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Vizio Gallevia GV47LF LCD HDTV Review

Vizio Gallevia GV47LF LCD HDTV gets you the best images and colors on your favorite television shows. Vizio Gallevia GV47LF LCD HDTV is a 47” LCD HDTV, which is one of the largest Full HD 1080P LCD HDTVs available. This television offers one of the most powerful and highest resolutions in High Definition entertainment today. The overall effect is so magnanimous that you would never feel like going to watch a movie at a theater. Your Vizio Gallevia GV47LF LCD HDTV can recreate the theater atmosphere at your home.

Vizio Gallevia GV47LF LCD HDTV is available in different formats of 1080p, 1080i, 720p, 720i, 480p, 480i. It has a 47-Inch wide-screen diagonal display and ahs a response time of 8-ms. Widescreen aspect ratio is 16:9. Manufacturer warranty is available for six months from the date of purchase. It would take seven to ten business days for your television to arrive through ship freight. This is normally for all monitors over 37". 

Exterior Looks

Vizio Gallevia GV47LF LCD HDTV is available in a black frame set on top of a silver base. The frame is comparatively thinner than previous models and proves very vulnerable. It is within a plastic closet. This plastic covering offers a subtle and classy accent to the overall appearance of Vizio Gallevia GV47LF LCD HDTV. The silver base houses the stand and speakers.

Rating: 5/5

Features

Vizio Gallevia GV47LF LCD HDTV measures 44.5 x 31.4 x 10.6 inches with speakers and stand attached. It measures 44.5 x 26.9 x 4.5 inches without speakers and stand. Speakers are independently detachable and help you use an external sound system. Further, you can go in for wall-mount brackets if you want to house speakers at specific points. These features enhance the looks and create a complete picture look for your television. This television weighs around ninety pounds.

Vizio Gallevia GV47LF HDTV has a display with 1920 x 1080 pixels. This offsets all deficiencies of 1080i and 1080p resolutions. It has an HDTV tuner that allows you to access all over-the-air HDTV channels. QAM tuner for digital cable could increase access to few more unscrambled HDTV channels.

A versatile picture-in-picture control makes it easy for simultaneous watching from two sources. The picture control has a single custom mode and three preset video modes. The custom mode allows you to readjust all picture parameters independently for each input.

There are three color-temperature presets available. Further, you can adjust red, green, and blue colors in a custom color-temperature menu. Black Level Extender is for improving details in dark areas. White Peak Limiter improves the lighter areas. Color Transient Intensity or CTI helps correct pictures in fast-moving scenes. Low Flesh Tone is to make red color pinker in shade. Adaptive Luma and dynamic backlight controls change the picture on the screen accordingly.

Rating: 5/5

Design

Vizio Gallevia GV47LF LCD HDTV is tastefully designed. There are no button controls on the panel. Instead, there are touch-sensitive areas on the frame that light up on touching. You can then do necessary adjustments. Similarly, these controls disappear when not in use.

Remote and menu system of Vizio Gallevia GV47LF LCD HDTV has many buttons. Most of these buttons have more than one function. All keys have backlights, which makes it simple and easy to operate. Menu offers a simple and direct access to different inputs. Further, menu controls do not obstruct any pictures on the screen during adjustments. Advanced picture controls are also available on this Vizio Gallevia GV47LF LCD HDTV. Navigation is simple and easy.

Rating: 5/5

Ports

Vizio GV47LF LCD HDTV has two component-video inputs, a pair of HDMI inputs that can take 1080p sources at 60 Hz, one RF input for cable for antenna connections, one A/V input with composite video and one with composite and S-Video, a VGA-style PC input for PC connections, and an optical digital audio output. There is no DVI port. All rear inputs face downward. This makes it difficult to plug-in components.

However, if you are connecting a computer, VGA input maximizes at 1360 x 768 resolution instead of the full 1920 x1080. You may be able to get an output of 1920 x 1080, but pictures would be blurred and not as sharp. This is mainly due to the absence of dot-by-dot mode. 

Vizio Gallevia GV47LF LCD HDTV offers dot-by-dot resolution in the wide aspect ratio mode. However, this is possible only with 1080p sources. There is no over scan in this wide mode.

Rating: 4/5

Performance

Vizio Gallevia GV47LF LCD HDTV offers good quality performance. However, the performance levels may not match other high quality televisions. Color standards are within decent specifications and quality. Nonetheless, black levels require greater saturation and better uniformity.

If you are viewing in a dark environment, you have to adjust backlight to zero. This curbs the blinding light output. You then have to increase the contrast to a comfortable level of a peak light output of about 40 FTl. Custom color temperature adjustment does not offer the requisite level of adjustments.

Adjusting the dark areas to a correct level can make light areas look bluer. If you adjust the bright areas to a correct level, the dark areas look greener. Hence, Vizio Gallevia GV47LF LCD HDTV's single control for red, green, and blue is lacking in adjustments and performance. It would be better to have a full color-temperature control with independent function controls. The default Warm setting offers good and easy color adjustments.  

Video processing in some instances makes images little blurred and have false contours. The images may seem unnatural although visible. Vizio Gallevia GV47LF HDTV can deliver a sharp image. However, images do not present a soft look.

Light distribution is not even across the entire screen of Vizio Gallevia GV47LF LCD HDTV. There are little leakages along the bottom. This made lighter areas visible in the letterbox bars. Similarly, the upper-right area also displays little light leakage. Nevertheless, uniformity issues are different across every sample. Hence, you cannot arrive at a conclusive decision.

Rating: 3/5

Overall Conclusions

Vizio Gallevia GV47LF LCD HDTV is an excellent bargain for all its features. It is priced at a modest $1,700. Although there are shortcomings in performance levels and comparing to plasma standards is not justified, yet, the affordability factor makes it possible for all to own an LCD TV. Higher-priced brands obviously offer better contrast ratio.

This television is best suited for home entertainment. You can enjoy viewing of all types of sports and action movies. It makes it easier to view movies recorded on DVD. The pixel resolution of 1920×1080 helps Vizio Gallevia GV47LF LCD HDTV display 1080p signals. Therefore, GV47LF does not have to compress even the most intricate progressive scan data signal before displaying it in brilliant color and clarity. It can produce more than sixteen million colors.

Sound quality is awesome. It offers a 178-Deg View Angle. This best suits viewing in bright-light environments. Glare is minimal. Vizio Gallevia GV47LF LCD HDTV is more popular as a full definition HDTV because of its huge and native resolution. Other menus include Advanced Picture Adjust, Digital Noise Reduction, Adaptive Luma, Flesh Tone, and Dynamic Backlight. You can turn on these menus and watch their effects. You can choose any of them according to your preferences.

The curved shape of the remote control scores a point for being ergonomically designed. Buttons have different shapes to offer easy distinction between different buttons. The accompanying instruction manual is very informative and exhaustive.

Pros:

• Good connectivity
• Inexpensive even with a 1080p LCD
• User-menu grayscale adjustments
• Accurate primary colors
• Professional styling with touch-sensitive buttons
• Supports multi-channel viewing
• Sharper and more realistic images

Cons:

• No dot-by-dot aspect-ratio mode with 1080i sources
• Black color is relatively of a lighter shade
• Grayscale remains somewhat blue even after adjustment
• Tuner and Parental Control s not available in HDMI input
• No manual backlight adjustment
• No adjustments in picture modes for different viewing standards
• Light leakages present

Features: 5/5
Performance: 3/5
Price: 4/5
Usability: 4/5