50" 1080p 60hz LCD HDTV (Element) Featuring Built In JBL® 2.0 Sound Bar and Subwoofer $499 + Free Shipping @ Target

Quote from candlejack : What's wrong with that? I'm sure the speakers on this thing sound better than most TV's.

The point is, it's not a "sound bar" if it's built into the tv. That's like advertising that the tv has built in external speakers :p. There's nothing wrong with it, as long as it actually sounds decent.

Quote from BruceG : The Target store in Cupertino CA has one on the floor (boxed) and it does have the new packaging and says "assembled" in the USA. Didn't see it on display so I can't comment on the quality. Bruce

Very cool. You would think they could at least display it with a sign saying made in the usa or something? Anyway it would be nice to see one of these in action.

-Guru

Quote from kd5bwp : The main and I bet you the only reason they came back to manufacturing in the USA is because of cost. Shipping is becoming very expensive, China and other surrounding Asian countries workers are now making more than they ever have before. (Look at how just in the past 15 years that the car market has exploded in China.). Also quality control is easier to manage here rather than over seas. Also our dollar has stoped thanks to OB spending more than all other presidents combined causing our credit rating to fall like a rock. I image if we don't get our credit rating up along with cut the out of control spending more companies will come back because of costs. Quality wont necessarily will go up but costs will be better managed. I just don't know why Element chose a north union state to try to save money. They easily could have chosen an souther state and cut cost and be better off. One good example is look at the auto industry on efficiency they had high cost took forever to build a small car or truck on the assembly line with out of control unions and management. Then you look Peterbilt trucks and they can custom make a truck with anything and 24 hours later it has your exact specifications that you asked for. If you look at the amount of workers they have and what they can do you can't but wonder what happen in Michigan with high taxes, non efficient plants, out of control unions, out of control Managment, and over paid workes to sweep floor. Then you have peterbilt trucks in Dentoon, Tx that over comes all of that while staying in business during an massive recession, especially working in the auto and industry that has seen drop in shipping of everything and purchases of their trucks. You can't but wonder why they chose to manufacture up north rather than the south. Tho it's good they brought back jobs to the USA but they didn't do it out of the kindness of their heart they did it because of costs and are using the political advantage to the fullest.

Wow, idiots sure like making stuff up.

Im an independent who hates repubs and dems equally, but i had to laugh at the ”spent more money than all presidents combined” statement.

He hasnt even spent as much as Bush. Your comment is just insane.

Also, the economy was tanking before Obama even took office. ALL the policies that led to our economic situation were put in place during Bush's and Clinton's presidencies, with the vast majority under Bush.

Its amazing how people can actually believe everything was going well under bush and then IMMEDIATELY tanked when obama took office. His ”policies” (if he really has any) werent even implemented when the economy tanked.

By the way, if the economy improved under Obama then the repubs wouldve claimed that its because Bush's policies and that it takes time for policies to show results. Yet, because the economy went downhill they claimed no role in its demise.

Learn about politics, and how BOTH parties destroy america a little bit each day

Lets get this thread back on track.

I went and picked up this TV yesterday. There was no display unit as their wall was full (with the new 70" Sharp LCD, it seems), but the specs looked favorable. I put it side-by-side with my Panasonic P50S30 50" 1080p from last year. They're not exactly in the same class, but here's what I noticed as an amateur.

The Element is certainly brighter at factory settings in my dark living room. I tuned it with a DVD on the custom settings (which there aren't that many of, but enough for it's price) and the picture came out very close to the Panny.

I did noticed some minor vector pixelation when booting my Xbox 360 on Composite connection, so it seems to have a minor problem with smoothing vectors with high contrast on 1080i signals. (It's the only device I own that's still using an analog connection for testing)

My main gripe with the set is that whoever assembled the base on my set clearly did it wrong. When mounted, it leans forward about 5 degrees and is relatively unstable. It looks like they put the little rubber gromet feet on only the back half of the base accidentally. I placed a 3/8" thick paperback under the front edge and it sits perfect and pretty stable. I could take it back for a identical replacement or fix it myself, but honestly, I plan to wall-mount anyway.

The bezel is slightly thinner than the Panny on the sides and thicker on the bottom (because of the sound bar being front-facing instead of rear-facing like the Panny). It's also slightly thicker and weighs about the same.

The sound quality is comparable in quality to my LG 3D Blu-ray 5.1 Home Theater in a Box, but clearly less powerful and with much fewer settings. That's not a criticism that it lacks the power... clearly, I wouldn't want it drawing the 200 watts or so my home theater does. It's plenty loud enough to piss off a neighbor in an apartment building, just not rattle-the-walls loud. It absolutely stomps on the Panny's sound because the Panny relies on the sound bouncing back from the wall, which doesn't always work well. Also, the built-in sub kicks a lot harder than I would have thought; it probably has the most bass of any built-in TV speakers that I've heard - and not in the too-hot-muffled-bass kind of way. It's pretty clean.

Keeping my eye out for something better in case there's a super-slick deal. Kept all of the original packaging and materials. There's probably a 75% chance that nothing better will come along at this price point before the return window closes in my mind.

Wish I had more thumbs to give, OP. Great catch.

Quote from Thadius856 : Lets get this thread back on track. I went and picked up this TV yesterday. There was no display unit as their wall was full (with the new 70" Sharp LCD, it seems), but the specs looked favorable. I put it side-by-side with my Panasonic P50S30 50" 1080p from last year. They're not exactly in the same class, but here's what I noticed as an amateur. The Element is certainly brighter at factory settings in my dark living room. I tuned it with a DVD on the custom settings (which there aren't that many of, but enough for it's price) and the picture came out very close to the Panny. I did noticed some minor vector pixelation when booting my Xbox 360 on Composite connection, so it seems to have a minor problem with smoothing vectors with high contrast on 1080i signals. (It's the only device I own that's still using an analog connection for testing) My main gripe with the set is that whoever assembled the base on my set clearly did it wrong. When mounted, it leans forward about 5 degrees and is relatively unstable. It looks like they put the little rubber gromet feet on only the back half of the base accidentally. I placed a 3/8" thick paperback under the front edge and it sits perfect and pretty stable. I could take it back for a identical replacement or fix it myself, but honestly, I plan to wall-mount anyway. The bezel is slightly thinner than the Panny on the sides and thicker on the bottom (because of the sound bar being front-facing instead of rear-facing like the Panny). It's also slightly thicker and weighs about the same. The sound quality is comparable in quality to my LG 3D Blu-ray 5.1 Home Theater in a Box, but clearly less powerful and with much fewer settings. That's not a criticism that it lacks the power... clearly, I wouldn't want it drawing the 200 watts or so my home theater does. It's plenty loud enough to piss off a neighbor in an apartment building, just not rattle-the-walls loud. It absolutely stomps on the Panny's sound because the Panny relies on the sound bouncing back from the wall, which doesn't always work well. Also, the built-in sub kicks a lot harder than I would have thought; it probably has the most bass of any built-in TV speakers that I've heard - and not in the too-hot-muffled-bass kind of way. It's pretty clean. Keeping my eye out for something better in case there's a super-slick deal. Kept all of the original packaging and materials. There's probably a 75% chance that nothing better will come along at this price point before the return window closes in my mind. Wish I had more thumbs to give, OP. Great catch.

Wow this sounds like a decent set for the price. I figured the sound would be better than most flat screens. So your pretty happy with the picture? Any problems with motion at all? Some will probably gripe about it only being 60hz but thats fine with me. How is the picture on HD cable? I'm sure BR is excellent.

Last thing does your box say assembled in the USA? I know they recently started making these TV's here in the US but they don't have any of the USA one's by me yet.

-Guru

Have not tried with HD cable... don't have cable or satellite service, actually. The two smart TV's / smart Blu-Ray Player / two XBOX / Wii provide all of our entertainment over the interwebs (Netflix, Hulu and Amazon VOD, plus some obscure downloads over our NAS's DLNA server). Netflix over XBOX (Doctor Who, S6E2) looks about the same. Thing about "HD" cable boxes is they're usually super-compressed 720p streams, and even if I put the XBOX on 720p, I won't be able to reproduce that for you. Sorry.

