What We Think

After some tweaking, this LCD panel looked great on high-def sports, but less so with DVDs and regular TV channels

You've got to hand it to LCD technology for its meteoric rise. Until recently, plasma ruled the home theater roost, but big flat-screen LCD sets now provide a viable alternative (check out our recent review of Sharp's 65-incher). More modest-size LCD models also abound, tempting us with features like 1080p resolution at an affordable price. With LCD accelerating so quickly, it's no surprise to find ViewSonic, a longtime maker of computer monitors, joining the game. The Viewsonic N4060w 40-inch LCD HDTV ($1,800 street price) is one of the largest models the company offers. With a price that low for a screen that large, it's certainly worth a look.

The N4060w's bottom-mounted speakers and charcoal-gray frame give it a compact, understated appearance. It doesn't look as snazzy as some other LCDs in its size range, but most of those models come from well-known TV companies that charge a hefty premium for them. A set of buttons for switching channels and inputs and adjusting volume is located on the TV's side. There's also a headphone output jack, but no A/V convenience input for hooking up a camcorder. I found the TV's included plastic table stand to be workably sturdy, but you could also use ViewSonic's optional wall mount ($150).

With HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc players joining satellite, cable, and terrestrial broadcasting as high-definition TV sources, it's important that your set have plenty of high-def inputs. Unfortunately, ViewSonic skimps in this area, offering only one HDMI input alongside a pair of component-video connections. There's a VGA-style input for connecting a computer, however — no surprise given the company's background in monitors. And since the TV has a built-in HDTV tuner for pulling in over-the-air digital broadcasts, there are also RF inputs for connecting an antenna.

ViewSonic's remote control is a bit on the flimsy side and lacks a backlit keypad for finding buttons in the dark. I found it strange that, despite the keypad being crowded with buttons, none let me control the set's picture-in-picture functions, which are fairly extensive and include side-by-side display and a transparency adjustment for the inset picture — a cool feature. Instead, you're forced to rummage around in the TV's setup menus to make any sort of PIP adjustments.

Despite the remote's shortcomings, it does provide a row of direct input keys to easily switch between video sources connected to the TV. And a Wide button for changing display (aspect ratio) modes is located near the center, where you can easily find it. There are a total of five display-mode choices, including one called Normal that will correctly display both 4:3 standard-def pictures and wider, 16:9 high-def ones. But the selections don't give you much flexibility with high-def. For example, 4:3 shows that are broadcast on HDTV channels can't be stretched out to fill the screen.

SETUP After connecting my antenna, I entered the ViewSonic's setup menu and commanded it to scan for available digital channels — something the TV did easily, grabbing the full range of offerings in my area. Although there are no onscreen guides or other amenities to help you channel-surf the broadcast spectrum, the set does have an onscreen tag with station ID and a bar showing each channel's signal tuning strength.

When tweaking picture settings, you can select between a preset called Soft and a User preset that will independently store any custom settings you make for each of the TV's inputs. The only adjustment that's exempt from this is the LCD panel backlight setting — it remains fixed for all inputs at the same level you left it at last. There are also four Color Temp settings: Warm, Cool, Normal, and Nature. Unfortunately, when I pulled out the measurement gear, none of them (Nature included) came close to delivering NTSC standard color temperature — a precondition for getting natural-looking colors on a TV.

With the ViewSonic's Warm color temperature preset delivering a decidedly cool (read: bluish) palette, most programs I watched at the outset of my review had an unnatural cast: Skin tones tended toward Oompa-Loompa orange, and the white highlights in images had a glaring, washed-out look. But a service-level calibration (see Test Bench) helped to bring things back to the realm of the real.

The Short Form

$1,800 ($2,299 LIST) / 30 x 40 x 11 IN (W/STAND) / 73 LBS / viewsonic.com / 800-688-6688

Plus

•Crisp high-def picture •Affordable price for a bigscreen LCD •Good performance from built-in HDTV tuner

Minus

•Below-average out-of-box performance •Standard-def programs look soft and noisy •Only one digital input

Key Features

•1,360 x 768 resolution plasma display •Built-in HDTV tuner •PIP •Price: $1,800/$2,299 (list) •Inputs HDMI, 2 component-video, and 2 composite-/S-video, all with analog stereo audio; VGA with minijack analog stereo audio; 2 RF antenna/cable; analog stereo audio (for HDMI input from DVI source) •Outputs Analog stereo audio

Test Bench

Out of the box, the ViewSonic's color temperature tracked around 1,000 to 1,500 K above the 6,500-K NTSC grayscale standard for much of its range after adjustments were made to the User preset with its Warm Color Temp mode selected. Both this and a green deficiency at both ends of its grayscale caused colors to look unnatural — something that could be seen in skin tones. Tracking improved somewhat after service-level calibration, with a +/- 500 K variance measured between 30 and 100 IRE. Color decoder error was minimal on the ViewSonic, with a +2.5% red push measured on HDMI, and +5% on the component-video connections. Overscan — the amount of picture area "hidden" behind the edges of the TV's screen — measured 5% for both the HDMI and component-video inputs — a higher than normal amount. 720p-format test patterns showed excellent picture resolution for all high-def inputs. Full Lab Results

PICTURE QUALITY Once the set was calibrated, I set out to watch the creepy French film Caché. A shot of kids swimming in an indoor pool showed punchy contrast and subtly rendered highlights, and the blue and red hues of the pool water and lane dividers looked vivid. Meanwhile, the skin tones of the swimmers came across as completely natural. But dark shots didn't fare as well on the ViewSonic. For example, in a scene where the protagonist talks to his wife in their dimly lit apartment, the picture looked flat and exhibited very little shadow detail.

Not surprisingly, given my experiences with LCD panels, the set's strong point turned out to be its handling of HDTV. When I watched Spain battle Ukraine in an early round of World Cup soccer on ESPNHD, the set delivered a realistic play of light and shadow as the strong, late-afternoon sun beamed down upon the stadium. Shadows looked solid, and the picture virtually popped with the bright reds, yellows, and blues of the players' uniforms. The set also proved capable of showing more subtle hues, allowing me to detect differences in skin tone between the pale Ukrainian players and their swarthier Spanish opponents. Both 1080i and 720p-format HDTV programs like this one looked equally crisp, with details such as the texture of the turf and the fine yellow pinstripes of the Spanish players' uniforms coming through clearly. A fair amount of "motion blur" could be seen in fast action shots, but that type of artifact is typical of most LCD displays.

If high-def shined on the ViewSonic, regular old standard-def looked pretty bad. The set has no variable noise reduction or other settings to enhance the appearance of standard-def programs, which can look pretty gnarly when displayed on a big-screen LCD.

Flipping between NASCAR racing on Speed Channel and a cooking show on Food Network — two channels that normally look acceptable on my reference plasma TV — both shows displayed sub-VHS picture quality, with significant softness, color bleeding, and noise. If viewing experiences like this one don't help hasten the transition to high-def, nothing will.

BOTTOM LINE With a street price that slides in comfortably under two grand, the ViewSonic N4060w 40-inch LCD HDTV is an affordable alternative to the many high-priced flat-screen LCDs on the market. While its out-of-the-box picture performance left me cold, a bit of calibration TLC ultimately went a long way toward coaxing good performance out of this set. Just bypass those cable TV cooking channels and stick to the high-def sports.

Full Lab Results
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