VIZIO E3D420VX LED LCD 3D HDTV Review

Audio Quality

The VIZIO E3D420VX comes furnished with two 10W speakers that will satisfy regular playback. Although, the E3D420VX is a powerful device, with good visual performance and could very well be the piece around which you build your home theater. If this is your goal, you will want to invest in a surround sound system, as you will not get the quality or power sufficient for the theater experience.

There is a feature in the sound menu titled "SRS TruSurround" that when activated attempts to send the sound waves from the nominal speakers out to the sides of your TV room, bouncing the sound around to simulate having a surround sound system. With this function on, the sound seemed richer in quality: crisper voices, deeper bass. But in no way did the sound surround us. It is a good feature, adding quality to the sound coming from the built-in speakers, just poorly named.

Menu Interface

The VIZIO E3D420VX comes with a solid menu system that is visually pleasing. There are slight arrangement problems, for example the picture size option is usually located in picture settings, but is in fact in its own location.

The menus directly effect the picture on the E3D420VX by squishing it to the right, or up a little with the DLNA menu. Specifically the DLNA menu did not just change the aspect ratio, but added artifacts like extra signal noise and faint halos. You will not be watching anything with the menu up, but you should not worry about changing settings to fix this because it will go away when no longer being used.

Instruction Manual

You get two instruction manuals with the VIZIO E3D420VX: a quick start guide, for those itching to get into streaming 3D content, and a more extensive user manual. The user manual is easy to read, well-organized with a helpful table of contents. There is no index for quick reference and no tabs for easy section opening, but it is short enough that this will not burden you.

We gave this particular manual a couple of extra points for excellent photos with call-outs explaining all of the connections, and an grid demonstrating where overscan will occur in various formats and screen size settings.

Between the two manuals you will get the help you need, explained in a simple and clear manner.