Westinghouse TX-47F430S

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.