VIZIO MAXIMUS 60-inch Plasma

VIZIO, which began as V inc, got into the digital electronics world four years ago with DVD players. More recently, VIZIO has gotten attention for being a price leader product in flat panels. The company’s commercial showing a man with several TVs in his car chatting with his neighbor who only scored one major brand TV for the same amount of money left a strong impression on many shoppers. In March the research/analyst firm Displaysearch announced that VIZIO was the fastest growing brand of flat panel TVs. In the last quarter of 2006 VIZIO ranked in the top 5 of LCD TV shipments. That’s a ton of momentum for a brand that essentially sells through warehouse-style retailers.

Most recently, VIZIO got even more bold by offering a 60-inch plasma TV for $2,999—significantly less than anything else we’ve seen. To top it off, the company dubbed it the MAXIMUS. I asked VIZIO to let us take a look at a MAXIMUS to see what all the buzz was about. What I found was a well-designed HDTV with a decent suite of enthusiast features and performance beyond its bargain price tag.

The MAXIMUS—the product number is actually the VM60P, but I like writing MAXIMUS too much to give it up—is an imperial-looking display. Its 16:9, 1366 x 768 (essentially a 720p TV) panel is surrounded by a bronze colored bezel that looks like it should be wearing a purple sash across its chest. It’s not covered with a dozen little logos, but has a small Vizio logo on the front that lights up when the TV is turned on. The speakers are built into the bottom of the frame and aim down, but the sound is deflected forward by a clear plastic panel that you have to attach yourself. If you choose to use the TV’s speakers, they’re hardly noticeable (visually), but if you opt for a separate sound system then you won’t be stuck with speakers taking up space and looking awkward.

On the back the MAXIMUS is outfitted with four—yes, 4—HDMI inputs. That’s enough for a high def cable box, a PlayStation 3, an HD DVD player and another Blu-ray player. There are two sets each of component, composite and S-video plus an RGB input for a computer. It’s got the standard selection of analog audio jacks plus one optical digital audio output so you can send the audio signal from the TV’s ATSC digital tuner out to a surround sound system. There are no extra inputs on the side for camcorders and such.

Inside, the MAXIMUS packs a Faroudja DCDi de-interlacing engine and 10-bit video processing—not bad but other manufacturers are offering 12-bit. The pair of 20 watt speakers are enhanced by SRS’s TruSurround technology to fill out the bass and give soundtracks a full-room feel—and it works extraordinarily well by the way. It’s also got one of the best owner’s manual quick start guides I’ve ever seen with an HDTV—full color and easy to understand.

I ran the MAXIMUS over an obstacle course of high definition broadcasts, DVDs, Blu-ray discs and PlayStation 3 games. Overall it produced a pretty satisfying picture. Dark scenes from The Prestige had plenty of punch, while video games were full of vivid colors. VIZIO claims a contrast ratio of 7,000:1, which isn’t bad for a panel of this size. The Philadelphia Phillies’ season opening game in high def looked good as well (even though they lost). The TV didn’t scale standard definition as well as some other large screens we’ve had in the office lately, but it wasn’t objectionable enough to be a deal breaker.

The TV’s menu system is pretty basic, but easy to use. Unfortunately, you can’t make separate picture adjustments for each input, so for example, your color settings for the HDMI 1 input will be the same as your settings for component 2 and so on.

As a point of contrast, Panasonic’s 58-inch TH-58PX60U claims a 10,000:1 contrast ratio, 2 HDMI ports and an SD card slot for about $1,600 more at a popular national electronics store. Other brands offer similar sizes for more, some less, but none less than VIZIO. Of course, without directly comparing them to each other, judging by price alone doesn’t tell the whole story. What I can say is that while this isn’t the best looking plasma TV I’ve seen, and it’s not 1080p, I’ve definitely seen worse for more money. It offers a respectable picture and good feature set that would satisfy a large portion of the HDTV-shopping public. It’s hard to find fault in that. yy