I'm looking to get rid of my aincient TV, and want to get something good, that I can keep for a while.  At first I was looking at tube HDTVs, but then I found this one:

Westinghouse 32" LCD

It's a bit more than I planned to spend, but looks like a great value.  That's what has me worried-- It seems to be priced too well to be a top-qualtiy product.

What am I losing over more expensive models?  Does anyone have experience with TVs similar to this one? (off brand LCDs?)

Noo idea who owns the rights to the Westinghouse name these days, but I would NEVER buy anything from Best Buy.

Read other's tales of woe with this dishonest company

In a pinch, I bought a Westinghouse 17" LCD monitor for the office.  I've been satisfied with it, and it actually seems a little brighter than some of the other LCD's that we have around.

Make sure you know exactly what you want before going in, though.  I wouldn't count on product knowledge from any Best Buy flunkie.

Google LTV-32W1 - then check the reviews and other pricing through Amazon, no idea if the TV is good or not but you can beat Best Buy's price and you can ALWAYS beat their service.

I'm not a fan of ANY LCD TVs. The sharp Aquos is the only one I'd even consider.

Quoted: I'm not a fan of ANY LCD TVs. The sharp Aquos is the only one I'd even consider.

Eh?

I've been eyeing that same one.   Side by side with other LCD TV's, it seems to have a sharper image, and I think it's around $1400, which is much lower than other comparable TV's.

I have no idea on the quality.  In my research, the big downside to all LCD TV's is that they are backlit, and during the course of the TV's life, the backlight steadily gets dimmer and dimmer.  The problem is most TV manufacturers don't offer an easy way to replace th backlight when it gets too dim to be useable.

Quoted: Noo idea who owns the rights to the Westinghouse name these days, but I would NEVER buy anything from Best Buy. Read other's tales of woe with this dishonest company

Ya, some real 'tales of woe':

I just ordered Battlefield 2 and it was released on June 22. I still havent recived it sinice i tryed to cancel my order saying that its on its way. There shipping is so much crap. Never going to by from this place again

What is it with the various cults out there that foam at the mouth when you mention Best Buy or Walmart or some other large store?

Check the prices on Pricegrabber

Note that Best Buy has the Highest Price and the Lowest seller rating.

Price elsewhere is ~$1200

Quoted: Quoted: Noo idea who owns the rights to the Westinghouse name these days, but I would NEVER buy anything from Best Buy. Read other's tales of woe with this dishonest company Ya, some real 'tales of woe': I just ordered Battlefield 2 and it was released on June 22. I still havent recived it sinice i tryed to cancel my order saying that its on its way. There shipping is so much crap. Never going to by from this place again What is it with the various cults out there that foam at the mouth when you mention Best Buy or Walmart or some other large store?

Then go and shop there. I spent 3 months battling with them to honor a rebate (for which I had all the copies of dated material) and they still reneged on it.

Don't cherrypick some goofball review, compare them to other stores.

Best Buy is consistently one of the worst.

Quoted: Quoted: I'm not a fan of ANY LCD TVs. The sharp Aquos is the only one I'd even consider. Eh?

Poor picture quality per dollar/size ratio.

The only benefit is that they are small, which is not enough to outweigh the crappy contrast ratio and poor response time. Not to mention dead pixels. If you can buy a much bigger CRT for less money, or a much bigger DLP for slightly more, I don't really get the point of LCDs.

But this is largely my personal opinion, I still refuse use a CRT monitor even, I am a PQ extremist. :P

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: I'm not a fan of ANY LCD TVs. The sharp Aquos is the only one I'd even consider. Eh? Poor picture quality per dollar/size ratio. The only benefit is that they are small, which is not enough to outweigh the crappy contrast ratio and poor response time. Not to mention dead pixels. If you can buy a much bigger CRT for less money, or a much bigger DLP for slightly more, I don't really get the point of LCDs. But this is largely my personal opinion, I still refuse use a CRT monitor even, I am a PQ extremist. :P

<jotting down notes>

LCD big, expensive, not so good
CRT cheaper
DLP cheaper, better pic...

I have seen much better deals than that. Do what I did when I bought mine. When I got ready to buy I simply made it a habit to cruise by the various stores when I was near them and look for an open box item. A few years ago, when I was looking, I ran across a 48-incher for about $1200. That was when prices were substantially higher than they are today. It had a couple of minor dings that could be touched up, and no operators manual (big deal).

The one I finally got was a Sony 65-inch. I just happened to walk in about fifteen minutes after some guy returned it (after one day of ownership) because his wife didn't like it. It was in mint condition, with everything, and I got it for slightly over half of the original retail price.

Last Christmas I bought a Westinghouse 30" to mount on the wall in the bedroom for my wife. It was a decent combination of size, image quality and cost at the time. One big advantage was that it was thin enough to hang up high on the wall and not worry about walking into it.

The main factor for me was cost since this was just something for the bedroom but of the other TV's of that size and within the price range it had near the top of image quality, particularly brightness and contrast (an Aquos was damned near 2x as much). The LG's and Samsung's in that range weren't competitive in picture quality.

The remote isn't very good or particularly easy to use, my wife had to call westinghouse tech support to figure out how to get the channels setup but they were helpful and got it sorted out quickly. The adjustment menus aren't especially sophisticated but you'll only mess with those a couple of times until you get it the way you want it.

So far there haven't been any problems with it and she watches it almost every night.

I realize it's not a top quality HDTV but most things you watch aren't going to be in HD anyway. I'm also not particularly picky when it comes to TV quality but the Westinghouse looked fine to me.

So far so good.

Well so far I've heard nothing but good things about the acutal TV (not BestBuy though!).  Does anyone have anything bad to say about this set?

Do not buy westinghouse without the extended warranty.  because they are terrible.  You def want insurance!

I'm watching that very model right now.  Had it for a year.  No problems.