I guess the thing that would make me shy away from Vizio is that I hear a lot of horror stories of them dying in a year or two. But for that price I guess it's basically a disposable TV, lol.
I actually like the smart TV functionality on the LG. The wiimote works just like a mouse and it has a scroll wheel. It plays back everything I've tried, even MKVs. The interface is responsive. It has wireless display technology, and has no issues connecting to tablets or PCs, and controlling them with the wiimote. No real complaints. This is the first smart TV I've used where the smart features didn't suck. I could see this replacing an HTPC for most people, at least for awhile until it gets old and stops getting updates. If you're buying a TV today, I'd say give the mid-range to high-end LGs with WebOS a serious look. I really like this TV. Linus seemed to like it when he tried it:
I like LG's webOS tv's also. Not so sold on the panels/settings in the lower end ones, I could never seem to get them to look natural. It's been around 18 months since I looked at them though so maybe they have improved or I just needed to look at the right models. My next TV will be OLED so even though I will be waiting at least 3 years LG might still be the only/best choice.
This model looks pretty natural on the "standard" setting with trumotion turned off, but it's one of the more expensive ones. Can't really speak to the cheaper model because it arrived broken. It may still look off like you're describing.
I found it particularly hard to get natural looking skin tones on the older models I looked at. When bright everything looked like it had too much HDR bloom like a 2007 video game, when dull most midtones were flat with a sickly wrong shade to them. Like I said, skin tones were the worst, people looked like they had a horribly coloured completely even spray tan with no tone variance to their skin.
I ended up moving the 32" in the bedroom to another location. The bedroom is also rearranged so the view distance while in bed is now about 15'. So I had a good excuse to waste some money on another TV. Best Buy had this Sharp 49" on sale for $280 over the weekend so I got it. It's cheap as hell so I'm prepared to return it if I don't like it. So far I can't complain much. Colors were bad out of the box but good after calibrated. The sound seems pretty good for the bedroom. My only complaint is that it doesn't look amazing. It just looks good and for the price that's probably good enough. http://www.bestbuy.com/site/toshiba...lack/7437034.p?id=1219682850718&skuId=7437034 Here was my alternate choice. 48" Visio E series. It's $400 with a $150 gift card to Dell. I might have jumped but I really don't need a gift card to Dell. Especially one that expires in 90 days. http://accessories.dell.com/sna/pro...588fd6e86660e191e0INT&ven3=874903021954210020
Welp one of my old Plasma TVs bit the dust which sucks but as a male I'm still like...It's TV buying time!