A great companion that you will want to take anywhere, Mars 26, 2009

By

T. Orkun – See all my reviews

I ordered my Acer Aspire One 10.1 Netbook (AOD150-1165) on Feb 28, 2009 from Amazon. Item shipped on March 2nd and arrived on March 14.

When I ordered only Sapphire Blue color was available but I am happy with Sapphire Blue. It looks very attractive. I would normally order either white or black model but I am glad they were not available The only thing I can complain is that it easily gets finger marks so I try not to touch the shiny surfaces.

When you unpack the box and hold it on your hand, you will realise how light this is (especially if you have been lugging a 17″ laptop) This is very transportable and ideal for those small airplane tray tables (or your lap)

The 1.6Ghz N270 Intel Atom processor is a single core processor but it is pretty snappy and certainly more than enough for most office type usage. The Netbook ships with Windows XP Home w/SP3 installed instead of Vista so to me it feels as responsive as (or better than) a Core 2 Duo based laptop running Vista.

The unit is rather quiet. The fan or hard disk noise is minimal. The fan does not kick in often during normal use. It might be more active with some heavy CPU/HD activity tasks.

The screen is 1024×600 CrystalBright (shiny) type LCD but very comfortable to read under various light conditions. There is an integrated 0.3M megapixel (640×480) webcam and microphone embedded in the screen frame. Ideal to use a video phone/conferencing software like Skype, etc. BTW, to gain some vertical space on desktop, you might want to set Windows XP taskbar to auto-hide and pop-up when you move the cursor to the edge of the screen.

The keyboard is actually pretty well designed. Unlike some models from competitors, the shift, control, alt, tab, enter, backspace keys are all in the right places. Initially, I found the keys a bit small but after a few days of use, you get used to and avoid hitting two keys. The arrow keys could have been a bit bigger as there is room along the lower right side of the keyboard.

The touchpad on this model is made by Synaptics and is pretty configurable. Like everything else it is a bit small but works acceptably well. It would have been better if it was made wider. Touchpad buttons is another story. They are correctly placed below the touchpad but instead of using two independent buttons the designers chose to use one bar over the two buttons. This made the buttons much harder to press. I would have preferred two independent buttons. I think this is the biggest complaint about the design of this netbook. Nevertheless, the buttons do get softer over time. I have softened the buttons out by pressing both ends of the button bar at the same time repeatedly. I do this a number of times before using the laptop each day. So, it is not that hopeless.

Well, I do try to get myself used to build-in keyboard and mouse but those that are doing extensive work can still attach a regular USB keyboard and a USB mouse. For example, Microsoft Wireless Notebook Optical Mouse 3000 is a perfect match.

Alternatively, you can tap on the touchpad instead of pressing the buttons. The synaptics touchpad is pretty configurable. You can configure a corner of the touchpad for right button and anywhere else would be left button.

The speakers for this netbook is under it. They are pretty loud and sound quality is pretty decent. However, since the speaker openings are underside of the netbook, if you are holding it on a soft surface such as carpet or bed the sound can get muffled as the openings will be blocked. It’s not a very good idea to keep it on the soft surfaces for a long time anyway as this will block the fan vents as well and cause the netbook to overheat.

There is 1GB RAM memory on DDR2 SODIMM module installed (mine was made by Samsung). There is no on-board soldered memory (the description on Amazon is incorrect and is referring to older 8.9″ model). The memory is easily upgradable to 2GB by replacing the SODIMM module. I upgraded the memory on 10.1″ Aspire One to 2GB by installing a “Mushkin 2GB 200-Pin DDR2 SO-DIMM DDR2 667 (PC2 5300) Laptop Memory – Retail” module (Mushkin part #991618). It works great! Please note that this module has CAS4 (4-4-4-12) timing instead of more common CAS5 (5-5-5-16). In other words, it is slightly faster memory as it has less wait states

The hard disk is a Hitachi HTS543216L9A300, 160GB 2.5″ 5400rpm, Serial ATA, 8MB Cache disk. It’s pretty quiet. I think there is plenty of space for most applications. If you need more you can attach an external USB hard drive or the hard disk itself can be upgraded almost as easily as the RAM memory.

