More than often, we get dumb press releases here in Gizmodo. This one starts with the following: “MAKE MUM THE ENVY OF THE BLOCK WITH STYLISH WESTINGHOUSE LCD HDTVs.” It goes downhill from there.
New Scientist has a neat story about Elektro, arguably the first celebrity robot, and Jack Weeks, who is attempting to rebuild the golden humanoid that sat in the basement of his childhood home during WWII.
With so much financial strife, it sounds insane to splurge on an HDTV now. Good thing there are 40″ or bigger sets to be had for under $US900. But which ones don’t suck?
To find out, we grabbed five HDTVs you can find on the street for under $US900—some require a little snooping to find that price, but they’re out there. We’ve got four LCDs and one plasma, with four of them were discount brands, while one was from a pretty top name brand. We’re looking at a few things: are any sub-$US900 TVs actually watchable? Are any lower-tier brands as good as big name brands? And finally, which TV delivers the most bang for the buck?
Even if it’s not keeping up with other types of LCD technology, Westinghouse is at least throwing its support behind a solution for an age old problem. The budget electronics maker said that it had committed to using a “universal adapter” made by start-up Green Plug that will power everything from cell phones to television sets.
Westinghouse is jumping into the wireless TV business with partner Pulse-LINK to unveil an ultrawideband HDTV in the second quarter of next year. Using Pulse-LINK’s wireless HDMI system, a highbandwidth Blu-ray or HD DVD signal can be streamed through an invisible pipeline of up to 500 Mbps at 8 feet, or 115 Mbps at 40 feet, with video encoded on the fly using the JPEG 2000 codec. We’ve seen 802.11-based wireless HDTVs from Samsung and LG, but this is the first integrated UWB version. Sadly, the initial rollout will be for corporate customers only, with their fancy kiosks and point-of-purchase displays. But if we know Westinghouse, we’ll soon see that stuff coming our way (and for cheaper than the other leading brands). Jump for press release.
Westinghouse is putting on the good foot for the big CEDIA show that starts this week, rolling out three 1080p LCD TVs in its new line of TX series displays. At the low end is the 42″ TX-42F430S, and it’s complemented by the 47″ TX-47F430S and the 52″ TX-52F480S. So what’s the big deal about this? These TVs bring along everything you need, including an integrated ATSC/NTSC/ClearQAM tuner, and built-in stereo speakers complete with a subwoofer. The company’s also making an effort to improve its picture quality, sharpening up some of the specs that make a difference.
AU: No idea if we’ll ever see Westinghouse TVs here, whether under that name or another brand. But always interesting to see the state of play in TV specs everywhere. -SB
Because I was kind enough to ask, Westinghouse told me that the TBD price on the 52″ TX-52F480S LCD HDTV we mentioned this morning had indeed been determined, and it was $2,499. For now, you’d be hard-pressed to find a 42-in. 1080p for that price. The unit I saw (and that I photographed, above) was an engineering sample, but Westinghouse reps said it was a revision of the sample they showed at CES. It was tasty. I didn’t have special equipment to test the claim of 6.5 millisecond response time, but I have to say, I went in fairly pessimistic, and it looked tasty. 52 inches of awww yeah. Come September, we’ll try to get one in for a face-off with some of its bluer-blooded competition.
Click here for the roundup of stuff on display at the Westinghouse show. – Wilson Rothman
(These guys sell whitegoods here, but TVs? We’ll see what we can find out about any local distributors. -giz.au)
2007 Digital House Party Press Room [Westinghouse]
Later today, we’ll eyeball-check some 1080p Westinghouse TVs that were announced at CES, including their new flagship, the 52-inch TX-52F480S, which is due in September for an undisclosed but likely relatively rock bottom price. We didn’t bother to see it back in Vegas, back in its early, rough state. That’s partially because Westie’s been off our radar. Basically, if you want a better picture, Sharps, Sonys or Samsungs will generally do you right, and the similarly priced Vizios have been scoring higher in terms of performance. At CES, we simply diverted our attention to better gear.
But this generation could be better, and this set could be closer to production today. Why I care is that this could be an attempt at Vizio’s title for biggest, cheapest, budget 1080p LCD HDTV…if there is such a thing as a cheap 52-inch 1080p set…if the thing ever comes out. From CES to now, the sale date’s been pushed back from May to September. Uh oh, someone’s engineering department needed mooore power, Captain.
Here’s a recap of the stat smather:
