So I measured the place it occupied, and decided to get the biggest TV that would fit, which turned out to be 65" (1.65m) diagonal.
I also wanted to get a curved screen, because I sit relatively close to my TV/monitor (2-3 meters), and the angle to the corners of a flat screen had a clearly different appearance (a combination of dimming and color shift), so I wanted the corners to be aimed more toward me.
That was over two years ago, and that TV had only become worse since. But I'm a cheap
So I waited. And waited. About a year ago it became clear that the curved screen "fad" had peaked, and fewer models were being offered. Then the generic brands started to release curved TVs, but their initial efforts were truly terrible.
Earlier this year Sceptre introduced their second-generation curved screen (the C650 series), and it seemed to be the best of all the generic brands. I give it a few months for reviews from reputable review sites to be posted, but none ever were! It was as if this TV was too cheap to be worth their time.
The largest distributor was Walmart, which only sells things that make them money, meaning few returns for any reason. So I started reading user reviews, and was impressed by how few flaws were revealed.
I continued to wait, hoping for a sale of some kind. The price gradually drifted lower, but only a little. When it didn't go on sale for Labor Day, I finally decided to pull the trigger, and ordered the Sceptre C658 for US$500. I bought it on Amazon, but from Walmart, since Amazon also offered an awesome 4-year warranty extension for $25: The cheaper something is, the more important it becomes to get an extended warranty.
I ordered not only the TV, but also an Amazon Fire TV Cube, which was on sale for $79. The main reason for that was I had no source of 4K content: My HTPC is a powerful but rather old i5 with internal graphics and a video resolution that tops out at 1080p60. And I'm too cheap to upgrade it with a new video card, when I really should upgrade the whole machine.
I got a text Friday that FedEx had made the delivery, so I headed home during lunch to get it indoors and off the driveway. It was more bulky than heavy. I immediately unboxed it and plugged it in to the Fire TV Cube that had arrived the day before, and was greeted with wonderful 4K video, with a very bright screen and zero bad pixels.
The bloody thing is huge in size, but doesn't weigh all that much more than the 42" TV it replaced.
I spent Friday evening getting everything connected and tested, with no problems whatsoever.
Best of all, it finally made all my other equipment play nice together: My old TV had an early version of CEC, and didn't really play well with my other equipment. Now my Sony AV receiver, LG DVD player and Dell HTPC all happily play with this Sceptre TV.
What's weird is I can use any remote to control everything. The Fire TV Cube is the hardest to use, because I still don't have the right Alexa skills configured. But the Sony AV remote can control the TV, and the TV remote can control both the Sony and the LG. I haven't yet tried using the LG remote because I can't find it.
As for the video quality, I'm not much of a judge, but it looks beyond awesome to me. The TV does very good upsizing of 1080p to 4k, with only a few tiny motion artifacts occasionally being visible. Of course, those artifacts could have been there all along, but my old TV was unable to let me see them.
I've been watching some 4K content on Amazon Prime, and I have to say, bigger is better. The 4K resolution itself isn't a big deal for me where movies are concerned, only looking slightly better than 1080p to me. But sitting so close to that huge curved screen makes movies more immersive, and much more watchable and enjoyable.
Surfing the web is also much easier, as the bigger and brighter screen is much easier on the eyes. I hadn't realized just how small and dim my old TV really was.
This is SO much better, and a very worthy investment that I hope will last longer than the extended warranty!
