I bought this Vizio M50-C1 to replace a Samsung LCD. Eight years ago you wouldn't have dreamt of buying a Samsung over a Sony and two short years ago I would not have dreamt of buying a Vizio over a Samsung. The vizio construction is every bit as solid as the Samsung, LG, and Sony's. One cool thing I discovered is that you are able to connect all your components via HDMI to the Vizio and then connect the Vizio to your A/V Receiver via optical digital cable. Times change, I bought a Vizio over a Samsung, just like I bought a Samsung over a Sony years ago.

I bought this Vizio M50-C1 to replace a Samsung LCD. I find it so interesting how the market in electronics has evolved and changed in such a very short time. Eight years ago you wouldn't have dreamt of buying a Samsung over a Sony and two short years ago I would not have dreamt of buying a Vizio over a Samsung. My Samsung was starting to die and I knew I would need a new TV soon. I wanted something nice for my family room but not so big that it was literally the elephant in the room. The 50 inch for my room was perfect but had this been a dedicated theater I would have gone bigger. I read review after review and went to rating site after rating site. I learned more about this TV than I really needed or wanted to know.

Then I went to Best Buy, Walmart and our own local furniture and electronics store to see these sets in person. At Best Buy I was lucky enough to see this set sitting side by side a much more expensive Samsung 4k and I must have sat there for over an hour staring at the best picture and content these sets and their parent companies could throw at me. I looked at them from every angle walking all the way to the right and left, leaning down and sitting on the floor where I knew at times my kids and I would be viewing TV and movies. I could not believe it but the Vizio had a slightly better picture from a contrast point of view with blacks being deep and whites being bright and both had spectacular color, clarity, and over all picture quality. For the most part I did not see a significant difference in performance and quality. The vizio construction is every bit as solid as the Samsung, LG, and Sony's.

From a smart TV stand point its wireless connection is quick, stable and I have had no issues. My wireless router is over 25 feet away and on the other side of a brick wall (but I do have a very good, high end, wireless ac router). It has all the apps I want and more, and we have all enjoyed streaming flawlessly from youtube and netflix. There is no web browsing but that is not important to me. The remote has a qwerty key board on its back side and it makes passwords and searches as easy as its going to get. I was able to program my dish network remote to control most of the basic features but I will need the Vizio remote for advanced features such as settings and smart TV functionality. Some people reported online that there were picture setting and quality issues but I know those were resolved with firmware updates as of 7-14-2015 according to the rtings.com web site so I knew that when I purchased mine it would not be an issue.

My set arrived with newer firmware than those reviewers reported and I just noticed that it updated again and now has an even newer firmware version. I have experienced no issues with settings, picture quality or anything. One cool thing I discovered is that you are able to connect all your components via HDMI to the Vizio and then connect the Vizio to your A/V Receiver via optical digital cable. By setting the Vizio's audio to bit stream your A/V Receiver takes care of all the audio encoding and you have perfect home theater sound.

This was important to me as I purchased my high end A/V receiver just prior to HDMI and it is too new to replace but lacks the more modern connectivity. Times change, I bought a Vizio over a Samsung, just like I bought a Samsung over a Sony years ago. By the way with my purchase from amazon I have 30 days to decide if I chose correctly and to purchase an extended warranty. If I choose to buy (and I probably won't) an extended four year square trade warranty, I will still save several hundred dollars by not purchasing the far more expensive Samsung. Isn't competition great.

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