I’ve had my Mitsubishi 55″ Rear Projection TV since shortly after we moved in here. That was in 1999. It’s been a good TV but for the last year or so it’s been losing it’s red every so often. It’s also only 1080i and 720p so it can’t really do justice to the new HD.
I was looking at TVs around last Thanksgiving but I didn’t want to deal with the crowds on Black Friday and couldn’t quite convince myself that I needed a new one. Then a few days ago the red went out again and stayed out for a long time. I started looking again.
I wanted something at least as large as what I had and would like even larger but I wanted to keep the price below $1000. That rules out most LCD and LED TVs unless I didn’t mind coming down to 46″ or so. I didn’t want to do that so I started looking at the DLP TVs made by Mitsubishi.
DLP stands for Digital Light Processor. It’s a process that’s used in the movie theaters and IMAX also uses it for 3D. It’s not as crisp as LCD but it’s very good and you can get a much larger TV for a lower cost.
I checked on the internet and found that Walmart had the best prices. I was planning to get the Mitsubishi WD-60638 or WD-65638 which are 60″ and 65″. The price for the 60″ was $750 and the 65″ was $900.
I decided to check out Pauls TV(Pauls, the king of big screens) and they showed me the WD-60638 next to a WD-60738. The 738 series has several more features than the 638 and a better picture. They also were offering a Memorial day special where I could get the 60″ 738 which is 3D Ready plus 2 pair of 3D glasses plus a 3D Blu-ray player all for $999. That sold it for me but we wanted to check with Frys to see if they would price match it. They did and they had everything in stock so I loaded it in to my truck and brought it home.
We haven’t watched a 3D movie yet but I’ll let you know how it looks once we do. We bought The Green Hornet to see how it looks.
I figured I wouldn’t be able to beat the price and with my luck if I passed it by my TV would have died tonight.
Here’s the link to the specs on the TV.
Cool! Chris and Dayna had a DLP for a while. It was a very good picture.
I’m still not convinced about 3-D. Maybe your experience will shed some light on it.
Comment by Richard — Monday May 30, 2011 @ 7:13 pm
Yeah I wasn’t buying it to get 3D but since it came with it for only a little extra I figured why not.
Comment by Don — Monday May 30, 2011 @ 7:37 pm
That’s a big screen. How big is your room where you watch tv?
Comment by Donna — Tuesday May 31, 2011 @ 7:07 am
It’s my family room so it’s fairly decent. I sit about 15 ft away from it.
Comment by Don — Tuesday May 31, 2011 @ 7:22 am
I’m not only skeptical about 3D, I think it’s a complete waste of money!
Comment by Daryl — Monday June 6, 2011 @ 5:04 pm
Well yeah for you it would be.
We watched a 3D movie yesterday. It was a tad more enjoyable than a 2D but I’m glad I didn’t really spend extra for it. The Mitsubishi DLP TVs all have 3D so it wasn’t like I could have gotten one that didn’t have it. I did pay a little more for the package than I would have paid for just the TV.
I’m certainly not sorry I got it and I think we will probably get 3D where there’s a choice in our future Blu-ray purchases.
Comment by Don — Monday June 6, 2011 @ 5:42 pm
It’s been more than a week. How do you like the new TV? Going to keep it?
Comment by Daryl — Thursday June 9, 2011 @ 5:25 pm
Yes I like it a lot. It’s nice not having the red keep going out and the picture is much brighter and crisper.
Now I need to figure out what to do with the old one. I could try to sell it or I could freecycle it.
Comment by Don — Thursday June 9, 2011 @ 5:43 pm