Purchase ViewSonic N1630w 16-Inch 720p LCD HDTV
Excellent TV
I’ve had this television for over 2 weeks and I love it; it was the only one that I could find that met my criteria; a QAM tuner, AND it had to sit on my desk and fit under an overhead cabinet in my home office (it made it by 1/16″, whew!)
The picture quality is very good, but as other reviewers have said, the viewing angle could be better. I watch it at eye level, straight on, about 3-4 feet away and it is super. If I stand up and walk around, the upper vertical angle lightens the pic, but still looks OK to me. I checked the lower angle and it darkens the display. Of course I wouldn’t watch it that way, but if you were to have it on a high shelf, that could be a problem. If you are close to the TV, the Horizontal angle at eye level makes the picture have a negative type appearance when you stray too far to either side. This is similar to a 22″ Vizio we have in the kitchen. Again, it works for me in my situation, but could be a distraction in other environments.
Lastly, the sound! Yes, it is not really great; kinda reminds me of a Transistor radio I had in the 50’s. I tried to live with it for awhile, but it got on my nerves (I’m rather picky). I did not want to return the TV, so I purchased a pair of inexpensive Logitec 120 speakers, hooked them up to the headphone jack, and I am now very pleased with the sound output. If you demand more, you could spring for more elaborate extension speakers.
All in all, I would recommend this with the caveats mentioned above. I’m very happy with it and was well worth the cost! It gets 4 Stars only because of the sound quality!
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Update: 12/2009
I feel I need to downgrade my initial praise of this TV. All I said earlier is true, but after two months it began to develop pixilation and checker boarding on the QAM stations. I at first thought it was my cable company, but the 4 other sets I have with a QAM tuner were fine. I even moved this TV to other inputs and it had the same problem. I returned the TV for repair at my expense and it came back just the same, if not worse.
I called ViewSonic again and was sent a replacement TV (probably a refurbished one); they paid and were very nice. It is just the same. I then bought new cables, got a signal booster and had the cable company come and check; still has intermittent problems on the QAM stations. I even went to AV forums to see if there was any clue.
So, my thinking is that this TV has an inherent problem with the QAM side of the tuner. It will more then likely work for most folks, but not too well with my cable company. It has a great picture when it works, but when it doesn’t, it is very, very annoying. I would put all the blame on the cable company, but as said, my other TVs work great. So, just my opinion-hope it is helpful to some.
One last item; the headphone jack on the replacement TV does not power the extension speakers I purchased to overcome the poor sound. SIGH!
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