in over a decade to lead in U.S. LCD HDTV shipments. Since 2007 VIZIO LCD HDTV shipments remain in the top ranks in the U.S. and were #1 for the total year in 2009 and 2010. In Q4 2012, VIZIO became America"s #1 60+ inch HDTV company based on units sold. VIZIO is the #1 Sound Bar Company and is a top rated sound bar brand 2-years running by leading consumer publications. As VIZIO celebrates its 10-Year Anniversary, it remains committed to what it does best, focus on the consumer to deliver visionary products at a great value. VIZIO offers a broad range of award winning consumer electronics that now include PCs and mobility products. VIZIO"s products are found at Amazon, Best Buy, BJ"s Wholesale, Costco Wholesale, Sam"s Club, Target, Walmart and other retailers nationwide. VIZIO has won numerous awards including a #1 ranking in the Inc. 500 for Top Companies in Computers and Electronics and made the lists of Ad Age"s Hottest Brands, CNET"s Editor"s Choice, CNET Best of CES 2011 - Television, Home Theater Magazine"s Top Picks, Good Housekeeping"s Best Big-Screens, PC World"s Best Buy and Popular Mechanics Editor"s Choice among many other prestigious honors. For more information, please call 888-VIZIOCE or visit www.VIZIO.com .
There are various panel technologies. Each has its own specific features - viewing angles, color reproduction, response time, brightness/contrast, production cost, etc. The image quality depends directly on the type of the display panel used.IPS
The most widely used panels are those with 6, 8, and 10 bits for each of the RGB components of the pixel. They provide 18-, 24-, and 30-bit color, respectively.8 bits
The maximum number of colors, which the display is able to reproduce, depends on the type of the panel in use and color enhancing technologies like FRC.16777216 colors
The backlight is the source of light of the LCD display panels. The type of backlight determines the image quality and the color space of the display. There are various backlights such as CCFL, LED, WLED, RGB-LED, and etc.Edge LED