ChAoTiCpInOy

Diamond Member
Jun 24, 2006
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Has anyone ever heard of it? They sell them at Circuit City. Pretty cheap, weird resolutions. They are mostly LCD HDTVs.
 

Slick5150

Diamond Member
Nov 10, 2001
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Its Circuit City's "house brand", and I believe they're made by the same company that makes Insignia (Best Buy's house brand) and Poloroid displays. So, definitely lower end of the quality spectrum geared towards people looking for something on the cheap. I don't have any hands on experience with them, but just don't expect miracles out of it.

 

Captante

Lifer
Oct 20, 2003
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Pretty crappy color-accuracy & contrast ratio, but the biggest drawback is that its extremely difficult to get one serviced ... parts can be hard to borderline impossible to get & finding an authorized service center is rough too.

Unless you are looking for a potential "throwaway" TV, I suggest you spend a few dollars more on a name brand.
 

Slick5150

Diamond Member
Nov 10, 2001
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Olevia would be a good brand to look into from the perspective of not being a lot more money, but being far better quality wise.
 

destrekor

Lifer
Nov 18, 2005
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Originally posted by: Slick5150
Olevia would be a good brand to look into from the perspective of not being a lot more money, but being far better quality wise.

Vizio would be right up there with Olevia in my book, both offer exceptional quality for their price.
 

Captante

Lifer
Oct 20, 2003
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Originally posted by: destrekor
Originally posted by: Slick5150
Olevia would be a good brand to look into from the perspective of not being a lot more money, but being far better quality wise.

Vizio would be right up there with Olevia in my book, both offer exceptional quality for their price.


Vizio offers better warranty support then Olevia & has a slightly better reliability record, but none of the Vizio TV's I've seen can stack up to Olevia in picture quality, especially when it comes to color accuracy.

Olevia offers the best image quality in a low-priced LCD, but the one major downside is the fine print in the Olevia warranty ... its too complicated to go into all the details here, but suffice it to say that with many of the TV's they sell you'll be paying at least for shipping if it has problems beyond 45 days after purchase & it can also be difficult to get parts for them if they require service, an issue Vizio has largely overcome.

 

ChAoTiCpInOy

Diamond Member
Jun 24, 2006
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The problem is I need a HDTV that I can use for my computer monitor and can take a 1280x1024 resolution from my computer.
 

Captante

Lifer
Oct 20, 2003
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Originally posted by: ChAoTiCpInOy
The problem is I need a HDTV that I can use for my computer monitor and can take a 1280x1024 resolution from my computer.


The problem you'll run into is that no HDTV has a native resolution of 1280x1024 although many 4:3 aspect ratio moniters do ... 720p is technically 1280x720 but most TV's display at 1366x768 & 1080p is 1920x1080.

Why do you need to input that particular resolution?
 

ChAoTiCpInOy

Diamond Member
Jun 24, 2006
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It's going to double as a computer monitor and I tried other monitors that out put 1366x768. It's really weird.
 

Captante

Lifer
Oct 20, 2003
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Originally posted by: ChAoTiCpInOy
It's going to double as a computer monitor and I tried other monitors that out put 1366x768. It's really weird.



I still don't understand why you feel that you need support for 1280x1024 ... a none-standard resolution in HDTV's & actually an odd-ball aspect ratio at (I believe) 5:4.

Just about any LCD HDTV you buy is going to run at one of the three native resolutions I mentioned above & use a 16:9 aspect ratio ... then it will have to scale 1280x1024 to fit which its screen which will result in significant loss of image quality.

Why wouldn't you just change the resolution of your PC to the TV's native resolution?