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  • Introduction

  • Design

  • Front

  • Back

  • Sides

  • Stand/Mount

  • On-set Controls

  • Remote Control

  • In the Box

  • Connectivity

  • Performance

  • Contrast

  • Color & Greyscale Curves

  • Color Temperature

  • Color Gamut

  • Picture Dynamics

  • Resolution & Formats

  • Viewing Angle

  • Motion Performance

  • Screen Uniformity

  • Audio Quality

  • Power Consumption

  • Calibration

  • Video Modes

  • Software & Internet

  • Apps

  • Other Internet Features

  • Menu Interface

  • Conclusion

  • Photo Gallery

  • Ratings & Specs

  • Introduction
  • Design
  • Front
  • Back
  • Sides
  • Stand/Mount
  • On-set Controls
  • Remote Control
  • In the Box
  • Connectivity
  • Performance
  • Contrast
  • Color & Greyscale Curves
  • Color Temperature
  • Color Gamut
  • Picture Dynamics
  • Resolution & Formats
  • Viewing Angle
  • Motion Performance
  • Screen Uniformity
  • Audio Quality
  • Power Consumption
  • Calibration
  • Video Modes
  • Software & Internet
  • Apps
  • Other Internet Features
  • Menu Interface
  • Conclusion
  • Photo Gallery
  • Ratings & Specs

Introduction

The VIZIO E552VLE is a very inexpensive, mid-range LED LCD that's odd in every way. It's super thick, gets as hot as some plasmas, consumes more energy per year than some plasmas, and is as dim as some plasmas, but it's not a plasma. Huh. It's got very good color production, but its contrast ratio is feeble. Yet for what you're paying--the MSRP is $1099--we think it's a fair deal. Despite the tacked on feel of VIZIO's "wireless internet apps" (are there wired, non-internet apps somewhere?), the TV is a solid performer, and has the cutest little remote we've ever seen.

Design

The VIZIO E552VLE is a 2012 LCD HDTV that features a slew of apps, widgets and modern picture and sound options. That being said, it certainly doesn't look like any of the other thin, big screen LCD TVs we've covered this year. It's about 4 inches thick at the sides, and sits proudly atop a pedestal-like stand that screws into the bottom of the TV, allowing for no swiveling or tilting. Even its on-set controls are sort of oddball, featuring buttons in an L-shape that can be pressed from two different, perpendicular angles. It's got a decent port selection, but the screen size--combined with the stand's inability to swivel--makes them a little tricky to access.

Personally, there's something we like about this TV, maybe because it lets it all hang out and doesn't care. But we're also pretty sure most people will find it to be clunky, inflexible, and wholly "American" in its design.

Front

Back

Sides

Stand/Mount

On-set Controls

The on-set controls for the E552VLE don't do anything new in terms of functionality, but they're certainly on the more "interesting" side of on-set controls we've ever seen, being so big and touch responsive. They're L-shaped and protrude pretty far from the TV's surface, making them easy to press, but they're also close together and identical, meaning they won't help you much in the dark.

Remote Control

Look at this tiny little remote! While it looks rather dwarfish beside the 55-inch 2VLE, it has a decent selection of buttons for navigating menus, changing volume and channels, and accessing things like picture size and sound mode. The infrared remote that comes with the VIZIO E552VLE also has dedicated buttons for VUDU, Netflix, and Amazon video, making it easier to jump to the apps with the most streaming content.

In the Box

The VIZIO E552VLE LCD HDTV comes with the display panel, stand, a quick start guide, the remote control with 2 AA batteries, and the TV's power cord. There isn't a paper instruction manual, but you can download one from VIZIO's web site.

Connectivity

The VIZIO E552VLE has two connectivity areas; along the left side of the TV (below the on-set controls) and on the back, left-hand side. The side placed ports are your "quick access" ports, the ones likely to need access the most often. The side ports offer two USB inputs for photo/music/video playback and a single HDMI input.

You'll notice with some amusement that the side HDMI is labeled "best." On the back, the component/AV input is labeled "better." Whose weird idea was it to label ports by subjective preference? Though it is true that HDMI will give a higher resolution signal than component, it still struck us as humorous.

The back, left-hand side of the TV features a slightly recessed area for the rest of the E552VLE's port options. Here, you'll find ports for an ethernet cable (wired connection), a coaxial jack for cable/antenna connection, optical (SPDIF) or stereo (3.5mm) audio outs, 3 more HDMI (BEST) inputs, a shared component/composite AV input, a VGA input (for PC), and an audio in jack for your PC audio.

Overall, the E552VLE gives most users enough ports to get by, and they're fairly easy to access and use. They'd be a lot easier to access if the TV swiveled, but it has bigger problems VIZIO needs to fix first.

Performance

We were very impressed with the E552VLE's picture quality. While its maximum contrast ratio (870:1) is a lot smaller than other TVs from this year, its color accuracy is spot-on. We tested great sRGB curves and a fairly accurate gamut, as well as some very consistent color temperature. Finally, this VIZIO scored well in the arena of picture dynamics.

