Hey all,
I wound up purchasing a Vizio M55-C2. Best Buy matched Costco's price (a 20 dollar difference) and gave me the four year warranty for the price of the two-year. It wound up being quite a hassle however, as my local Best Buy (Vancouver Granville) didn't have that particular model in stock, and told me it would be special ordered in for Monday (I bought and paid for it in store on Friday). Monday came and no TV, but the rep assured me that it would be there Tuesday morning. I called on Tuesday and still no dice - at this point I'm getting frustrated. I laid out 1500 bucks after warranty and taxes - they should at least be able to tell me when it would arrive, especially because I had to borrow a car and work around my work schedule. I was assured that it would 'be on the truck that night' and would be in store Wednesday. I went into the store Wednesday, and the floor manager told me that it would be impossible for it to be there, as the trucks only come Monday and Thursday mornings. At this point I was pretty irate, but the floor manager was good and comped me a 50$ gift card for my trouble.
So Thursday morning rolls around, I call in, and STILL no TV. Not only is it not in store, but they can't actually tell me where it is, why it isn't there yet, or when it will arrive. I was pretty furious at this point. The rep on the phone said they would contact the shipping/receiving manager and find out what's going on. Meanwhile, I've lost confidence that that they have any clue at all, and so I go online and reserve the same TV, in stock at Best Buy Metrotown, around a half-hour drive away. The rep calls me back around 2pm, and admits that they have no idea what's going on, where the TV is, or when it will arrive. I tell him that's not acceptable, and that I want to cancel my purchase, and that I'm going to drive out to metrotown and buy it there. He says that's fine, but that he can't actually refund the purchase unless he has the physical product in the store!
At this point I freak out, tell him that's completely unacceptable, that this wasn't my problem but his, and that if he doesn't figure out how to refund the purchase, I'm phoning my credit card company and getting the purchase written off as fraudulent. twenty minutes later he calls me back and said that the manager had OK'd the refund without the product there (why was this even a question? sheesh.) Anyhow I wind up driving out to Metrotown, and they gave me the exact same deal I had on my earlier receipt, thank goodness.
As for the TV itself:
size - It feels ALMOST too big for my living room. The couch is only about 8 feet away, and the picture is large. I wasn't sure if I liked it or not, but it's growing on me. I'm still debating taking it back and getting a 50" - I've got four more days to decide.
Picture quality - Netflix 4k (Daredevil) looks great. 1080 looks terrific, so long as played on any HDMI port OTHER than 5. I originally had my amp (which all my inputs are routed through) into 5, and 1080p content looked blown out and blotchy. I switched to input 4, and these problems disappeared. 720p content is decent, not too smudgy, and lower than 720p is watchable. Kinda ugly, but not really worse than what it looked like on my 1080p set.
Color - this is a weird one. I used the rtings settings tweaks, and this made it look a lot better - the color was quite washed out and flat at first. I think I've got it to where I like it, but still tweak once in a while. There are a LOT of color settings for white balance, and it is a chore to get it looking great. I ALMOST wish I paid for professional calibration. regardless, it looks pretty good now.
motion trails - Haven't noticed this at all. I play a lot of video games (Xbox One mainly) and watch netflix, and Blu-rays, and haven't noticed any trails so far. I haven't watched any sports or cable TV though.
contrast - At first I didn't like it at all. The picture seemed quite flat. after I tweaked it with rtings settings, it's much better, but still doesn't seem to have the boldness that my Samsung did. This may be that the samsung was over-contrasted and over-saturated and I just got used to it, I don't know. The picture looks great, the blacks are black and the whites are white, so I think it's just something I have to get used to. The picture just doesn't seem as 'punchy' as my old set.
Sound - sounded decent, but I've got my own amp + 5.1, so I don't use the onboard speakers except during setup. One weird thing - after I'd been using the TV for about a week, the internal speakers switched themselves back on somehow. I don't know how it happened, and hasn't happened since, so I'm not sure what that was.
Other details - the set is a little more reflective than my samsung 42" was, but that might be at least be partially due to the size. Set is sturdy and well-built. The remote is a little weird, but it works. It is an IR remote but doesn't look like one (the sensors are hidden inside the shell of the remote) and so I kept accidentally covering up the sensors with my fingers when using the keyboard on the back of the remote. Once I figured out what was going on it was fine. The onboard apps are fine - netflix, Flickr, and spotify work well, and they're the only ones I really care about. I've got it hooked up to a Nexus Player Android box running KODI, and that all works great. an onboard browser would be nice, but I can cast pretty much anything I need to the Nexus Player. One other weird quirk - the picture settings are per-source, and so have to be fiddled with independently for Xbox, Netflix, etc. The white balance settings, however, are universal. Not a huge deal, just a weird software quirk. If I think of anything else I'll add another note here! If anyone has any questions about the set, I'd be happy to try and answer them.