Insignia- 42"- 1080P- LCD- TVHave you ever bought an "off brand" HDTV? Well Ive bought 2 of them over the years with the most recent purchase being a Bestbuy brand LCD. 2 months ago, I picked up the Insignia 42" 1080P LCD  (LCD42HD) and Ive had a good amount of time with it, figured Id tell you what I think.

Specs

When I bought this TV, I was in a rush and looking for a bargain. The TV it was going to replace was really in bad shape, sometimes wouldn’t even start when I turned it on, So I went looking for a cheap TV that would give me what I was looking for as far as picture quality and features. This Insignia seem to be what I was looking for. 1080P, 3 HDMI inputs, VGA (PC input) built in HD Tuner, 600:1 dynamic contrast ratio (1500:1 native).

On paper it sound good, so I did a little research. A lot of Off-brand or store brand TVs are usually rebranded televisions from manufacturers that you wouldn’t have guessed. For example, I owned an Akai Projection HDTV that was actually a Samsung projection TV. The Insignia brand is no different, but I never found out who made this particular TV. I read LG but nothing that I would feel comfortable going on the record to say that this is a LG LCD rebranded as Insignia. Anyway, the TV was under $1000 bucks and with a Bestbuy coupon I had, took another 12% off the price.

Note: right now the TV is listed for $899, sign up for Bestbuy rewards and you can get another 12% off that price. This price is a little lower than it was when I bought the TV.

Opening the box

You usually get this with most LCD or Plasma tvs, but this tv looks nice in the living room. Setup was pretty simple, in the box was the remote, the LCD and the stand. This tv can be mounted on the wall or place on a table with the included stand. I choose the stand. Installing the stand was just a matter of about 6 screws and get this…it came with a screwdriver. I put the TV on the entertainment "rack" that I am using, installed all of my equipment and started watching TV.

The first thing I noticed was the bright picture. This tv has a moderately bright and colorful picture. At night time with all of the lights out, the image coming from the TV  lights the room a little more than I would like. If you were to buy this TV for a bedroom, you would probably have to do some setting adjustments to cut back on some of the light so that you don’t disturb someone trying to sleep.

That being said, the brightness is perfect for daytime viewing. With just some quick calibration, the overall image is really good. A lot better than you would expect for a off brand TV.

Next I tried out the built in HDTV tuner, my previous TV didnt have a tuner built in so I was using an old VOOM box to pull in over the air HD content. This was simple, I took an old pair of rabbit ears and plugged it into the back of the tv and started browsing the stations. Getting stations to tune in correctly was a lot easier than using my VOOM box and I was quit happy with the picture quality. Right now, I have the rabbit ears in a nearby window, and I don’t have to mess with it.

Like I said, there are 3 HDMI inputs, but I dont have any electronics that use HDMI so I couldn’t test that out. I did however test out high def over component. One thing that I was pleasantly surprised about was 1080P over component. Yea my Xbox 360 is able to output 1080P over the component input and I was really happy with that.

Most of the inputs are on the back of the tv, but there are is an  RCA connection on the side that is a little easier to get to, Great for those times my Daughter want to play with the Wii. I just wish there was an Svideo on the side of the TV too.

Conclusion

I am pretty satisfied with my purchase and after 2 months, Im still as happy as I was when I first bought it. People usually say "you get what you pay for" and Im a strong believer in that statement, but I do think that sometimes you can find that item that exceeds that and this particular Insignia TV is one of those items. Dont use my approval for all Insignia TV’s though, from what I read, each model is its own monster and the quality isn’t an "across the board" thing.

Check out the Insignia 42" 1080P LCD TV at Bestbuy (LCD42HD) for $899