New Sanyo 27-inch 4:3 HDTV at Walmart

Last night I bought a brand-new Sanyo model HDTV at Walmart, the HT27745,
for $447. Wheeee! To plagiarize from a post I saw recently, my head is
spinning from so much goodness.

I'm an HDTV newbie, so bear with me as I do a quick dump of my initial
reactions. Please don't tell me I should have gone for this or that
additional feature -- you'll just ruin my high. And what I'll try to do
is aim at the potential buyer at this level.

First, some background. Our 27-inch standard set appeared to be on its
last legs. I was a little bit interested in Sanyo's 32-inch HT32744 at
Walmart, but would have problems fitting it into some built-in cabinets
in the living room, and didn't really want to spend $700. I'm not a major
TV junkie -- no cable or satellite, and I've been using rabbit ears until
I get around to replacing a flaky cable to the rooftop antenna. I'd
pretty much decided to buy a standard 27-inch set in the low $200s to
tide me over until HD prices come down, but went out yesterday to make
the rounds -- Best Buy, Circuit City, Walmart.

At Walmart, over by the Jewelry counter, I noticed 2 cartons with the
HT27745, priced at $447. I was shocked, since I hadn't known about any
set with an integrated HDTV tuner at anything near this price. There were
no sets in the display area, and when I went to the other area Walmart,
they had neither cartons nor display sets. I ran home and did a Google,
and found only 3 (!!) hits on the net, including this one:

http://www.sanyo.com/entertainment/...?productID=1115

Apparently, this is a brand brand new model that Sanyo is building for
Walmart, and it's just now hitting the stores. From the Sanyo Web page,
it looked an awful lot like the 32-incher, just scaled down in size and
some features. So I decided to take a chance, and ran back and bought
one.

Reactions:
--It's heavy -- about 100 pounds -- so even for 2 of us getting it out of
the pickup and into the house was an adventure.
--It's large for a 27-inch set.
--I hooked up a Philips $20 amplified settop antenna and it immediately
came up and did a scan, finding a dozen or so digital stations here in
Baltimore. That in itself was a wonderful surprise -- I had no idea that
there were hidden goodies in the digital world like constant weather
channels, and multiple specialty channels on the PBS outlet.
--I then tweaked the antenna to angle it toward Washington, and picked up
a pile of additional signals. Until now, reception from D.C. had been
lame at best. Unfortunately, some of those channels are now too weak in
the daytime. I think I'm going trade in the antenna for the next level of
signal boost.
--The image is gorgeous. Even on source material that wasn't created in
HD, it's rock solid and beautifully detailed.
--Image format is weird on digital, though. Different stations appear in
different ways. Some come up in what they call "postage stamp" format,
with bars on both top and sides. On a 4:3 set, that makes for a pretty
small picture. The Sanyo has a zoom function to fill the screen, but that
takes away from the sparkling clarity, and chops the edges if you have a
standard letterbox picture. Some remorse here.
--In letterbox mode, I think I'm seeing an extremely slight tilt and
pincushioning. Not jarring, just enough to nag at me.
--Sound is decent, and you can set the bass and treble. Some of the
digital channels have a weird kind of echoing, though -- I haven't
figured out if that's a Surround Sound artifact. I haven't yet hooked it
to the stereo amp, but from what I read it's going to be a fixed-level
output, which makes me unhappy, since that would mean I can't control the
volume with the TV remote, and my old monster Yamaha power amp doesn't
have remote control.
--Features seem to be pretty much the same as the 32-inch set, except
that (1) there's no Picture and Picture, and (2) no HDMI interface.
--Analog tuner seems about the same as in our old RCA -- possibly not as
strong on weak signals. Fortunately, most of the channels are coming in
well on digital.

Bottom line: Sure, you can get higher quality and more features if you
spend $700, or $1000, or $3000.... But my quick read on this is that it's
a stunning breakthrough in the march to HDTV. It's the first set I've
seen with pricing that flirts with the high end of standard sets at the
same size. I easily could have spent $300 for a 27-inch flat tube, and
another $100 or $150 for a settop digital receiver, and not had the
quality of HD nor the convenience of built-in tuning. If you live in an
urban area, you can probably do well with a decent settop antenna.

BTW: The set has a one-year store-exchange warranty. Not sure I'd like to
go hauling it back, but that still seems pretty good.

Thanks for taking the time to write the lengthy review. Sanyo would
probably not be a lot of folks first choice, but that being said, I've
had great luck with their products for many years. They quietly go
about making decent stuff at great price points. I was just at
Wal-Mart tonight, and looked at the 32-inch. The price was great, and
it will be very tempting to pick one up this summer, if I can find a
friend with a pickup. (That being the main problem with buying a tv at
Wal-Mart: they'll cart it out to your vehicle, but that's it for
delivery help.)

If you don't mind, in 6 months or so, post about your experiences,
especially reliablity.

-beaumon

wrote in message
oups.com...
Thanks for taking the time to write the lengthy review. Sanyo would
probably not be a lot of folks first choice, but that being said, I've
had great luck with their products for many years. They quietly go
about making decent stuff at great price points. I was just at
Wal-Mart tonight, and looked at the 32-inch. The price was great, and
it will be very tempting to pick one up this summer, if I can find a
friend with a pickup. (That being the main problem with buying a tv at
Wal-Mart: they'll cart it out to your vehicle, but that's it for
delivery help.)

If you don't mind, in 6 months or so, post about your experiences,
especially reliablity.

-beaumon

IMO as a servicer, Sanyo televisions can be a good choice among the lower
priced products. Far better value than many of the other disposable stuff
out there. As with anything else, one should be aware of the service
options locally before buying. They do not have as extensive a network of
independent ASCs as some other brands.

Leonard

Thanks for the reply. I'll do just that before I buy. Glad to know
that someone who works on this stuff has the same opinion, given that I
only have anecdotal evidence.

-beaumon