Vizio Announces Aggressive Black Friday Pricing Along With New Plasma & LCD HDTV Models

• Are you confused by the racks of LCD and plasma TVs on sale at the store?
• Are the stories about plasma true?
• Does a LCD really save energy.
• Which type of set is better if the room is light?
• What’s best if you watch a lot of sports?

VIZIO answers those questions and more and how to buy a TV In the digital age.

The Vizio brand continues to grow in product line, performance reputation and market share. Holiday shoppers aren’t only looking for the lowest price - they want a high quality flat panel high definition TV at the best price.

Thankfully, the cats over at UltimateAVmag were able to secure the 52-inch LCD HDTV for a review, and it proved to be quite the value overall. Yeah, you’ll have to deal with quirks like HDMI 1.2 ports and a complete lack of 120Hz processing, but color reproduction, black level, and shadow detail - you know, the important stuff - were all deemed “excellent.”

It is noted that this set won’t blow away any higher priced units, but potentially more importantly, reviewers felt that those on a budget would be thoroughly pleased with what this unit brings to the table.

VIZIO’s dramatic price cuts continue at Costco’s one-day only sale, where their 42″ Plasma HDTV’s (the P42HDTV and the new VP42HDTV) will break the $1,000 cost barrier with price tags of just $999.99.

Costco will also premiere VIZIO’s new 20″ LCD HDTV at an everyday low price of just $399.99. The VX20LHDTV is one of VIZIO’s new designs and could possibly be the lowest priced flat panel 1080i/720p HDTV with ATSC tuner in the market.

In fact the article stated that the average plasma set would tack on about $160 annually to your electric bill, just from standby energy consumption.

These numbers were compiled in 2005 and plasma models have become a great deal more energy-efficient since then, but Ben Drawbaugh from Engadget HD still thought $160 was a little high.

So he measured the standby energy draw on a 60-inch Pioneer plasma and found it to be only 20 Watts. When all the math is said and done that works out to about $20 per year.

It’s no secret that plasma TV’s are huge energy consumers when they’re actually turned on, but how much do you think they consume when in standby mode? According to a GOOD Magazine article from earlier this year, they consume so much that you’ll pay on average $159.76 annually for your plasma TV’s standby energy consumption.

That amount of money equates to 1452.4 kilowatt hours, roughly 5-6 times as much money as the second and third worst offenders-game consoles and computers-will cost you. Click on the thumbnail below to see the chart in full and check out the related video above.

For a 22-inch display, the NEC AccuSync LCD22WMGX packs in a lot of features for its price (as low as $300 online) including built-in speakers, a headphone jack, HDMI and component connections, VGA and DVI ports, and many software-based enhancements for viewing photos. The sacrifice for these features?

CNET as put another Kuro plasma to the test. This time it’s the 50-inch Kuro PDP-5020FD and not surprisingly it impressedin some ways. The Elite Kuro PRO-111FD had the deepest blacks HD Guru Gary Merson had ever seen, but CNET says the same for the PDP-5020FD.

While this is a definite pro along with an excellent antireflective screen, accurate color decoding, network connectivity and plenty of HDMI inputs, there are a few problems. The primary colors are inaccurate, especially the reds and greens, and if you like to tweak the picture there isn’t much in the way of advanced picture controls.

The PDP-5020FD is expensive, running you just under $3000 from Amazon. In the end, despite the fact the PDP-5020FD has its shortcomings it still stands among the top in terms of plasma picture quality.

It’s some strange times in HD-land, and all that strangeness is brought together in the Westinghouse VK-40F580D LCD. Things start off pretty good with a 40-inch, 1080p LCD with NTSC, ATSC, and clear QAM tuning. But the real stick in the eye is that the DVD player does not upscale. This is exactly the sort of thing that will keep consumers confused and/or disappointed with their $1149 purchase.

All the sets also have day/night calibration mode, enabling you to easily choose a professionally preset calibration setting for optimal viewing during both bright and dark viewing environments. Samsung’s InfoLink service, powered by USA Today, brings all of the day’s relevant news and weather from the internet to your TV screen enabling a whole new level of convenience for the television viewer, and a flurry of connectivity options including a total of 4 HDMI CEC ports make the DLNA-Certified Samsung Series 7 plasma line an impressive looking home theater hub.

Folks overly concerned about their just-purchased LCD TV turning archaic before their next cable bill arrives will certainly appreciate Westinghouse Digital’s latest effort. Apparently, the firm is trumpeting its initiative to deliver free firmware upgrades for HDTVs over the internet, which will enable owners to add such features as “picture viewers, audio enrichment and color advancements” to their current sets. All that’s required of the end-user is the ability to login to a website, transfer a file to a USB flash drive and plug said drive into their Westy.

“Vizio’s Flat TV sales, both Plasma and LCDTV, have been very successful throughout the entire year with their most recent mention as the top selling 32″ on Quixel’s Best Sellers List for Q’3 2006,” states Quixel Research Principal Tamaryn Pratt.

“This winning run up to the holiday season has favorably positioned Vizio to capitalize on the significant product volume that historically begins on Black Friday weekend.”