Toshiba 42HP83P 42-Inch TheaterWide HD-Ready Plasma Flat-Panel TV
Great while it worked
Luckily I bought this unit from Sears as a 'floor' model. Reason I'm lucky is that Sears 'burned in' the unit for me for several months, and when I bought it they gave me a good price and the 1 yr warranty as a new unit would get. It broke within 10 months after purchase and Sears is going to replace it with a comparable unit. Anyway, here's what I saw up until it broke and how it broke: <br /> <br />1) Picture: FANTASTIC! Just like the other reviews, the picture of the 42HP83 is unsurpassed! Vivid, accurate colors, Outstanding contrast, and very important as the room this unit is in has 8 windows, very bright. When running DVI from my DISH HD receiver the picture is unbelievable, and the component input isn't bad either (it takes a great deal of scrutiny to see the difference, but it's there) <br /> <br />2) Sound: Sorry I can't get into this much as I disabled the amp/speakers that are built into the unit in lieu of my HK surround system. <br /> <br />3) Controls: Once you get the hang of 'em, menus are good but you'll have to practice how to use the buttons <br /> <br />4) Inputs: More than you'll probably need, but then again, I was using my AV receiver to handle much of the switching, except for the DVI input. <br /> <br />5) Maintenance (general): We live in a very dusty area so the back picks up a bunch of 'dust bunnies' that you need to clean off periodically <br /> <br />Now to the demise of the unit: <br /> <br />About 9 months into my ownership of the 42HP83, the screen came up normally in the morning, only to start pixelating after a few minutes. Almost like the pixles were overwriting each other, causing ultimately a black screen with a string of pixels across the center. Originally it stayed like this for about 5 minutes and then the picture reappeared with some pixelation, and ultimately stabilized a few minutes later. Within almost a month, that wait time was up to 25 minutes. Sears service came out 4 times and was unable to fix the problem. NOTE: aspeople have pointed out here, service folks in general are NOT knowledgable when it comes to these units and after replacing three circuit boards with no effect, apparently they've given up and are going to replace the unit with a comparable one.  <br /> <br />One interesting piece of info: Had I purchased this unit NEW it would have failed about 6 months after warranty expired!!!