The wireless chip (AR5007EG) is made by Atheros and supports…

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An Aspire that Inspires, February 12, 2009

By

C. Ferretti “tech head” (Montclair, NJ USA) – See all my reviews

Acer made a nice mini-notebook into a better one. The screen is larger and just as bright. The keyboard is still great (for a small one). No weirdly placed right shift key placement (Asus, Lenovo, etc). The mousepad buttons are below the touchpad not along side (yeah). It is now easy to increase ram or replace the drive without entirely dismantling the unit and voiding the warranty. I have no complaints. I loved the first one, this one fixes all the criticisms of the first one. Nothing major just refinement. Someone is listening to its customers and it is Acer.

Addendum: the screen is glossy, and initial orders are getting the larger 5900ma battery. It stick out the back a bit, but the run time is amazing. It must be the longest running mini-laptop out there, including the new Asus 1000he and the Samsung 10nc, for much less $$. That’s a win in my book. Easy to touch type (for me), good looks, I need a xd-card slot and this one has a 7-1, there is a bit a bloat ware, just delete and put on what you need, the HD is large enough.

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Spectacular! Super Pleased!, February 16, 2009

By

D. Erickson (texas) – See all my reviews

I was worried about getting one as I have had a 12″ laptop and was not happy with screen size. But this screen is SO bright it does not even become a issue, not to mention the 1064×600 really makes it seem bigger!

Another bonus, this baby runs 7.5 to 8 hours due to the 5800Amh 6 cell battery! Sweet. Very happy with that. I heard most were shipping with the 4400Amh 6 cell which gives your 5-6 klst. I can run this all day or two before recharge, very nice! I have to keep looking at battery indicator in dis-belief that the battery is still 75% or 50%, it just lasts forever!

This is super portable obviously, and really how laptops SHOULD be. You can put on one leg, it doesn’t weigh you down when actually sitting in your lap which is nice. I have had many laptops over the years, screen sizes and this one wins hands down for price, and performance. The unit is strong heavy duty case, compared to some newer thin plastic laptops.

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The Review You Were Looking For, February 26, 2011

By

Andrew S. Tafoya “raab_it” (Albuquerque, NM USA) – See all my reviews

This is a weird purchase for me, coming from being a SONY & Samsung Fanboy. This is the most outstanding 2D picture I have ever laid my eyes on, and I have seen many High-end Television sets. I almost bought a Sony XBR-HX909 for the super high reviews on its amazing 2D image. But once I saw the 3D image I was a bit thrown off by the 3D technology, after already owning a Panasonic 3D Viera which was much better. So this is what I have gathered from my total experience with the Vizio 3D HDTV:

-PROS-

+The purchased place with Amazon was better than I thought it would have been. Easy, Fast, Free Shipping, NO TAX (Tax is around $115 if you buy from a store), and perfectly cared for; Sam’s Club is scary, lol.

+47 inches of “OMG! It is bigger than I thought.” This set gives so much at this price, quality, and Size!!!

+The LED television is thicker, due to the 160 LEDs being directly behind the screen. This makes for better contrast that will blow your mind away!!! I have never seen this kind of true black on a set ever before. Sony sells this technology for around $3,500; yikes!

+Features, Features, Features!!! The WiFi works amazingly. The Netflix app play videos at a higher resolution than my PS3 or computer using HDMI. The WebTV programs are limited but they are great, like Revision3. There is Vudu rental, Amazon Steaming, and of course Netflix. There is Pandora and a radio app for local radio station; or any state you want.

+The best built-in speakers! The sound is out outrageous, there is simply no thin TV that can house speaker like the ones on this set. I was going to buy a 5.1 Dolby system for the room, but I only turn the volume up 20% on the Vizio. I recommend to turn Truevolume off, if causes weird volume changes. This feature is on most Televisions with different names, but always cause volume issues; much like ipod’s volume settings.

+The remote is bluetooth and an amazing little device. All remotes should be like this one!!! It is universal, and automatically has the codes in the television for all devices but the PS3; due to the PS3 syncing. But the XBOX 360 is compatible! TIVO, DirectTV, etc. The keyboard is great for the apps and Facebook! Since it is bluetooth, like the PS3 Blu-ray remote, the signal is always connected, so the buttons are harder to press so you don’t accidentally change channels. This is a good thing.

