Toshiba 19AV500U Couldn't ask for anything better!

I bought this Toshiba back in May & I am still very pleased with it. I have two other Toshiba sets and I have never had a minutes problem with them. This TV has a clean high contrast picture and the sound is not bad for a set this size. I like it well enough to give it 5 stars.

Toshiba 19AV500U Great product,

I was concerned about buying the Toshiba after reading a couple of negative reviews. However, our experience has been great. This TV worked right from the plug-in. Once the set-up enabled me to select cable vs antenna, the Toshiba scanned and logged all of the channels. Tagging each channel with it's designation (ABC, NBC, HBO, etc) and as a Favorite is tedious, but works. The sound quality and volume are great. Picture quality in low and bright light is also great. It would be very helpful if my cable provider, Bright House, offered a programming guide without a set top box, but that has nothing to do with the TV. Be careful of the instructions for setting up the TV, out of the box. Getting the stand into the standing position seems tricky. You have to strongly push the stand (almost force it) into the upright position and set the LOCK switch. The instructions should say that, but they don't. We thoroughly enjoy the quality experience for a very good price. I just hope that it doesn't drive dissatisfaction with our bigger TVs.

Toshiba 19AV500U Great little TV

This is a great little TV for fairly close viewing (have it in the kitchen). Very sharp picture, works great right out of the box - no need to fine-tune etc. Easy to wall mount. Built-in digital tuner - automatically found both digital and analog channels on the cable.

Negatives: Not much - too many buttons on the remote (what else is new??).

Toshiba 19AV500U Great little tv

Just picked this up for my kitchen. Hooked it up to Directv HD and it really is a nice picture and a great looking tv. Though I bought it 5 days ago from Amazon for $334.99 it's now priced @ $349.99 @ Amazon, why?? Anyway great buy, very happy with it.

Toshiba 19AV500U Wonderful 19" TV

I ordered this TV over a month ago and have been very satisfied since day one. I ordered from Amazon on a Friday and it arrived three days later on Monday. Setup was very easy and the built in tuner found 45 channels (about 15 are analog). We use a 30 year old antenna strapped to the chimney and the picture is great! I strongly recommend this TV to anyone looking for a small TV.

Toshiba 19AV500U Works on my cable without a box!

I ordered this TV to take advantage of the HDTV channels available over Comcast Cable in the San Francisco Bay area, without having to rent Comcast's pricey cable box. It fills the bill perfectly.

Using the default settings, the picture is sharp and contrasty. There's plenty of sound volume. The screen hardly reflects light at all, which is nice since we have a lot of windows. The Natural picture size setting chooses the proper picture width all the time. (I've never figured out why some people view everything in full width, even if it adds 50 pounds to all the people on the screen.)

I got a scare when first hooking it up. I ordered it only after a Comcast agent verified that with the built-in QAM tuner it would receive HDTV just by plugging the cable signal into the antenna/cable coax jack. But when first turned on, it only received analog signals. Calling Comcast back, I was told that I would need a $7/month cable box. Fortunately this turned out to be baloney. While my wife was channel-flipping, she started getting HDTV stations too, and now it shows every analog and digital channel, even on my non-digital cable service plan. My wife claims full credit for "fixing" it. I suspect it took a while to lock into some aspect of the cable service. Who knows.

So here's two recommendations: Double check everything Comcast tells you. And buy this TV.

(Oh - and also see the reviews for the 19AV500U - it's the identical model in black.)

Toshiba 19AV500U Answer to 16:10 Aspect Ratio Controversy

All 19 inch HDTV's regardless of brand have a 16:10 aspect ratio.
This is because 19 inch computer monitors are 16:10 and they out number televisions by the billions.
To keep the cost down TV makers buy the same LCD panels made for computer monitors. Unless you would pay $1000 for a 19 inch set, I doubt any company will ever custom order a 16:9 panel for television manufacture.
A lot of these TV's can be set to 16:9. There will be a small black bar on the right and left edges since the panel is wider. But a lot of people hate the black bar, so there you go..
The reviewer here who was returning the TV because of this "defect" will be sadly disapointed when he buys a new 19 inch set and discovers it is also 16:10