The Cheap TV That Turned Out Great: Insignia NS-LCD26-09CA

It's been just over a month since we impulse-bought a new TV during the boxing week sales.  Our existing tranditional TV was retired during a living-room re-org because it took up too much room.  We thought we could easily live without a TV until our friends came over and we discovered that we no longer had the option of watching a movie and we might be forced to talk athe whole evening, yuk!

The TV we bought is the Insignia NS-LCD26-09CA, a 26" LCD model.  It was $350, the cheapest on the floor.  We were actually going for something even less expensive:  A bargain LCD monitor in the 24" and $250 range because our setup was going to be driven by an old PC.  The Insignia choice won because the TV came with a tuner, several inputs and speakers, so in a pinch we could hook it up to a DVD player or an antenna.

The TV is great.  Picture is clear and bright when you look at it from straight ahead or a side angle.  The picture does become dark when viewed from below at too steep an angle, which turns out to be a problem for us because we have it mounted above one end of the couch.  

The price is incomparable.  It is less than most 22" TVs and the next cheapest 26" brand wasabout $500, or almost 50% more expensive.  Setup is dead simple, just plug it in and it's ready to go.  There is a VGA hookup for the computer, plus 5 other sources: 2 HDMI, 2 component/s-video and a tuner.  Right out of the box the color was set nicely and everything simply worked.

As far as the sale experience goes, it was  typical Futureshop.  They have all the cheaper TVs hooked up to the fuzziest possible video source so it is impossible to actually see the quality of this TV in the store.  The picture looked like garbage and the only reason we bought the TV was because I confirmed that we could return it without any hassle if the picture wasn't good.

During the purchase process the salesman tries to sell us an extended warranty for something like $150, or nearly half the price of the TV.  He said thatTVs nowadays have about a 50-50 chance of breaking down so if we went with just the manufacturer's warranty we would likely be sending our TV away sometime soon.  Huh?

He followed up this pitch with another.  The remote would be non-standard and none of the universal remotes could match it.  Therefore, if we ever lost the remote we would have to buy one from the manufacturer for probably over $100.  What!?!?!  I didn't take those BS terror-tactics and just bought the TV.  If it did die in a couple or three years I'm sure I would just prefer to spend another couple hundred to get a better TV.

By the way, the universal remotethat I had running my Citizen CRT TV worked on the Insignia without a hitch, so don't worry about not being able to replace your remote.

Overall, TV is great for the price.