Unfortunately, its screen performance was simply average. The E552VLE has a decent viewing angle, but it's nothing too outstanding. The same can be said for its motion performance, which showed blurring and some artifacting, and its screen uniformity. Fortunately, its got above average audio, but also the drawback of being a heavy consumer of electricity per year, meaning it'll cost you more to power than similar, or even pricier, HDTVs.

Contrast

We were surprised by the relatively low maximum contrast ratio this TV tested with. Its calibrated peak brightness was 139.28 cd/m2 , and it tested with a black level of 0.16 cd/m2 . This gives it a contrast ratio of 870:1, which is lower than our "average" of 1000:1, but isn't terrible.

You really shouldn't buy this TV if you're looking for a huge contrast ratio. It just isn't dark enough, its backlight bleeds through its screen, giving it a contrast ratio that's lower than average. More on how we test contrast.

Color & Greyscale Curves

The VIZIO E552VLE tested with some of the best color curves we've seen all year. The chart below represents the spectrum of white, red, blue, and green colors that the TV can display; the gradual and uniform slope of the lines means that a great majority of dark, mid, and light toned colors will be accurately represented.

The lines were slightly slow to ramp up, meaning a tiny amount of shadow detail will be lost, but otherwise these curves are outstanding. More on how we test color performance.

Color Temperature

We test color temperature to discern how well a TV maintains a 6500° K light temperature throughout its colors, across the full spectrum of light input. Essentially, TVs tend to vary to "warmer" or "cooler" by varying degrees, away from 6500°. As you can see from the chart below, the VIZIO E552VLE did very well during our test, only deviating beyond the imperceptible range at the very deepest shadow tones.

This is a very good result, as about 95% of the error here is minor and imperceptible. More on how we test color temperature.

Color Gamut

The VIZIO E552VLE tested with a decent color gamut. If you'll kindly look to the chart below, you'll see a solid black line and a solid white line. The black line represents the rec. 709 standard color gamut, which is the industry's perfect gamut, representing red, blue, green, and white color accuracy for HDTVs. The white line is the color gamut we recorded for the E552VLE.

As you can see, its red and blue corners were very accurate, with green and white missing the rec. 709 gamut by a hair. While it's not perfect, this is still a very good result, and won't show up when you're watching TV or playing video games. More on how we test color temperature.

Picture Dynamics

The VIZIO E552VLE tested with stellar picture dynamics. We test a TV's picture dynamics to see how well it maintains its peak brightness and black level per how much white/black is on the screen; for plasmas, we want to see smaller patches get brighter (when white) and darker (when black). For an LCD like this TV, we want to see white and black levels staying the same, and that is exactly what we saw. Regardless of the amount of white/black on screen, the VIZIO E552VLE's white/black levels only varied by imperceptible degrees of light. A very good result. More on how we test picture dynamics.

Resolution & Formats

The VIZIO E552VLE is a smart, LCD HDTV. It is a native 1080p device, and supports all NTSC resolutions and formats.

Viewing Angle

The E552VLE didn't have a bad total viewing angle at all. Within the arena of LCD televisions, a viewing angle of 92° (or 46° from center in either direction) is a little above average.

Motion Performance

The VIZIO E552VLE tested with decent motion performance. There was blurring, but most of the LCDs we test show at least little blurring during our motion test. Complex pictures depicting faces, lattice, brickwork, and numerous tiny details were blurry, but showed no shape or color trailing. A banded montage of pixels showed us a little blurring, trailing, and some artifacting. Artifacting occurs when a TV can't refresh quickly enough to maintain the appearance of smooth motion across its diodes. Expect blurring for fast-motion content, but nothing that'll destroy your standard viewing experience.

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Screen Uniformity

This VIZIO's uniformity wasn't bad, but it suffered from the usual problems. As an edge-lit LCD television, its lower two corners suffered from flashlighting problems during an all black screen. Flashlighting occurs when a TV's backlight bleeds through content and is visible on screen. During an all white screen, the E552VLE was mostly uniform, but its thick bezel caused a shadow around the perimeter of the screen.

Overall, an okay result.

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Audio Quality

Most HDTVs have two 10-watt speakers. The VIZIO E552VLE has two 15-watt speakers, and the added size makes a surprisingly big difference. While the audio we heard wasn't as good as Panasonic's VT50 series, which has an embedded sub-woofer, it was still considerably better than standard TV audio. Simply put, the added wattage boosted volume, without causing distortion to the bass or treble ends of the sound spectrum. Machine gun fire and explosions were rich and full, and dialogue was clear and very easy to hear.

The TV's SRS StudioSurround HD sounds impressive on paper, but only makes a mild difference in its imitation of a real surround sound system. The TV also comes equipped with an EQ menu for manually adjusting the prevalence of treble and bass in sound, as well as having an option called SRS TruVolume that strives to manage and direct the relative volume of, say, a TV show and its interspersed commercial advertisements.

