Fry's Electronics had a sale on the Syntax Olevia 27" LCD HDTV last weekend for $899 (it was on sale, but if they got the price I'm sure someone else out there will offer it for that sooner or later). Here's the specs:
http://www.syntaxgroups.com/products..._productd.html
I picked one up (with a price like that, even if it was junk it's probably still be worth it), and was pleasantly surprised by it's performance. The refresh is a bit slow, closer to the LCD's from about a year ago or so, but the colors look pretty good once you dial it in. It has component, svideo, VGA and DVI in - I've tried the all, component looks good, svideo is OK, VGA is pretty bad, and DVI looks (as you'd expect) great. The native resolution of the LCD is 1280 x 720, so it's perfect for HD out, which I'm driving right now with the component out from the NVidia Geforce 6600 GT (I've got DVI hooked up as well, but because of the 6600's problem with VMR9, it gets the video tearing, which doesn't appear on component out). Oh, and not a single dead pixel, which is a nice change of pace - especially with the size/resolution of the screen. About the only thing I'm most disappointed with on the system is the speakers - they sounds pretty bad - imaging is probably the worst I've heard on a TV, so I'll probably just replace them with some multimedia speakers (this system isn't my main watching system).
I was originally planning on buying a Sony tube (just for a cheap HDTV when I don't want to use my projector), and hadn't considered an LCD just because of the size/cost issue. For the price you're looking at I think the Syntax is probably going to be your only option.
01-15-2005, 01:05 PM
Affordable LCD TV
Linear Mode