However, I did hook the HDMI up to the Blu-ray player and played a few minutes of Avatar. Motion was fine. Picture is great, other than the analog pixelation. Vertical viewing angle is slightly limited, as you might expect from a budget set, but much less so than on the Mitsubishi DLP sets I saw at Fry's the other day. Since I bought the set primary to play Rocksmith on (a series of neon colored bars flying by), ghosting should be super obvious if it was there and I didn't notice any while playing (admittedly, I was focused on not playing guitar like a retard). The blacks aren't as deep as my Panny plasmas, but certainly richer than the several-year-old 60" NEC LCDs at work.

I personally am bothered by 120hz soap opera effect, so I'd disable it if it came 120hz. Gives me motion sickness and feels like a cheap (HD) camcorder recording. That's entirely personal preference though.

Smart TV functionality or 3D could make it sweeter, but this one went in the guest bedroom, so it wasn't a priority.

My box does not say USA. Says China. Other poster said the USA boxes are red, white and blue. Mine is white with Orange stripes. Was actually light enough that I loaded the box onto the cart, into the car, into the house, and set it up solo. That wasn't the case with my plasmas.

Quote from Thadius856 : Have not tried with HD cable... don't have cable or satellite service, actually. The two smart TV's / smart Blu-Ray Player / two XBOX / Wii provide all of our entertainment over the interwebs (Netflix, Hulu and Amazon VOD, plus some obscure downloads over our NAS's DLNA server). Netflix over XBOX (Doctor Who, S6E2) looks about the same. Thing about "HD" cable boxes is they're usually super-compressed 720p streams, and even if I put the XBOX on 720p, I won't be able to reproduce that for you. Sorry. However, I did hook the HDMI up to the Blu-ray player and played a few minutes of Avatar. Motion was fine. Picture is great, other than the analog pixelation. Vertical viewing angle is slightly limited, as you might expect from a budget set, but much less so than on the Mitsubishi DLP sets I saw at Fry's the other day. Since I bought the set primary to play Rocksmith on (a series of neon colored bars flying by), ghosting should be super obvious if it was there and I didn't notice any while playing (admittedly, I was focused on not playing guitar like a retard). The blacks aren't as deep as my Panny plasmas, but certainly richer than the several-year-old 60" NEC LCDs at work. I personally am bothered by 120hz soap opera effect, so I'd disable it if it came 120hz. Gives me motion sickness and feels like a cheap (HD) camcorder recording. That's entirely personal preference though. Smart TV functionality or 3D could make it sweeter, but this one went in the guest bedroom, so it wasn't a priority. My box does not say USA. Says China. Other poster said the USA boxes are red, white and blue. Mine is white with Orange stripes. Was actually light enough that I loaded the box onto the cart, into the car, into the house, and set it up solo. That wasn't the case with my plasmas.

Is the screen itself glossy or matte? How would you describe it compared to your panny? How is the off angle viewing (not vertical)?

Thanks,

-Guru

Quote from ListedGuru : Is the screen itself glossy or matte? How would you describe it compared to your panny? How is the off angle viewing (not vertical)? Thanks, -Guru

Not sure how I'd describe the screen type. Looks like a lustre photography print. Both screens have about the same amount of reflectivity that I can tell. The Element is right now in a room with the blinds wide open (not direct sunlight) and I can only see the reflection if I really look for it.

On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the most batshit amazing screen I've ever seen, I'd put the Panny at 8 and the Element at 7. I'd consider 7 average and below 4 unwatchable. Off-angle is decent. Minor dimming at 45 deg. Still watchable at 60 deg, but no idea why you'd want to.

Again, not a pro. If you go in person, they have a 42" Element on display, and the screens aren't even close to comparable.

