Buy Magnavox 42MD459B/F7 42-Inch 1080p LCD HDTV

Magnavox 42MD459B/F7 42-Inch 1080p LCD HDTV with Built-in Blu-ray Disc Player (Electronics)

The TV is great! Clear and sharp, great color, sound is good. The unit does not have built in Blu-ray though. I was told the add was incorrect and given the oppurtunity to get a refund, but chose to accept it and got a reduction in price.

Buy Toshiba 40G300U 40-Inch 1080p 120 Hz LCD HDTV

Toshiba 40G300U 40-Inch 1080p 120 Hz LCD HDTV (Black Gloss) (Electronics) I ordered this TV from Amazon about three weeks ago, and received it one week later. Although I was concerned about safe shipment of such a large object, it arrived in excellent condition. The packaging, with foam plastic inserts to support the TV at all four corners, was quite impressive.

Set-up was very simple. I only had to look up a few points in the manual. The manual is even written in legible English!

The picture quality on this TV is excellent. I watched a football game on broadcast TV, and that was a completely different experience from watching the same games on my old CRT TV.

I bought this TV for use in my "Home Theater" system that I am still putting together. Playing movies from my HTPC or watching Blu-ray movies really demonstrates the excellent picture quality of this TV. Just as an aside, the remote is easy and fairly intuitive to use. That's not a big point, but a poor remote can frustrate the user of an otherwise excellent TV. This remote works well enough that it doesn't add any irritation to the total experience.

It was when I hooked up the TV to my existing stereo receiver/amplifier that I discovered one point about the TV that is less than perfect. I had not noticed any deficiency in the sound while watching broadcast TV or even watching DVD movies on the TV. But once the stereo receiver/amplifier was hooked up and I could hear the sound over that set with top quality Altec-Lansing speakers, the sound quality was much better. In short, if you want the best home theater experience with this TV, it will need to be supplemented with a good amplifier and speakers. But I expected that going in. I'm not downgrading the TV set just because its audio performance, with its small speakers, isn't quite up to what I get out of my 100 W amplifier and 15" speakers. Heck, each of those speakers cost almost as much as this TV!

This TV set is great for what it does - providing an excellent picture. The fact that it isn't also a professional sound system is irrelevant to its function. Besides, if we have a home theater system, we will have the tuner/amplifier and speakers already for other purposes.

Hooking up the audio output from the TV to a separate amplifier may be a trap for the unprepared. The TV sound out is via TosLink, which is an optical digital signal. I knew that from the Amazon description and pictures of the input/output connections for the TV. I had already ordered a TosLink optical cable and an optical/digital to analog sound converter and two RCA cables to connect to my amplifier. The total cost of those items was about $50. Not a big deal, but just an advance notice to any purchaser of this excellent TV that you really do need the cables and D/A converter, because the sound from your existing home theater or stereo amplifier and speakers will be needed for the complete enjoyment of this TV. If you have a more modern amplifier with optical digital input, only the TosLink cable will be necessary.

All things considered, I don't have any complaints, and I would buy this same TV again. In fact, I'm thinking about buying another one for my bedroom!

Five Stars! No doubt about it!

Buy Toshiba 32E200U 32-Inch 1080p LCD HDTV

Toshiba 32E200U 32-Inch 1080p LCD HDTV (Black Gloss) (Electronics) I bought mine from Buydig when they had it for $399.99 with a coupon code and free shipping last month. I am using it as a computer monitor and as a secondary TV at home. Instead of writing in paragraph, I will just enumerate the things I wanted to say...
As a Computer Monitor:

1. It has a native mode, but it will leave about an inch of space/border, from the side and 1/2 inch on the top and bottom. The quality is super crisp! Just like a CRT (with 1080p PC mode on)!
2. Natural mode will stretch it out and leave about a 1/4 inch on each side. and it's still pretty crisp.
3. There is an option in this tv called 1080p PC mode, which makes the letters very crisp and clear. You will need to enable it to make the letters not look distorted or fuzzy.
4. To get to the 1080p computer mode, go to menu > picture settings > noise reduction > turn on 1080p PC mode.
5. by default, it is extremely bright as a computer monitor, so lessen the back light.
6. NO DEAD PIXELS!!!!!
7. Using the 15-pin computer plug, max resolution possible is 1360x 768, and instead of native mode, it has a dot by dot mode (which is essentially native mode.)dot by dot mode will leave a hefty border on the tv which is about 3 inch on the top and bottom and about 5 inches per side. Although the text is as clear as it any CRTs out there, losing about 40% of your monitor's real estate isn't that great. Also in PC ode, you can't change the picture settings.
8. I have been able to use audio over HDMI using an ATI card (4670)
9. To avoid screen tearing when playing PC games, make sure v-sync is turned on your PC.

As a TV:

1. switching through channels is painless, not like some other brands that I've tried, this takes less than a second to load to the other channel. There is a slight delay when switching through HDMI and cable or HDMI to another HDMI which is only about a second.
2. very crisp picture and superb colors. The black levels are one of the best I've seen. and this is coming from a former plasma TV user.
3. The sound is pretty decent. Don't expect heavy bass. no tv has that. that's what home theatre set ups are for.
4. The remote is solid, not fancy. no problems picking up the signal.
5. has a usb port that can play music and pictures.
6. NO DEAD PIXELS!!!!!!
7. I have my Dynalight function off so I can't comment on it.

Power consumption (using a P3 Watt meter)
off
>1 W (about .3 W for me)
on Sports mode (torch mode)
~95 W
on Standard
~59 W
on movie mode
~55 W
on PC mode (using the 15 pin VGA)
~54 W
on preference (it seems to be on Sports mode by default)
~95 W

As I've said, it is very bright to use as a computer monitor so what I did was I went on movie mode and customized it by putting contrast and brightness @ 50 and put the backlight @ 0 (yes I put it @ ZERO!) if it's too dark for you put it around backlight 10. 

With backlight at zero, the Power Consumption is @ 36 W. Backlight @ 10 is about 43 W.
The unit on standard mode, is a little warm to the touch when you feel the back panel but it doesn't heat up the room at all.
I haven't tested it on input lag but from what I can see, it's pretty good. Game mode helps a lot.

EDIT!!!
being an ATI user, never had the chance to test this TV with an NVidia card. It seems with Nvidia, native mode works perfectly, with all the TV's screen real estate being used. on other modes though, the NVidia chip was actually a little big since the display also had the overscan. It seems ATI chips natively shrink their TV output.