My wife and I shopped around, and we kept coming back to the Toshiba 32HL67U. I'm extremely glad we chose it.
We were about to buy this TV at a department store, but they sold out minutes before we got there. So we waited, and found it cheaper online the next day - the total with shipping was $738, and many places list this LCD TV for $1,000.
It took only four days to arrive - just in time for poker night. My buddies were wowed by how great the Packers-Jaguars preseason game looked on the HD Fox channel. One helmet-jarring hit drew oohs and aahs from them, and had me beaming.
Now for the nitty gritty: This TV is probably the best budget LCD HDTV on the market right now. We did a lot of research and read a million reviews, and almost everything told us this is a great TV for the price - and it is.
The picture on HD channels is phenomenally clear and detailed. It's like you're on the field in football games, and even a simple gameshow like Jeopardy had me staring with my mouth open because it looked so sharp on the HD channel.
The key was that I got an HDMI cord free from my cable TV provider. It's the highest quality connection (both video and audio go through it), and I saved a bundle thanks to the department store clerk who told me about this free hook-up - all you have to do is ask the cable company for it.
Another trick we used was to purchase the TV with a credit card that automatically doubles the manufacturer's one-year warranty. That saved us about $150 in extended warranty fees. Of course, we plan to pay it off before the interest comes due.
DVD movies and video games look great on the 32HL67U, too. Just make sure you get the five-prong component cables to take advantage of what the TV can do.
Another big bonus is the TV has three HDMI ports, two sets of component ports and three sets of regular three-prong A/V ports (two on the back, one on the side). You can even use it as a giant monitor for your computer.
The setup menus are slick and easy to use. It took a long time and a lot of tweaking to get the settings to my liking, but it wasn't difficult. Even a non-techno-savvy person could do it.
An excellent feature is Stable Sound, which prevents commercials from blaring louder than the program you were just watching. It keeps sound at the same level. This is off by default, so make sure to turn it on.
The TV's few drawbacks are that the non-HD channels don't look very good, and there's no picture-in-picture. But I won't quibble over such minor things. This is, after all, a budget LCD HDTV. And we couldn't be happier with it.
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