+Bluetooth means wireless headphones so you don’t bother others who don’t want to hear the TV; like my girlfriend when she is sleeping. You can buy Vizio’s headsets, or any bluetooth headset you may have will work as well.

+The accessories like the Vizio Router, Bluetooth Headset, or Vizio Stereo equipment are made easy and for a great price (high ratings from CNET). The 3D Glasses are sold seperately, but only cost around $150 for two rechargeable glasses. That is about the price that SONY or Samsung sells for one Pair!!! Very Cheap for 3D!!! 2 SONY pairs will buy you 4 Vizio pairs. A lot of the other 3D TVs come with one pair, or no glasses at all.

+The Price is dead on with AWESOME!!! It is robbery!!! I payed $1500, and chose Amazon after the tax factor of buying in a store. The 480hz (really 240hz) makes 2D images amazing, and not look fake at all! Remember to turn this feature all the way to high, because it is turned off out-of-the-box.

Okay, well here is the BAD:

CONS

-There is no SD slot, but this is not a problem really. There is 3 USB ports! 3!!! I never used the SD slot on my Panasonic, it is kind of useless.

-The 3D is not like my Plasma 3D. BUT!!! The Plasma does great 3D, but not a great 2D image. 3D is a fun factor, don’t take it seriously and you will be fine. The ghosting issue is present, but it is present on every 3D set I have seen but the Panasonic 3D Plasmas. The 3D can be down right horrible on the PS3 video games at times, but does okay on the movies. Remember that 3D is not a every moment thing on this set. It is used rarely and on all 3D pictures you can turn it off to 2D. I personally like the 3D and the glasses, but don’t think that there will be any set better than this, other than the Plasmas. The real focus should be that the TVs 480hz (really 240hz) is used for better 3d, but really make the biggest difference on the 2D image; which is amazing!

-Size, is a bit thicker, but it is because it has to be in order to produce the images at the 10,000,000:1 Contrast. I think the set is beautiful, and my friends freak out how beautiful it is in person! So Size is nothing but a few inches difference. You should really not worry about size though, you can’t see how thick the TV is, but you can tell the Image difference.

IN THE END

This Television out preforms all the Television set I have seen, even the Samsung 8000 series. It has so many features, you will feel…

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Amazing 2D, broken 3D., February 1, 2011

By

J. Puckett (Kentucky) – See all my reviews

I’ve been in the market for a new TV for about a year now and have been waiting patiently for a decently priced LED LCD as well as 3D. This 47″ Vizio seemed to finally hit the price point and size that I was looking for, so I jumped on a pre-Super Bowl sale from a nationwide wholesaler. I picked up the TV along with a pair of the Vizio-branded 3D glasses.

A quick note before going into my review. My TV came with firmware version VIZIO_XP1.21.2.1.

I’ll start out by saying that the 2D picture is absolutely amazing. The blacks are black and colors are vibrant. The TV almost doesn’t need any calibration coming out of the box for those who like to tweak the picture. For those who never know any better, they should be very happy from the get-go. Thanks to the local dimming, I can see no issues of backlight bleeding/clouding/flashlighting on my set. Also due to the 160 local dimming zones, I’ve seen no hint of blooming on my set from my normal viewing distance of about 8′. The TV just absolutely shines with well-mastered blu-ray movies. So far I’ve tested Avatar and The Hangover, and both simply blow my mind with the quality present. I upgraded from a 4-year old 60hz 1080p LCD and watching blu-ray movies on this new Vizio is like experiencing HD all over again. I promise you this is not hyperbole, I’m that amazed by the clarity of the picture when being fed top-notch, non-compressed signals.

The remote feels a bit cheap but gets the job done. The slide-out keyboard is very nice for the Vizio Internet Apps (VIA) feature and works as expected. The buttons are a bit stiff though and the remote itself feels like it’s prone to breakage at some point in the future.

The motion interpolation control in this TV seems to be well done, frame transitions are very smooth and, from what I can tell, introduce no artifacts or juddering. You can turn the motion control completely off if you don’t like the “soap opera effect”, as it’s called. There are 4 settings for the motion control, “Off”, “Low”, “Medium”, and “High”. Changing between “Off” and “Low” produces the obvious intended effect, but I’m so far unable to perceive a difference between “Low”, “Medium”, and “High”.

