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Judged on image quality, the Westinghouse TX-47F450S is decidedly average. Caucasian complexions acquired a pinkish tint. One judge felt that the TV's picture made David Letterman look washed out (no comment), and another summed up the Westinghouse's handling of the Return of the King DVD as "blah." Nevertheless, it compiled a lot of Goods, a fair number of Very Goods, and an occasional Fair on various image-quality criteria.
The image quality may have been merely okay, but the sound was stupendous. In assessing the batch of nine 46- and 47-inch HDTVs that we evaluated in April 2008, I usually began testing audio with the sound turned all the way up. But with the Westinghouse, even quiet, atmospheric music hurt my ears at that level. At a comfortable volume (about a third of the way up), everything sounded clear, clean, and distinct--and audio that was supposed to be loud shook my bones. I have never experienced TV sound like this without a separate amplifier to juice things up. The TX-47F450S owes its aural prowess to its built-in subwoofer. The result is extremely impressive sound for a TV that is among the least expensive in its size class.
The Westinghouse's menus are easy on the eye: small but readable, with pleasant icons along the top of the screen. Still, they do have some annoying idiosyncrasies. For instance, if you go to the video menu, you'll see that almost every option is grayed out. The solution is to change the mode to User (in other words, switch out of the predefined settings), at which point the options will become accessible.
There are no easy-access inputs for temporary hardware add-ons, but the regular inputs face sideways and are almost as easy to reach.
The TX-47F450S's manual and remote aren't much to brag about. The USB port is for service only, and (of course) there's picture-in-picture. But here's something nice: When you turn on a connected device, the Autosource tool changes the TV's input setting to go to it.
Though the Westinghouse TX-47F450S isn't a great HDTV, it's not bad--especially if you don't have a separate surround-sound stereo system in the room. Dollar-for-dollar, this model is a competitive choice.
