Newstech
05-08-2005, 09:37 AM
Last night I bought a brand-new Sanyo model HDTV at Walmart, the HT27745, for $447. Wheeee! To plagiarize from a post I saw recently, my head is spinning from so much goodness.
I'm an HDTV newbie, so bear with me as I do a quick dump of my initial reactions. Please don't tell me I should have gone for this or that additional feature -- you'll just ruin my high. :) And what I'll try to do is aim at the potential buyer at this level.
First, some background. Our 27-inch standard set appeared to be on its last legs. I was a little bit interested in Sanyo's 32-inch HT32744 at Walmart, but would have problems fitting it into some built-in cabinets in the living room, and didn't really want to spend $700. I'm not a major TV junkie -- no cable or satellite, and I've been using rabbit ears until I get around to replacing a flaky cable to the rooftop antenna. I'd pretty much decided to buy a standard 27-inch set in the low $200s to tide me over until HD prices come down, but went out yesterday to make the rounds -- Best Buy, Circuit City, Walmart.
At Walmart, over by the Jewelry counter, I noticed 2 cartons with the HT27745, priced at $447. I was shocked, since I hadn't known about any set with an integrated HDTV tuner at anything near this price. There were no sets in the display area, and when I went to the other area Walmart, they had neither cartons nor display sets. I ran home and did a Google, and found only 3 (!!) hits on the net, including this one:
http://www.sanyo.com/entertainment/televisions/digital/index.cfm?productID=1115
Apparently, this is a brand brand new model that Sanyo is building for Walmart, and it's just now hitting the stores. From the Sanyo Web page, it looked an awful lot like the 32-incher, just scaled down in size and some features. So I decided to take a chance, and ran back and bought one.
Reactions:
--It's heavy -- about 100 pounds -- so even for 2 of us getting it out of the pickup and into the house was an adventure.
--It's large for a 27-inch set.
--I hooked up a Philips $20 amplified settop antenna and it immediately came up and did a scan, finding a dozen or so digital stations here in Baltimore. That in itself was a wonderful surprise -- I had no idea that there were hidden goodies in the digital world like constant weather channels, and multiple specialty channels on the PBS outlet.
--I then tweaked the antenna to angle it toward Washington, and picked up a pile of additional signals. Until now, reception from D.C. had been lame at best. Unfortunately, some of those channels are now too weak in the daytime. I think I'm going trade in the antenna for the next level of signal boost.
--The image is gorgeous. Even on source material that wasn't created in HD, it's rock solid and beautifully detailed.
--Image format is weird on digital, though. Different stations appear in different ways. Some come up in what they call "postage stamp" format, with bars on both top and sides. On a 4:3 set, that makes for a pretty small picture. The Sanyo has a zoom function to fill the screen, but that takes away from the sparkling clarity, and chops the edges if you have a standard letterbox picture. Some remorse here.
--In letterbox mode, I think I'm seeing an extremely slight tilt and pincushioning. Not jarring, just enough to nag at me.
--Sound is decent, and you can set the bass and treble. Some of the digital channels have a weird kind of echoing, though -- I haven't figured out if that's a Surround Sound artifact. I haven't yet hooked it to the stereo amp, but from what I read it's going to be a fixed-level output, which makes me unhappy, since that would mean I can't control the volume with the TV remote, and my old monster Yamaha power amp doesn't have remote control.
--Features seem to be pretty much the same as the 32-inch set, except that (1) there's no Picture and Picture, and (2) no HDMI interface.
--Analog tuner seems about the same as in our old RCA -- possibly not as strong on weak signals. Fortunately, most of the channels are coming in well on digital.
Bottom line: Sure, you can get higher quality and more features if you spend $700, or $1000, or $3000.... But my quick read on this is that it's a stunning breakthrough in the march to HDTV. It's the first set I've seen with pricing that flirts with the high end of standard sets at the same size. I easily could have spent $300 for a 27-inch flat tube, and another $100 or $150 for a settop digital receiver, and not had the quality of HD nor the convenience of built-in tuning. If you live in an urban area, you can probably do well with a decent settop antenna.
BTW: The set has a one-year store-exchange warranty. Not sure I'd like to go hauling it back, but that still seems pretty good.
