We bought our Sanyo HDTV DP42849 exactly one year ago. A flat screen TV was something my husband had wanted for a very long time. We certainly had better things we could spend our tax refund on however; he is a sweet and wonderful person.




Television sets have never much impressed me. By television time I am curled up in bed with my laptop, a book, or a notebook (paper variety), scanning the TV every once in a while and watching the good parts. Spending $588.00 at Walmart impressed me even less. At least, until I noticed a difference, especially after our cable provider got us hooked up to high definition TV.



Without cable or satellite you cannot take advantage of the high definition features unless you have a digital TV amplifier. If you have one of these nifty little gadgets you can hook up to a TV antenna to receive high definition.




The colors are vibrant. The very first thing I notice is how beautiful everyone's eyes were. Then I began to notice something else. I could see flaws in actors' makeup. I could never see that before we had our Sanyo DP42849 42 in. HDTV LCD TV flat screen. When I found out I could use it as a computer monitor for my laptop or my desktop my husband almost lost his television set.




Compared to other HDTV's we observed at Walmart the Sanyo HDTV, when considering cost, was an excellent value. We could have spent as much as we wanted but I seriously didn't see too many HDTV's costing hundreds more with a better picture quality.



We wanted the flat screen for our bedroom. We considered a larger HDTV but decided the picture would overwhelm the space in the bedroom. The only thing we have to be careful of is sound.



The sound quality is better than I had expected, and does it carry through the house. We have a historical 1885 huge house. The first night our daughter who lives way on the other side of the house stomped over to tell us we were going to wake up her kids and husband. Ha! They are moving into their own place this week! The set has two right/left built-in 6 x 12 cm speakers.



If you want even better sound it does have a Coaxial Digital Audio Output for theater-like sound using a home entertainment receiver amplifier system.


The flat screen is a handsome basic set. The color is jet black and stands on a sturdy base. The only thing on the stark black front is the word Sanyo in silver letters. We could have opted to purchase a wall bracket but really didn't want to drop the new TV. It now sits on top of our dresser along with the DVD recorder, cable high definition decoder box, and Blue Ray and however many remote controls we have accumulated. Including the stand the dimensions of the TV are 41.3"W x 29.7"H x 10.2"D. I like the depth because the dresser can sit just far enough from the wall for all the wires and cords to live. It is heavier than it appears at 55.1 pounds.



One really nifty feature is using the USB port to connect my USB storage device where I store my family and professional pictures I use for news stories and such. It is even simple to use, when the USB storage device is inserted the HTTV switches to USB input. You can click on a thumbnail or even create a slideshow from the slideshow setup menu.



One thing that is important to us especially since ever single light bulb in the house is energy saving compact fluorescents, the set is Energy Star compliant. We can keep our energy bill in this side of the house at $89. a month year around, by basically living upstairs in the winter. The heat rises and keeps the upstairs toasty, but the downstairs can get frigid. You can also access a three level energy saver from the on screen menu. Power consumption is 216 Watts.



For the price of the set the picture quality is exceptional with native panel resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels (WXGA) and a 16:9 Aspect Ratio.



All the hookups are in the back. It would have been handy to have had the USB in the front of the set. It does have a full set of hookups in the back to do just about anything you want, including HDMI, Component Audio/Video, S-Video, Composite Audio/Video and RF inputs. Even though all the inputs and outputs are on the back of the TV, it is easily accessible because they are located on kind of a side panel facing the side of the set. It is just a simple reach around the corner instead of needing to be twisted in half and upside down. Besides this side panel design keeps all the snakes in a well behaved configuration.



There is an easy to use on screen menu that pretty much does everything except for the dishes; one of the multitudes of options is a trilingual language menu in English, Spanish, and French. The on screen menu allows you to do so much; I am not going to ruin the surprises. You got to discover this on your own.



It has yet another remote which isn't used very often since we have cable.



The flat panel has a limited one-year warranty but for an additional $59.88 we bought a 2 year service plan. We use to never buy those but it seems lately with everything we have lately breaks down the day after the warranty expires.



For the price it is an outstanding television. It just made it through the one-year mark and is going strong.

Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 588.00