The Vizio Internet Apps are merely OK to me, as I already have a lot of this functionality available to me through my Playstation 3 or XBOX 360. There currently is no Youtube or Hulu support on VIA with the 3D versions of these TVs, which is a bummer. I would expect them to be added in a future firmware update though, since the 2D-only XVT line has them. The Netflix app worked OK, no issues here. For the curious, it appears to use the interface of the old PS3 disc-based Netflix app, which is sufficient but not the best out of the many UI iterations Netflix has come up with over various devices. The Facebook app seemed highly useless to me, as it seemed to require too much navigation to view the stuff I wanted. The Twitter app actually seemed quite useful and shows the latest followed tweet directly in the “tile” when bringing up the VIA interface…a nice touch. The weather app serves its purpose well and the VUDU app was actually put together nicely, although it still pales in comparison to the slick PS3 VUDU app. It does fare better in a head-to-head comparison than does the Netflix app, though. I haven’t tried any of the other apps installed. All-in-all, I think the addition of VIA is a nice feature-add to the TV but not a selling point.

On to the 3D, which was the second-most feature I was looking forward to on this model. After giving it a fairly thorough testing across different types of media, I think it’s just plain broken. The crosstalk/ghosting is very bad through almost all content I tried, rarely looking great enough that I would consider it “watchable”. The problem seems to be with high-contrast screens, which includes almost everything you’re going to watch unfortunately. I’m somewhat leaning towards the Vizio glasses being the problem, as I’m not convinced they are opaque enough when closed, but the issue could lie in any number of places. I’m tempted to be silly and try using them along with some sunglasses to see if that helps block out any extra unwanted light from each eye, but even if it did help, that’s obviously not an acceptable work-around.

I’ve tried various 3D-enabled games, the n3D channel on DirecTV, and the free 3D demos available on VUDU. The only times I’ve watched something and had all forms of crosstalk disappear is with Super Stardust HD, some scenes in the Toy Story 3 trailer, and almost all of the Jim Carrey animated Christmas movie trailer (mainly due to it being mostly dark). Everything else has been bad enough to where I consider it completely unwatchable.

I had thought to try adjusting picture settings while displaying 3D content to see if I could minimize or eliminate some of the…

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EARLY REVIEW, December 12, 2010

By

David T. Fischer (Chicago, IL) – See all my reviews

I just purchased this TV and I’m still in the process of doing everything with it, but I’m here to give an honest first impression. I’m actually using my computer connected to this TV to write this review and let me say that in my tiny bedroom this TV is massive. It looks great with my computer connected via RGB and there is little to no lag. I just watched KROQ’s Almost Acoustic Christmas on the TV last night and the stream looked pretty good for what it was. The 2D picture is fantastic on this product and both my PS3 and Xbox 360 look amazing on it. The 3D needs work and I knew that coming into this TV. There is some ghosting of the image when watching 3D, but it does it’s job well enough. You will definitely notice ghosting on anything other than Blu-ray 3D and titles in general. I’m not happy about it, but what can you do? I’m not using a certified 3D HDMI cable, so maybe that’s an issue? I know it’s a high speed HDMI cable, so it should be good enough. I did just order an Amazon High Speed 3D supported cable though to see if there is a difference. I’ll update this review with my findings. I’d say the 3D is not a must for this TV, but is a cool extra. I watched a 3D Hockey game last night that was broadcast on Xfinity 3D in my area. It was pretty cool, but the ghosting is plentiful. If you don’t know what I mean by ghosting, well I mean that you can see a shadow of the image behind the 3D image and it makes everything a bit blurry. The score graphic on the Hockey game looked horrible as do the static titles in most 3D cases. I would not recommend buying the 3D GLASSES, WHICH HAVE TO BE PURCHASED SEPARATELY. I bought mine at Sam’s Club for about $160 and I was happy for that price. I still would caution anyone expecting perfect 3Dm which is a let down when you don’t feel it’s perfect after spending so much money. Vizio should really bundle at least one pair of 3d glasses, especially since the technology is not up to snuff. I tried some of the Vizio Internet Apps and the Yahoo Weather is cool, so is the Amzon Video(Thanks for the $5 video credit!) Netflix seems to work, but it as SUPER SLOW for me through wireless connection and my bars are almost full. I thought the TV froze it was so slow. Maybe being connected with Ethernet directly would change this. Anyway, here are some pros and cons, if you have any questions email me at: Doofus88@gmail.com

PROS:

-Great 2D picture

-3D option is nice

-Works well with connected computers, PS3, and Xbox 360.

