Summary: Despite it's flaws, you get what you paid for. Seeing how this was almost 1/2 the price of any other 40" TV, we knew what we were probably going to get as far as quality and was fine with that.
PROS:
-true 1080p
-No dead pixels
-Works
-Nothing outstandingly bad
-Amazing value (quality for price)
-Lots of hookups (3x HDMI and it either had component or composite too). Also has an old VGA plugin (no DVI). This means if you don't have an AV Receiver, then you in good shape since you can probably hook all your devices to this. 3x HDMI gives you (for instance): 1x BD Player, 1x Xbox 360, 1x PS3. Anyhow this is more than enough for most households. Oh and it has an old school coax hookup for those of you with older cable boxes. Tested this and it works for us!
Neutral:
We have a nice Onkyo AV Receiver with a nice surround sound system. So we never even bothered trying out the sound on the TV.
CONS:
- Some flashlights in corners, the upper left and right being the worst. But it's not that bad. I've seen much worse and for a set at this price point - it's to be expected. You won't notice it at all in light scenes. In very dark scenes (like in Underworld), if you pay extremely close attention, you might notice it. Frankly, I don't notice it during movies. You can only really see it when you first turn on the TV and everything is black. Personally, this isn't a major issue. Worth mentioning for those of you who care.
- Noise. The picture when you sit close looks has a lot of noise / static to it. This is not very noticeable on light scenes, but on dark scenes it can be very noticeable. The picture is still 1080p HD for sure, so it's not that. Just imagine taking a top end Samsung HDTV picture quality, and then add a bunch of noise to it. This is noise, _not_ pixelation (what happens in high compression JPEGs). If your thinking pixelation, then stop, because this is not that. The pixels are fine, it is true 1080p. There is a big difference between the two! If you ever played Mass Effect or Mass Effect 2 on PC/XBox 360/PS3, it is like the movie filter that you can turn on which adds a bunch of noise. It's pretty much exactly like that. It's not terrible. Again the picture is still 1080p HD w/ some added background noise. However this means you will _not_ get a clean, clear, crisp picture like on other more expensive sets. That said, you get what you paid for, and it isn't bad enough to ruin our movie watching experience. However we upgraded from a 36" 480i CRT set. So compared to that, this thing is amazing. If you are coming from a high quality HDTV set to this, you would probably notice and it will probably really irritate you. For me, and for the price, I'm fine with it. If this is your first HDTV or your not a picture quality nazi, then this is a minor point.
- Ghosting. On really fast scenes - you will see some ghosting. I was surprised to see ghosting since I thought I read that the response time was 5ms which is what you look for in computer monitors for gaming. But either that's a lie, or there's another problem. Anyhow watching Underworld (a very dark-scened vampire action movie with Kate Beckinsale) in the first 1/2 hour or so, it was only _really_ bad once. Still sucks though, and personally I find the ghosting much more distracting than the noise or flashlights. But considering the ghosting only lasted around 5-10 seconds out of 30 minutes, well I can get over that too for this price. But of the three problems, at least for me, this was by far the worst because it is very noticeable when it occurs. Oddly enough my wife didn't notice it, but it was very obvious to me.
Bottom line:
Has some flaws. But honestly, for $380 or ~1/2 price of competing HDTV sets - if you expected perfection, then your insane. You get what you pay for. If you want perfection, then I recommend you shell out the $800-900 for a 40" LED Samsung set which is more than double what you would pay for this.
I personally find the flash-lighting to be a non-issue. The noise I don't really find to be much of a problem either. The worst part of the set for me is the ghosting, because when ghosting happens - it's _very_ noticeable.
Having said all that, I knew that for such a ridiculously low priced set, that the quality probably wasn't going to be amazing. I knew that going in and honestly, it pretty much meets expectations or possibly exceeds them. The extra hookups (not useful for us due to our AV receiver) was a big surprise for a low-priced set.
Also LED and not LCD. This will up the resale value significantly. Our plan is to resell this on craigslist in a few years and shell out the $1000+ for a nice Samsung. Because this is LED and not LCD - the resale value of this set is significant. We expect to get most of our money back.
I rate this highly for it's price point / value - it delivers and honestly was even better than I was expecting. Had no problems hooking up to our AV receiver. Pass-through from our BD Player was just perfect. No major problems. I'm very happy with it. ( I Suggest check for best price for this TV at: droppingprices.info/coby-ledtv4026 )
For those looking for perfection: Spend 2-3x more than this and buy a Samsung set. For those on a major budget, and therefore understand perfection isn't happening and are fine with that - this set is for you.
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5 out of 5 users found this user opinion helpful.
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