Quote from Briwas101 : Wow, idiots sure like making stuff up. Im an independent who hates repubs and dems equally, but i had to laugh at the ”spent more money than all presidents combined” statement. He hasnt even spent as much as Bush. Your comment is just insane. Also, the economy was tanking before Obama even took office. ALL the policies that led to our economic situation were put in place during Bush's and Clinton's presidencies, with the vast majority under Bush. Its amazing how people can actually believe everything was going well under bush and then IMMEDIATELY tanked when obama took office. His ”policies” (if he really has any) werent even implemented when the economy tanked. By the way, if the economy improved under Obama then the repubs wouldve claimed that its because Bush's policies and that it takes time for policies to show results. Yet, because the economy went downhill they claimed no role in its demise. Learn about politics, and how BOTH parties destroy america a little bit each day

Please get your fact stright. Because I have.

http://cnsnews.com/node/72404

http://m.cbsnews.com/storysynopsi...deofeed=39

http://www.examiner.com/article/o...eisenhower

http://m.npr.org/story/133211508?...sh-on-debt

Also it was the left that couldn't and wouldn't and haven't past a budget and they had both congress and the house. For someone to stay blame the other side of the fence the left had control complete control for 6 years. If they couldn't agree or supposedly fix anything while they were in complete control they are deamed worthless.
Yes this a bit off topic but these are the reasons why compaines are comming back to the states. Its because of our weak dollar, high shipping rates, and increase of labor over seas to devleoping countries. Compaines in the private sector don't just out of their goodness in their hearts starts jobs here. It has to be economical feasible for them to do so. Besides no one is going to pay $100 or even $50 more for an off brand tv in the cusomers eyes when they can get a Sony cheaper or at the same price.

Tho I prase that they are brining jobs back to the US, the announcement was mearly political.

Quote from Thadius856 : Not sure how I'd describe the screen type. Looks like a lustre photography print. Both screens have about the same amount of reflectivity that I can tell. The Element is right now in a room with the blinds wide open (not direct sunlight) and I can only see the reflection if I really look for it. On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the most batshit amazing screen I've ever seen, I'd put the Panny at 8 and the Element at 7. I'd consider 7 average and below 4 unwatchable. Off-angle is decent. Minor dimming at 45 deg. Still watchable at 60 deg, but no idea why you'd want to. Again, not a pro. If you go in person, they have a 42" Element on display, and the screens aren't even close to comparable.

I received my TV Saturday and I pretty much agree with your assestment, picture looks great when feed from a 1080P source, no problem with motion but doesn't handle the signal from my comcast cable box as well as others. I would give the TV a 7 for the picture and a 10 for the price and free delivery.

If you have an upconverting DVD, Blu-Ray player or Home Theater, perhaps you could pass the Comcast box signal through that first?

Quote from Thadius856 : If you have an upconverting DVD, Blu-Ray player or Home Theater, perhaps you could pass the Comcast box signal through that first?

Thanks I'll give it a try.

I saw this on clearance today at two Target stores in the metro Detroit area for $493.95. Pretty sure it was this same model.

Same deal at Target in Warrenville, IL - on clearance at $493.95 - found the last 3 on an end cap near electronics. While I was pulling up the van, the wife overhead one of the store managers comment "Great! Now we only have to get rid of 2 more!" I guess they've been sitting around a bit. Original price was listed as $649.99 - so not a bad deal at all.

Got it set up this afternoon. My old Samsung 40" LCD ($1399 new back in...'06, I think?) is retiring to the basement. The HDMI ports on the Samsung were dead, so everything (cable, Xbox, PS2, Wii, DVD) was going through a component switchbox to the component in on the TV. For now, I simply carried that same setup to the new TV. Works like a champ. Picture is great - the wife thought it was better than the Samsung - and the sound is way better than the tinny crappy overdriven speakers, too. The default "movie" audio setting is a little too bass heavy, but nothing that can't be adjusted.

Fry's has a 4-pack of HDMI cables for $8 or so on sale this week, so we'll pick those up and get the cable, Xbox360, and a Roku XD hooked up that way and see if there's any difference.

I would have preferred a 120Hz TV, but at under $500 for a 50" screen and the greatly improved sound, this was still a great deal.