VIZIO MAXIMUS 60-inch Plasma
VIZIO MAXIMUS 60-inch Plasma An Imperial Pleaser for the Masses
June 2007 By Grant ClauserInside, the MAXIMUS packs a Faroudja DCDi de-interlacing engine and 10-bit video processing—not bad but other manufacturers are offering 12-bit. The pair of 20 watt speakers are enhanced by SRS’s TruSurround technology to fill out the bass and give soundtracks a full-room feel—and it works extraordinarily well by the way. It’s also got one of the best owner’s manual quick start guides I’ve ever seen with an HDTV—full color and easy to understand.
I ran the MAXIMUS over an obstacle course of high definition broadcasts, DVDs, Blu-ray discs and PlayStation 3 games. Overall it produced a pretty satisfying picture. Dark scenes from The Prestige had plenty of punch, while video games were full of vivid colors. VIZIO claims a contrast ratio of 7,000:1, which isn’t bad for a panel of this size. The Philadelphia Phillies’ season opening game in high def looked good as well (even though they lost). The TV didn’t scale standard definition as well as some other large screens we’ve had in the office lately, but it wasn’t objectionable enough to be a deal breaker.
The TV’s menu system is pretty basic, but easy to use. Unfortunately, you can’t make separate picture adjustments for each input, so for example, your color settings for the HDMI 1 input will be the same as your settings for component 2 and so on.
As a point of contrast, Panasonic’s 58-inch TH-58PX60U claims a 10,000:1 contrast ratio, 2 HDMI ports and an SD card slot for about $1,600 more at a popular national electronics store. Other brands offer similar sizes for more, some less, but none less than VIZIO. Of course, without directly comparing them to each other, judging by price alone doesn’t tell the whole story. What I can say is that while this isn’t the best looking plasma TV I’ve seen, and it’s not 1080p, I’ve definitely seen worse for more money. It offers a respectable picture and good feature set that would satisfy a large portion of the HDTV-shopping public. It’s hard to find fault in that. yy
Page 1 | 2
