GoVideo TW1730 17" Widescreen Flat-Panel HD-Ready LCD TV

Rating:
Summary: Back it goes.
Review: After a lot of thought and price comparing, I bought this HDTV because the reviews were good, and the price was low. I shoulda known that it was too good to be true.

The picture quality in 480p HDTV mode, while crisp and detailed, is tinted orange. The VGA mode display is tinted blue. While the tint in HDTV mode can be fiddled with (but not correctly), in VGA mode it can't.

The monitor was also shipped with a quarter sized spot in the middle of the screen that was very obviously blurred, dark and damaged.

Maybe I'm being picky, but $500 is $500. Back it goes.

Rating:
Summary: The GoVideo TW1730 is Fantastic
Review: I am very pleased with the GoVideo TW1730 as a TV, and do not intend to use it as a PC monitor.

I bought it for use in my master bedroom, and plan to use it primarily to view DVD's. I have it hooked up to a Pioneer DV-45A PureCinema Progressive DVD player through Component video.

I was impressed with the TV from the minute I took it out of the box. The design is very modern, the screen has a very nice non-reflective surface, and the kids love the way you turn it on and off. I have the DVD set for Virtual Surround which sounds unbelievable, and the picture is awesome in daylight or darkness.

I did a complete system evaluation using Digital Video Essentials (DVE) and checked every aspect of this TV. After a couple of hours of tweaking, I was amazed at how close it was out of the Box. The Color, Sharpness, and Tint where bang on at 50. It crushed both whites and black, but only the last bar on each end. With the Contrast at 62 and the Brightness at 78, the 95 and 5% patch are visible on the SMPTE. With the above settings, and using the JKP color filter test tool, I found no color push.

I highly recommend this as a bedroom TV.

Rating:
Summary: Great for DVDs, Bad for PC use
Review: I bought this TV to use as a monitor, with infrequent DVD / TV / Xbox usage on a side. This was a bad move.

While this TV does an excellent job at displaying movies, it's quite poor as a monitor, and aside from working with Microsoft Office, it renders most first-person games (i.e. Half-Life 2, etc.) completely blurry.

Additionally, it must be stressed that the monitor mode is *not* widescreen. It is impossible to utilize all the monitor space without stretching the image, and after using it for 4 months, I have resorted to using the unstretched version, which wastes about 20% of the screen space.

I wish someone told me this before I bought this item, but if you're planning to buy a widescreen TV to use as a monitor, make sure that you buy one that supports widescreen pixel resolutions, like 1280x768. If you end up purchasing an item (like this) that just has a regular full-screen resolution setting (i.e. 1024x768), you'll be wasting your money.

Rating:
Summary: convenient little TV
Review: So far this TV is fine, but nothing special. The wide screen gives the picture an "off" quality to me, and I don't know if that is just true of all wide screens. Picture is not as clear as I get from my Panasonic flat screen, audio is fine, but for me it would have to be bad to be a problem. One irritant is a misunderstanding in the product data. It is described as having PIP, which I thought was great for the price. When I got it, I found out that it does not have 2 tuners, so can't do TV PIP, but can be used as a computer monitor, and get TV or video PIP on the computer screen if you want it. Or, TV, plus video PIP. I think the Panasonic is a little better quality, but this one will do the job for a basic TV if you are not too fussy. I wouldn't get it unless it was on sale, but it isn't bad enough to send back.

Rating:
Summary: Perfect for bedroom
Review: The Go Video 17 inch TV is perfect for the bedroom. We have it on a small stand next to the bed, and it hardly takes any room at all. The Cable is connected to the RF input, though because we have digital cable we use the box for the tuner and not the TV. The DVD player is hooked up the component video and I like watching movies on that TV better than our 36 inch 4:3 because of the true 16:9 aspect ration. I have the VHS hooked to the A/V input and switching between the 3 is simple becuse of the direct inpuy keys on the remote. The wife loves it because is doesn't take up alot of room, looks great and is easy to operate. Sleep timer keeps me from leaving it on all night, and if there is something I want to listen to in bed that is too loud- I just use the headphone jack