What We Think

A tasty-looking set that offers surprisingly good performance at an astonishing price.

Some fascinating technology goes on behind the screen of a plasma HDTV, and it seems to improve with each new generation of sets. But for most people, the key question is: When can I afford to buy one? If you're asking Vizio, the answer is: right now. At only $1,500 during the company's March Madness promotion, and $1,800 after, the Vizio P42HDTV 42-inch plasma HDTV is the first plasma to vault Evel Knievel-style over the affordability gap. But before speeding out to Costco to drop one in a giant shopping cart, you should ask another question: How well does it perform? That's precisely what I set out to discover.

Compared with its plain-looking predecessor, the P42HDe, Vizio's new 42-incher has strong couch appeal. With a screen surrounded by a glossy black frame and silver bottom-mounted speakers, it doesn't look at all like a budget plasma TV. If you misplace the remote, controls are located out of sight on the TV's side. The sturdy plastic base can be easily removed for wall mounting, and Vizio offers various hardware options on its Web site, starting at $149 — plus a full installation service at $499 (available nationwide).

Input options on the Vizio P42HDTV are a bit sparse compared with those of pricier plasmas, but it has what you'll need to get up and running. Along with high-def HDMI and component-video jacks, you get a VGA input for hooking up a computer and a dedicated antenna input for grabbing off-the-air HDTV broadcasts from the built-in digital tuner. The latter input will accept an analog or digital cable TV feed, though the lack of a CableCARD slot on the TV means you won't be able to receive scrambled standard or high-def premium channels like HBO.

The Vizio P42HDTV's remote control is fairly basic and doesn't have a backlit keypad — you can't have everything at this price. But the button layout is cleanly arranged, with controls for special features like picture-in-picture (PIP), picture-out-of-picture (POP), freeze, and zoom located out of the way at the bottom. A set of five direct-input buttons lets you instantly switch sources — a desirable feature on a remote control. And pressing the Wide button lets you toggle through the TV's display modes: Normal (4:3) and Wide (16:9) for HDTV and Normal, Wide, and Zoom for standard-def programs.

SETUP For most users, the first step will be to unfold the quick-start poster that comes with the P42HDTV. This helpful chart guides you step-by-step through various tasks from connecting equipment to scanning the airwaves for broadcast TV channels. After I connected my sources and plugged in an indoor set-top antenna, I called up the DTV Tuner menu and let the auto-scan feature rip. Unfortunately, the Vizio has no onscreen tuning meter (a useful feature of many HDTVs that aids in antenna placement), but it still grabbed most of the digital broadcasts in my area. The one exception was the local NBC affiliate — a station that plenty of sets have had trouble pulling in. (With Olympic downhill skiing due to begin in 5 minutes, I was bummed.) When the scan was done, I pressed the remote's Guide button and called up a slick onscreen guide that offered detailed program information for each received channel along with program listings spanning several hours ahead.

Moving on to picture adjustments, I found that the Vizio P42HDTV offers three preset video modes plus a User setting that can be customized independently for each video input. Picture controls are minimal; standard settings like contrast, color, brightness, and sharpness are included, but you won't find advanced adjustments like color temperature, gamma, or noise reduction. Fortunately, the few controls you do get are good enough to get you rolling. The Vizio's 6,500-K color-temperature default setting turned out to be almost right on the nose; with only minor picture tweaks, the TV was good to go.

The Short Form

$1,500 ($1,800 list) / 30 x 43 x 4.25 in / 85 lbs / vizioce.com / 888-849-4623

Plus

•Crisp picture with both HDTV and DVD •Natural out-of-the-box color •Great value for a 42-inch plasma HDTV

Minus

•Mild picture noise in dark scenes •Uneven picture centering on HDMI input

Key Features

•1,024 x 768-resolution plasma display •Built-in HDTV tuner •PIP/POP •inputs HDMI, 2 component-video, 2 composite-video, and 1 composite/S-video, all with analog stereo audio; 2 RF cable/antenna; VGA with minijack analog stereo audio •outputs coaxial digital and analog stereo audio

Test Bench

The Vizio P42HDTV's color temperature measured very close to the 6,500-K standard after picture adjustments were made with the set's standard user controls. After calibration, the TV's grayscale tracking was ±100 K from 20 to 90 IRE — excellent performance. Picture centering was noticeably uneven when the HDMI input was used, but Vizio says that will be corrected in production units. And picture overscan on the set's component-video inputs was 5% — a bit higher than usual. The set's resolution was very good, with alternating lines in a 720p-format multiburst test pattern coming through cleanly via its HDMI and component-video inputs. Full Lab Results

PICTURE QUALITY Air travel is unsettling enough, but a thriller that takes place during a turbulent long-distance flight, as directed by horror-master Wes Craven — now that's disturbing! Such is Red Eye, and the Vizio P42HDTV 42-inch plasma HDTV did a good job bringing out the DVD's detail in the passengers' clothes from the gloom of the shadowy airplane cabin. I saw subtle pinstripes in the dark jacket of Jackson Rippner (Cillian Murphy), even in shots where the lights were thoroughly dimmed. But although the P42 had decent shadow detail, deep blacks looked merely dark, falling short of the true inkiness I've seen on the best plasmas. This limits contrast in dark movie scenes, reducing some of the TV's overall visual punch.

In the better-lit images of Red Eye's opening airport scene, the Vizio P42HDTV's spot-on color rendition made the skin tones of characters lining up to board the flight appear completely natural. And bright colors (the blue-and-green uniforms of the flight attendants) looked very rich. Fortunately, the set's vivid color rendition didn't come at the expense of more subtle hues like the icy blue of Rippner's eyes and the pale pinkish-red lips of Lisa Reisert (Rachel McAdams).

Having recently logged time checking out a bunch of new, ultra-crisp 1080p projection HDTVs, I'm finding it harder to be impressed by the picture detail on high-def plasmas, most of which provide fewer than half as many pixels. Even so, the HDTV programs I watched on the Vizio P42HDTV looked satisfyingly sharp. As I tuned in ABC's sci-fi show Invasion, an overhead shot of the questioning Kira lying on her bed revealed plenty of detail in both the fine silk-screened drawings on her T-shirt and the lacy patterns on her Indian pillow. The fuzzy texture of a nearby stuffed animal in another shot also came across clearly.

But along with good high-def detail, the Vizio P42HDTV displayed a bit of picture noise in the many dark shots from Invasion. In a nighttime scene where a father speaks to his daughter from his tree-house perch (you have to take these strange arrangements for granted with sci-fi), the panels of the screen door next to her showed a slightly coarse gradation of dark to light tones. But this effect was rare in most of the shows I watched on the set. Another problem I detected was that images fed to the Vizio via its HDMI input were shifted noticeably to the right compared with those via its properly centered component-video input. According to Vizio, this problem was peculiar to my test sample and won't appear on production units.

BOTTOM LINE The Vizio P42HDTV 42-inch plasma HDTV performs surprisingly well for a panel that costs as little as $1,500. While its picture isn't perfect, most of the HDTV programs and DVDs I watched on it looked very good, and I often found myself struck by its crisp image, convincing shadow detail, and rich, natural color. And the set's good looks and smart features add quite a bit to its overall appeal, helping make it one of the best overall values in plasma TVs today. So my work is done. Now load those kids into the minivan and get a move on to Costco.

Full Lab Results
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