I hope this long-winded post is valuable. I'll post again if I make new discoveries.
I'm an HDTV newbie, so bear with me as I do a quick dump of my initial reactions. Please don't tell me I should have gone for this or that additional feature -- you'll just ruin my high. :) And what I'll try to do is aim at the potential buyer at this level.
First, some background. Our 27-inch standard set appeared to be on its last legs. I was a little bit interested in Sanyo's 32-inch HT32744 at Walmart, but would have problems fitting it into some built-in cabinets in the living room, and didn't really want to spend $700. I'm not a major TV junkie -- no cable or satellite, and I've been using rabbit ears until I get around to replacing a flaky cable to the rooftop antenna. I'd pretty much decided to buy a standard 27-inch set in the low $200s to tide me over until HD prices come down, but went out yesterday to make the rounds -- Best Buy, Circuit City, Walmart.
At Walmart, over by the Jewelry counter, I noticed 2 cartons with the HT27745, priced at $447. I was shocked, since I hadn't known about any set with an integrated HDTV tuner at anything near this price. There were no sets in the display area, and when I went to the other area Walmart, they had neither cartons nor display sets. I ran home and did a Google, and found only 3 (!!) hits on the net, including this one:
http://www.sanyo.com/entertainment/televisions/digital/index.cfm?productID=1115
Apparently, this is a brand brand new model that Sanyo is building for Walmart, and it's just now hitting the stores. From the Sanyo Web page, it looked an awful lot like the 32-incher, just scaled down in size and some features. So I decided to take a chance, and ran back and bought one.
Reactions:
--It's heavy -- about 100 pounds -- so even for 2 of us getting it out of the pickup and into the house was an adventure.
--It's large for a 27-inch set.
--I hooked up a Philips $20 amplified settop antenna and it immediately came up and did a scan, finding a dozen or so digital stations here in Baltimore. That in itself was a wonderful surprise -- I had no idea that there were hidden goodies in the digital world like constant weather channels, and multiple specialty channels on the PBS outlet.
--I then tweaked the antenna to angle it toward Washington, and picked up a pile of additional signals. Until now, reception from D.C. had been lame at best. Unfortunately, some of those channels are now too weak in the daytime. I think I'm going trade in the antenna for the next level of signal boost.
--The image is gorgeous. Even on source material that wasn't created in HD, it's rock solid and beautifully detailed.
--Image format is weird on digital, though. Different stations appear in different ways. Some come up in what they call "postage stamp" format, with bars on both top and sides. On a 4:3 set, that makes for a pretty small picture. The Sanyo has a zoom function to fill the screen, but that takes away from the sparkling clarity, and chops the edges if you have a standard letterbox picture. Some remorse here.
--In letterbox mode, I think I'm seeing an extremely slight tilt and pincushioning. Not jarring, just enough to nag at me.
--Sound is decent, and you can set the bass and treble. Some of the digital channels have a weird kind of echoing, though -- I haven't figured out if that's a Surround Sound artifact. I haven't yet hooked it to the stereo amp, but from what I read it's going to be a fixed-level output, which makes me unhappy, since that would mean I can't control the volume with the TV remote, and my old monster Yamaha power amp doesn't have remote control.
--Features seem to be pretty much the same as the 32-inch set, except that (1) there's no Picture and Picture, and (2) no HDMI interface.
--Analog tuner seems about the same as in our old RCA -- possibly not as strong on weak signals. Fortunately, most of the channels are coming in well on digital.
Bottom line: Sure, you can get higher quality and more features if you spend $700, or $1000, or $3000.... But my quick read on this is that it's a stunning breakthrough in the march to HDTV. It's the first set I've seen with pricing that flirts with the high end of standard sets at the same size. I easily could have spent $300 for a 27-inch flat tube, and another $100 or $150 for a settop digital receiver, and not had the quality of HD nor the convenience of built-in tuning. If you live in an urban area, you can probably do well with a decent settop antenna.
BTW: The set has a one-year store-exchange warranty. Not sure I'd like to go hauling it back, but that still seems pretty good.
I hope this long-winded post is valuable. I'll post again if I make new discoveries.