Vizio P50HD Review Roundup

Probably one of the cheapest 50-inch plasma monitors in the market, Vizio P50HD can be bought from Costco for $2600. Very cheap for a plasma of this size but not without its quirks. First of all it is heavy - 125lb - so call your friends for a TV setup party. Video quality is not for a videophile and no one expects that with this price. There are problems with contouring and image size mismatch on the sides. In my opinion all these problems can be eliminated with an external video processor such as a basic HTPC plugged into the DVI port of the monitor. Using the DVI port for digital clarity and feeding the native resolution of 1366x768 the monitor will be put into a pass through mode and will do no scaling with minimal or no processing by the monitor. This will eliminate most of the artifacts you will read in the reviews below. One thing one should be careful is the burn-in and all of the warnings that company makes about static images. They actually suggest not to watch a channel that has a scrolling text on the bottom for a long or it will use the warranty since they consider it an abuse.

So here is a compilation of reviews from all over the Internet:

• GuideToHomeTheater: V, Inc. VIZIO P50 HDM PDP (plasma) Monitor
• Personal Tech Pipeline: Review: VIZIO P50HDM
• CNET: V Vizio P50HDM
• Hotmods: Review of Vizio P50HDM Plasma

Overall, the Vizio P50 may not be a bad idea for someone on the tight budget with a huge desire to own a plasma display. Given that P50 HDM has 2 HDMI,1 DVI input and truckload of analog inputs, it is guaranteed that you will be ok until DisplayPort kicks in 5-6 years. However there is no tuner, but who needs one with all the satellite and cables boxes anyways.

Vizio P50HDM product page.