The Vizio VF550XVT is Vizio’s largest LCD television at 55-inches. It’s also amongst the most expensive, available for $2000. The VF550XVT’s design will take some getting used to, especially the prominent speaker bar that sits beneath the display. Some will like it, while other won’t.
Although the VF550XVT doesn’t offer some of the fancier connectivity options available from high-end televisions like networking or a USB port, it does a very good job with the standard ports. This includes no fewer than five HDMI inputs and optical audio out. The ports are also very well placed and should be easily accessible, something to consider on a television this large. As you would expect, the Vizio VF550XVT supports full 1080p HD content, so it can handle the highest quality content that you can throw at it.
The VF550XVT’s remote is a bit larger and heavier than we would like, and the balance isn’t great. That said it can work as a universal remote to control other parts of your home theatre system. The menu system is very good, providing both a simple interface at the first level and more advanced options hiding underneath. We were also very happy with the audio quality produced by that prominent speaker bar. It’s amongst the best we’ve heard from built-in speakers, albeit still not as good as a real surround sound setup.
Performance (Read the full lab performance results at televisioninfo.com)
The Vizio VF550XVT did not do a good job producing deep blacks, while the brightest whites were only average. The result is one of the poorest total contrast ratios we’ve seen from an HDTV. This means that content that has a lot of high contrast, for example black and white films or dark films, won’t pop as much as you would like.
The VF550XVT did better job with colors. The color temperature was rock solid across the greyscale. This means that you won’t get any kind of bluish or reddish tinge to greys and whites, something that some televisions suffer from. Television produce the whole rainbow of colors using a combination of red, green and blue, and the VF550XVTdid a solid job producing these accurately.
It didn’t do quite as well staying true to the international standard for color gamut, with particular problems in blues and greens. This means that some of the colors displayed will be slightly different than the colors the original content producers wanted you to see.
The Vizio VF550XVT offers 120Hz refresh rate, which is a step above the standard 60Hz refresh rate offered by most televisions. This should produce better performance with moving objects on the display, and we were generally happy with the VF550XVT’s capabilities in this regard. We did notice that the television still struggled with highly detailed moving objects, like a human face, however.
The VF550XVT offers a total viewing angle of 67 degrees, which is below average, but not the worst we’ve ever seen. This means it might not be the best television for a large room where you want people to get a good picture from a wide range of angles.
Conclusion
The VF550XVT is Vizio’s top of the line LCD television, with a price point to match at $2000. This is actually a pretty good price for a 55-inch display, but the VF550XVT’s mixed performance in our testing keeps us from recommending it unreservedly. The poor contrast ratio, in particular, is something to consider if you like to watch a lot of films that have dark scenes. This is not the right television for a horror film aficionado. That said, if size is your primary concern the 55-inch VF550XVT offers slightly above average performance at a not unreasonable price.
For a more in-depth review, visit the VIZIO VF550XVT Review at our partner TelevisionInfo.com