All in all, the VIZIO E552VLE has solid audio that's above average, good enough for a group of 5-7, and of good quality.

Power Consumption

The VIZIO E552VLE is fairly expensive where electricity consumption is concerned. While most people won't need to have the backlight set much higher than 77, the E552VLE will still consume almost $40 a year in electricity costs. That's definitely above average where LCDs are concerned. As you can see from the chart below, the E552VLE consumes a lot more, on average, than the three comparison LCDs we pulled for it.

Overall, most people will be paying about $30 a year to power this TV and use it 4-6 hours a day. There are much more energy efficient TVs on the market right now.

{{comparison_bars title="Average Cost Per Year", attribute="Minimum Recommended Cost per Year Measured", xLabel="Dollars"}}

Calibration

Calibrating the VIZIO E552VLE proved to be a fairly easy task, and we were able to maximize its performance in the areas of contrast and color without any trouble (thanks, DisplayMate!) Calibrating in Movie mode, we made a few small but key changes to the TV's standard settings. You can see the standard settings, and our final calibration, in the chart below.

All of our calibration is done in conjunction with the DisplayMate software.

Video Modes

This TV has a lot of Video Modes. We might call it overkill, but there are 9 total.

Software & Internet

Apps

VIZIO's smart TVs feature a comprehensive selection of apps and widgets, but that doesn't necessarily mean a lot of content. Rather than designing their own smart home page, VIZIO simply strings their apps/widgets along the bottom of the screen for browsing, and they're arranged in a completely random order. They've partnered with Netflix, Amazon, VUDU, and Rhapsody to bring you streaming content, but like Sony, they're leaning heavily on Yahoo! to provide most of their extraneous features.

Click here for more information on VIZIO's apps.

Other Internet Features

Alongside their third-party, blue chip app and content providers, VIZIO's smart offering includes Yahoo! news, weather, stock information, and some odd, integrated apps like MGO (which isn't yet available) and an app called "Movie Player" that seems like a YouTube rip-off and might be rife with risque content.

Most of these extras seem like they were tacked on at the end; but what they didn't tack on was a web browser. Unlike every other smart platform we've reviewed (and we've looked at just about all of them,) VIZIO's smart TVs have no web browser. Considering almost every browser on the market is an exercise in clumsy navigation and slowly loading web sites, it's probably for the best.

Click here for more information on VIZIO's other internet features.

VIZIO's main menu is a 3x3 grid of various sub-menus: Input, which allows you to select a source signal; Wide, which allows you to set your picture size; CC, a sub-menu specifically for closed captions settings; Sleep Timer; Picture, where you'll calibrate your TV and select a video mode; Audio, for EQ settings and toggling of surround sound; Network, for setting up your wired or wireless internet connection; Settings, for major TV functions; and Help, a troubleshooting guide that's built in.

Most of these menus seem a little unnecessary; for instance, CC could be folded into Settings, as could Help, and Wide could be integrated into Picture. But maybe VIZIO just wanted that uniform rectangle of boxes. We like having a separate menu for closed captions, but don't like having to set picture settings and picture size in separate menus.

The Settings menu allows you to set your input source (so why have an Input menu, too?) and to name said inputs, allows for the toggling of parental controls, and to select things like native Menu language. Take particular note of "Game Mode," which needs to be on for gaming, or you're going to have some serious input lag.

Conclusion

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We've said it before, and we'll say it again: don't judge a book by its bezel. The VIZIO E552VLE is a TV of extremes, but once all its pros and cons are tallied up, it's not a bad TV at all.

If you can get past the E552VLE's hefty size and inflexible stand design, you might find you enjoy its big buttons and port layout. If you don't feel too confounded by such a large TV having such a lilliputian remote control, you'll probably discover that the little fellow's dedicated app buttons are quite useful. And if you can shake off the fact that this HDTV doesn't offer the sleek appearance, energy efficient power consumption, or streamlined menus we've come to expect from modern LED LCD televisions, you'll discover a product with a few unique advantages: above average audio, great color production, and vigilant contrast dynamics.

For an MSRP of $1099, the VIZIO E552VLE is a cheap TV that requires a blind eye to its numerous design flaws, but has a picture quality that will look as good as more expensive LCDs when you're watching it in the dark.

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Ratings & Specs

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Meet the tester

Lee Neikirk

Lee Neikirk

Former Editor, Home Theater

@Koanshark

Lee was Reviewed's point person for most television and home theater products from 2012 until early 2022. Lee received Level II certification in TV calibration from the Imaging Science Foundation in 2013. As Editor of the Home Theater vertical, Lee oversaw reviews of TVs, monitors, soundbars, and Bluetooth speakers. He also reviewed headphones, and has a background in music performance.

See all of Lee Neikirk's reviews

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