Gadgetory

TV makers are throwing a ton of new tech at us this year from 3d to connected to LED but of all those features LED is the one you're going to use every time you turn on the television I'm Brian Cooley here to rank the top 5 LED LCD TVs according to see net reviews corpse number 5 the Samsung UNC 8000 series these guys have better black levels than many other edgelet televisions which are the really thin kind we also love the streaming and the Samsung Apps platform for widgets it converts 2d to 3d which works better than we expected but don't buy it for that reason it doesn't even include a pair of 3d glasses which should tell you that's not the point here it's kind of pricey with a best street price of about 20 170 the day we shot this and you give up some off angle viewing which you'll miss when a lot of folks come over to watch number 4 is the sony xba-1 series great black levels here which is the holy grail for LCD TVs of any kind and it handles films on DVD really well which not every television does it's also 3d compatible has a cool monolithic look we love but it is pricey at 2160 street price as of today and as a local dimming LED it's not as thin as the edgelet variety more on that in a minute number three is the LG le 8500 series superb black levels accurate color really good off angle viewing but this local dimming LED set does have some uneven backlighting issues they don't clobber the overall picture quality but they impinge on it no 3d on this guy which is kind of refreshing but there are streaming services it's ready for wired Ethernet right out of the box but Wi-Fi requires an additional dongle for about 70 bucks number two is also an LG but the step-up Big Brother to the last one it's the LX 9500 so take the 8500 add a thinner profile just one point three inches a super skinny bezel around the screen 3d 2d to 3d conversion but again no 3d glasses are include and they would have to be the pricey active shutter type to talk to by yourself and it's not worth it anyway since the 3d quality we don't think is fully baked on this set before I get you to our number one a couple of FAQ points about LED televisions first of all all LED TVs are LCD TVs LED is a new way of lighting the picture for those televisions and technologically in applicable to plasma LCD TVs traditionally have had fluorescent tubes behind the picture that's how they got their light well LED LCD sets replace those tubes with LEDs sometimes they're around the edge those are edge lit televisions or there's a full array of them behind the picture those are called local dimming sets local dimming tend to be more accurate in their lighting Angela tend to be thinner televisions both are fairly new technologies and improving fast if you can wait it's probably a good idea okay let's get to the number one LED LCD TV according to see net reviews from q1 2011 it's the only one that gets a C net editors choice the vizio XV t 3s v series it's a local dimming set great black levels and just about everything else excellent streaming services and interactivity widgets built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth because it has a Bluetooth remote with a built-in keyboard it's also the cheapest TV on our list by at least hundreds it does suffer from some bloomin issues which a lot of local dimming sets do and doesn't do 3d at all which can be a plus or minus depending how you feel about 3d simply put you can't spend your money any more wisely on an LED television right now which is particularly impressive since Vizio used to be a value brand just a couple years ago now it's an industry ass-kicker for more top fives like this go to top-5 cnet.com i'm brian coulis thanks for watching you