-Sound is pretty good, mind you I’m in a tiny room.

-Internet Apps are nice, but Netflix seemed slow over wireless.

CONS:

-3D technology not good enough for the high price tag.

-Expensive 3D glasses that are NOT INCLUDED.

SIDE COMMENT:

I also want to comment that Amazon uses Pilot for shipping and they really suck. DON’T EXPECT YOUR TV TO BE DELIVERED ON THE DAY YOU SCHEDULE ON AMAZON. I got mine Saturday and it was supposed to be delivered Thursday. Pilot’s costumer service was rude and the delivery man did not handle my TV with care. I just wanted everyone who orders to know that.

VIZIO 47-Inch Class Full HD 3D Full Array TruLED with Smart Dimming LCD HDTV 480 Hz SPS með VIZIO Internet Apps

UPDATE: 12-18-10

Just a few updates for my review here. One thing I did is add attributes for different aspects of this TV.

3D UPDATE

I got the new Amazon HDMI cable that supports 3D and is highspeed and the 3D effect is still the same. I think it works the best on Blu-Ray 3D movies. A Christmas Carol looks great and The Polar Express look really good. There still is some ghosting issues with them, although they have the least of it. I also have a PS3 and played Wipeout HD in 3D, which was ok, but still had lots of ghosting. Pacific Rift really did not look good at all in 3D though, lots of ghosting. I’m curious if it’s just that those games were converted and I’ll have to wait to get a game made for 3D to really get a great 3D game experience.

SOUND

When I was watching a Blu-ray on my PS3 I noticed some popping randomly during the movie. There are small, but still noticeable. I contacted Vizio and asked them what the best set up for sound through the TV would be. Their online chat is really helpful, really good service, and they told me what exactly to do. I think I still notice it sometimes, but overall I think it’s gone. I will update more on this since this could be a potential problem. I think I should be able to use all the settings on for this TV. My settings for anyone if they want to know are…

Both SRS settings off.

PCM for digital output.

Audio mode: Flat

Picture

Just a small thing to nit…

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An excellent set!, April 6, 2009

I was undecided between this 2009 model and last year’s LN40A550.

The features are substantially identical, but after figuring that the difference between best prices for the two, which I could find after extensive shopping around, was only $50, I went for newer one for its updated look and lighter weight.

In the reviews, one of the principal complaints for 2008 was the sound quality. I can’t directly compare 2009 og 2008, but found 2009′s LN40B550 to have perfectly adequate, if not excellent speakers, as far as TVs go.

Picture quality, menus, setup are excellent as expected.

One aspect that I did find puzzling is Wiselink not being able to recognize my old trustworthy USB Flash Drive. I even tried formatting the drive in various ways, unfortunately none of the tricks worked.

Perhaps, it’s the ancient drive not being comparable in some way, but it had never let me down before. Anyhow, I ordered a few different flash drives, and will try again, and then post an update.

====================================

Tried four various flash drives, all of them work just fine in computers, all four freshly formatted same way (FAT32). Two of the drives are read by the TV with no problems, the two others are not recognized at all… Go figure… The slideshow functionality is nice, quite limited, but does the job.

Just for the reference, one of the drives that does work in this TV is Kingston Data Traveler 4GB.

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Very, Very Pleased!, April 22, 2009

Only the second night with this set and I can’t unglue myself from it. This is a great sub-$1,000 set that will please all but the most hardcore videophiles. This set is also very light, I tucked it under my arm to move it up and down the stairs. ToC is subtle, almost invisible, so those who don’t care for last year’s ToC, don’t worry, you can barely see it the color on this TV. The swivel stand makes it easy so access the rear of the TV to hook up the cables that it makes you wonder why other manufacturers make stands without the swivel feature.

