Quantcast
PCWorld.com is upgrading some back-end systems. Some site features, such as user registration, may be temporarily unavailable.
Subscribe to magazine

NEW Reviews Beta Feedback

Get HDTV updates
  • Print

Vizio Gallevia GV42LF

74

Good
  • Pros
  • Great picture
  • Low price
  • Cons
  • Difficult to set up and use

User Reviews for Vizio Gallevia GV42LF

  • Reviewed by: Berres

    Duration of ownership: 2 Months

    Strengths: Excellent picture Great price Intuitive remote control

    Weaknesses: Inconvenient input/output location

    Overall Evaluation: This TV is a great value, and deserves your consideration, even if your heart is already set on one of the more 'elite' names! We all want a great picture, that's why we are buying these tv's, right? Well this model delivers. I spent plenty of time walking back and forth at my local mega-electronics store... not paying attention to brand name, model name, or anything other than picture quality. In my opinion, the only thing superior in picture quality would be Sony and Samsung, at far greater cost. And the differences are negligible! I have no buyer's remorse on this purchase... I'm pleased with my decision every day. Only downsides are the location of the plug-ins, facing down, at a very low position. But I don't need to jack-in and jack-out cables very often, so this is only a minor pain on initial setup for me. No PIP unless 2 sources are used (single tuner). Depends on your viewing style if that matters to you. The sound system won't blow you away, but then again, I didn't expect it to, and it is certainly not a weakness, just something you may wish to enhance as you fine-tune your home theater! Picure quality is king... and this model ranks with the best of them. Even those costing many hundreds of dollars more. Mark B.

  • Reviewed by:

    Duration of ownership:

    Strengths: Lower cost of ownership, brilliant picture, very well designed.

    Weaknesses: New on the market, not very well know brand (yet).

    Overall Evaluation: I bought one of these from onsale.com a few months ago. It is fantastic. Visio is going places. Its not as well know as say Samsung, but I sure they soon will be. The picture quality is outstandin

  • Reviewed by:

    Duration of ownership:

    Strengths: Price

    Weaknesses: none

    Overall Evaluation: This is a great TV for the price. I've had it for almost 6 months now and no complaints what so ever!! I will say that it is no better than an LG or Samsung, but when you consider your possible savings of $400-$600 it looks a lot better then. I use it with a PS3 and man the graphics are super amazing when playing games. I've also used to for DVDs that are upconverted on the PS3 and those look pretty darn good too. I found one tiny dent near the base of the TV but it was so small it took me a month to notice it. The item that looked 'most used' was the remote, but oh well it had 2 little scratches on it. BUY BUY BUY... thats my opinion

  • Reviewed by:

    Duration of ownership:

    Strengths: Great color/picture/brightness, available connections

    Weaknesses: Contrast a bit low, a couple of stuck pixels

    Overall Evaluation: This TV is worth every penny. I've had it for 6 months now and it works great. HD looks better than any rear project TV and a MediaCenter looks even better. Buy one of these.

  • Reviewed by: cpelosi

    Duration of ownership:

    Strengths: Price, great reviews, easy to set up, full HDTV.

    Weaknesses: Hard to find on sale.

    Overall Evaluation: I have wanted to get an LCD TV for quite some time but with the prices dropping daily it was hard to find the right time to bite the bullet. For the past several months I have been reading reviews and checking prices and Vizio kept coming up as a price leader and received high regards from its owners. I checked several LCD TV's out in the stores and I was impressed with the picture. I know the stores usually do not tweak the picture settings but this Vizio looked great even with the standard "out of the box" settings. I purchased this TV, brought it home and had it set up in less than 10 minutes. I just have regular cable TV so I hooked up the single cable TV wire and plugged in the set. I popped the included batteries into the remote and hit the power button. The TV prompts you to auto scan the channels and I just followed the on-screen prompts. It took about five minutes to scan all of the channels and I was surprised to see all of the additional channels I now have! My old TV has just a plain analog tuner and I never went to my cable company for an additional box to receive the channels above what my analog tuner can receive. The Vizio has the analog and digital tuners built in and I now receive some digital cable channels along with some HD channels. The Vizio looks great even on the standard definition channels and although some of the reviews I have read stated that the sound wasn't that good I could not find fault with the sound. The speakers are detachable but I like them right where they are. If you do decide to remove the speakers to spread them out you will need to buy additional cables. The speakers just plug into the bottom of the TV and adding additional cable would not be a problem. I am waiting for a wall mount to arrive since I plan on installing the Vizio on the wall. I found a wall mount online for far less than what the stores want to charge. Think of it as adding undercoating to a new car - pure profit for the dealer. You can do better online. Well, other reviewers have covered the technical details of this TV so I won't repeat what has already been said. The Vizio looks great right out of the box even with the power off. The only tweaks I made were to set the TV on wide screen, set the color temperature to cool and turn down the backlight a little. I am very satisfied with the picture quality and the sound. Now, only time will tell if the life span of this TV will justify the initial cost.

  • Reviewed by: sv_guy

    Duration of ownership:

    Strengths: Fantastic picture quality at a budget price (42" 1080p panel), Lots of connectivity options, Attractive looking chassis (with detachable speakers), and Good ATSC tuner & onscreen program guide

    Weaknesses: Onscreen menus are not intuitive, Switching inputs via the remote can be painful (especially for VGA, no dedicated button), and Some backlight bleed at the edges

    Overall Evaluation: This is a very shape, nice looking 1080p panel. I really like the detachable speakers and the piano black finish around the display. The TV literally looks like it is floating above the TV stand as the speakers/stand blend in with my cream wall color. Picture quality is excellent and the set goes a great job of handling 1080i/p inputs. I have Toshiba HD-A3 connected on HDMI 1. The picture quality for HD DVDs and 720p/1080i ATSC broadcasts is fantastic. The on-board NTSC and ATSC tuners were able to get more channel than my former 37" Olevia. The program guide information for ATSC broadcasts is nicely laid out and renders quickly -- much better than my old standalone Samsung ATSC decoder and the Olevia. I don't have cable so I was not able to test the unit's QAM capabilities. I also have the unit connected to a HTPC via both the VGA and HDMI. Both run at 1080p and honestly I cannot tell the difference in picture quality. Pixels are mapped 1:1 and not tweaks are required from my Nvidia Geforce card. The remote is annoying since there is no dedicated input button for VGA ... you have to go scroll through the input menu so I tend to use the HDMI connection. I think Vizio needs to do some work on the onscreen menus ... they are not intuitive, not very easy to navigate, and actually quite small. Fortunately, once you adjust the setting you typically don't need to go back. All in all I'm really pleased with my unit. I got from Sears for < $800 at their Friends & Family Sale. There were no issues or surprises out of the box. Great connectivity and fantastic picture quality especially if you can get it for < $1K.

What You Should Know about the Gallevia GV42LF

Good Fit For a Midsize Living Room

HDTVs with a diagonal screen size between 42 and 45 inches are LCDs or plasmas, usually with a resolution of either 1366 by 768 or 1920 by 1080 (1080p). The optimum viewing distance for an HDTV screen like this one is generally considered to be about 6.5 to 7.5 feet. That makes a television of this size appropriate for a range of living areas, such as a den, a large bedroom, a midsize living room, or a game room.

Read More »

Similar HDTV

Latest HDTV Playing in PCW Video

More Latest HDTV Playing in PCW Video »

Latest HDTV News, Reviews, How-To's

Best Prices on Camcorders

See all Camcorders

Best Prices on Blu-Ray and HD-DVD

See all Blu-Ray and HD-DVD