I had originally purchased an LG, but the off-angle viewing was awful, but from the same seating position, the Sammy shines. As with all LCDs, some color is lost when viewing from off-angle, but this set always displayed a picture that was acceptable.

If there’s a weakness, it’s displaying standard definition, as in regular cable, but that’s a challenge shared by most LCD screens. SD does not look as good as I’ve seen on some other LCDs, but the picture is more than acceptable.

DVD’s showed great… Upconverted DVD even better, I was impressed… Blu ray blew my mind. The color depth, the dark blacks, the crisp picture… I was VERY pleased. I am sure you will be too!

====================================================

Update 07/13/09… Almost 3 months and I’m still happy. Had it hooked up to a Samsung BDP2550 bluray player and it’s awesome. Currently using the upconverting Samsung 1080P9 DVD player and it’s still awesome. I have to sit closer than 7 feet to see any difference between DVD and bluray. Also connected to my PC via an 18ft HDMI cable, streaming Netflix and using Windows Media Center to view the NCIS and Star Trek episodes I have on my hard drive.

Still a GREAT purchase and I recommend this set to anyone interested in a 1080p LCD.

===================================================

Update 10/31/09… Hooked up a PS3 Slim last month and started viewing movies on Bluray… it’s like I got a new TV! I’ve never been able to see a substantial difference between DVD and BD, but after a few months of just DVD, Bluray on my 40B550 is blowing me away once more! I think I just picked up another habit… no more DVD purchases, only Bluray. And with prices going down on flat screens, this set is a bargain at $849.

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Feature packed and really good picture quality for a decent price, May 5, 2009

By

Byron Hooper (Saco, Maine) – See all my reviews

I had been eyeing upgrading to an HDTV of some sort for about three years. I had been researching and dreaming about it for the whole time. Samsung was always on the top of my list, and when they came out with this model, which has a lot of features for a comparatively reasonable price tag I finally decided to take the plunge.

I have the most basic Cable service imaginable, so most of the time I am viewing SDTV (480í) stretched to 1920×1080. Considering this enormous stretch, it looks pretty good. It is definitely a tad fuzzy, it looks as good as any other 1080p TV I’ve seen. Similarly, my Wii is pretty fuzzy if you get up close, but it looks fine from my couch, especially when I enabled Progressive output. The Wii isn’t trying to be a graphics powerhouse anyway.

On the flip side is my DVD player. It has component output and is capable of doing 480p, and holy cow does it look awesome! After watching the SDTV and Wii, I was a little worried my DVDs would be equally blurry unless I upgraded to an upscaling player, but with progressive output, holy cow, I do not feel that is necessary at all. I was very pleased because watching movies is what I do most.

As for HD picture, my options are limited currently, but I for some reason NBC does come in in 1080i over my plain non-digital cable and I also tested OTA HDTV and I’ve gotta say, it is GORGEOUS. So in my limited experience, the HD picture on this TV looks fantastic.

My Dell laptop has an HDMI out (video and audio) so I decided to hook it up to the side HDMI connection on the TV. At first it looked kind of terrible and I had to do a lot fiddling. It still didn’t look right though. After consulting the manual, I discovered that computers are really supposed to be connected to HDMI 1. Switching to that I also discovered that naming the HDMI 1 port “DVI PC” it disables audio input, so bear that in mind. Once I hooked it up right though, it is fantastic. Videos and games look great and surfing the web with a wireless mouse and keyboard is AWESOME.

There are tons of video options and tweaks so you can get the TV to look perfect in whatever environment it is in. Another great feature is that you can connect a Digital Camera or USB storage device to show pictures at the full resolution intead of 480i all streched out if you do it over composite video. It looks great, but unfortunately my Canon camera uses PictBridge instead of acting like a USB Mass Storage device, so I can’t do it. I’ve tested it with a USB Thumbdrive and it looks great though.

So, here’s a recap for the “Too Long; Didn’t Read” crowd:

+PROS+

+Great Price/Feature ratio

+Awesome HD Picture (as far as I’m concerned)

+Great DVD 480p picture

+Tons of Video Tweaking options

+USB

+Tons of Inputs

+Digital Audio Output

+Rotatable mount

%Neutrals%

%SDTV Picture is only OK

-Negatives-

-Auto Program takes FOREVER

-Front buttons are practically invisible… and therefore practically unusable.

-No Picture-in-Picture at all

As you can see, the negatives are pretty minor (except maybe the PIP for some people). All in all…. I love this dang TV!!

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Elegant and powerful, it simply works, November 18, 2009

By

James Peterson “YMMV” (Savannah, GA) – See all my reviews

I’ve been a PC users since the PCXT days. Now I have a mac. I really have been suprised at how easy it is to learn the mac way of doing things.

I’m a programmer by trade (not a desktop coder, but mainframe/database) and I actually decided to buy the iMac because of my desire to create apps for my iPhone. I was shocked to learn that I could keep my windows environment. I could have both worlds.

So far, everything has been very easy to install and use. I had the windows/vmware setup and the iPhone SDK install the first day. Coming from a PC, I’m delighted at how elegant the interface is, even the mouse and keyboard are elegant. The screen is very nice. Colors seem very good, but I haven’t done any photo editing and color correction/matching (so you’ll have to get the pros opinion on that one).

Windows runs very well on it and I’ve had no problems with it.

I can’t see changing back to a PC for my uses (not a gamer). This iMac was the best value IMO, compared to the other mac’s and macbooks. Even compared to the new mac mini (if you add in the additional cost of a good monitor, bluetooth keyboard and magic mouse, the mini was closing in on the iMac price). I’d recommend this iMac for any deveoper to use as a base system. Power seems more than sufficient add to that the capability to run windows as well and you have one of the best values in a development system I’ve seen.

All this and lets face it the mac experience is very pleasant, and it doesn’t hurt to expand your development into the mac arena.

After one week, I’m already a satified mac user.

I’ll update after a year or so of use and abuse.

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Amazing small form Big Screen computer, December 23, 2009

By

S. geddamuri “Geddamuri” (chicago usa) – See all my reviews

This version of imac is amazing.

Pros:

1 This computer is fast and sleek.Looks beautiful.

2 No noise of fan or so.If one close there eyes,they can hardly tell if it sunning.This is not the case with any other ALLINONE desktops i owned.Ex dell studio 15 makes more noise then my kitchen fan.

3 The hardware is just enough for any thing.500GB hd is PLUS.The ram 4gb is hardly used.

4 Screen is beautiful.For some people the screen is like mirror and gets lots of reflection.But for me i love the screen.The screen can be moved easily if you getting any reflection.The glossy screen makes the view more enjoyable.

5 THE LEOPORD SNOW is very good.No issues so far.For PC users it will take little while to learn the shortcuts.But once they are used to it it will be very fast to access any thing.

6 The MOUSE was never a problem for me.I am so used to use forward and backward on the web pages using this mouse,When i use other mouse my fingers automatically slide.One can really admire the mouse once they get used to it in couple days.

7 Keyboard is small.i would love to have wireless keyboard with the numeric pad.

8 The sound is good on this computer.for a medium room i think this is more then enough.

CONS

1 The keyboard could be little better.i mean with numeric pad and more F buttons.

2 there should have a hard button for ejecting the DVD.When i was installing Windows 7 i was stuck with the DVD.Couldnt find a way to eject without loading OS.

3 DVDs with paper stickers on it stucks some time.So be careful if you are inserting a DVD with sticker labels.

Overall very happy with this purchase.

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Broken Logic Board in 2 months, April 18, 2010

By

T. Zee “tzee” (LOS ANGELES, CA, US) – See all my reviews

I bought the iMac in Feb 2010, and in April 2010 the iMac started freezing at random times. Finally, it wouldn’t even power on. I only installed Photoshop and Sophos Anti-virus onto the iMac. Thank goodness it was in the 1 year limited warranty period. However, I did a quick search and found that Apple has been having logic board problems for a long time. It was certainly a disappointment to find that my first mac failed in 2months!

On a second note, if you still really want to buy an iMac, consider buying it from the Apple store instead of Amazon. When I brought the product into the Apple Store, they told me that if I had bought it there, they would just give me a new one. However, since it was purchased from Amazon, they would have to send it in for repairs and replacement parts (which may or may not be refurbished parts).

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