Thomas J. Norton

PRICE $3,999

AT A GLANCE
Plus
Excellent color
Crisp detail
Punchy image
Minus
Dim 3D
So-so blacks and contrast

THE VERDICT
You won’t find the deepest blacks in this price class, but the HC8000D’s bright, sharp, pleasing 2D picture is worth a look.

It seems like only yesterday that Mitsubishi ended its solitary status as the last holdout in the rear-projection DLP business. Oh, wait, it was only yesterday—at least in geologic HDTV time. But this was by no means the twilight of Mitsubishi Electric’s DLP video ambitions. These live on in a wide range of projectors, including the HC8000D single-chip DLP—a key player in the company’s consumer lineup.

Mitsubishi's new LT-46144 ($3,699), at 46 inches, is one of the higher-end sets in the Mitsubishi lineup of flat panels. Not surprisingly, it's a 1920x1080p design. 1080p so dominates today's market in larger sets that most manufacturers don't even bother to mention it on the front page of their owner's manuals. But there's more to this set than its now nearly universal 1080p resolution.

QuickMotion. SmartShutter. Dark Detailer. Plush Imaging. Plush720p. Plush1080p. DeepField Imager. SharpEdge. Buzzwords were flying faster than you could swat them at Mitsubishi's April 2005 line show in Orlando, Florida. Journalists were flown in from all over the US to view the latest Mitsubishi televisions, loaded with these exciting&mdash;or at least exciting <I>sounding</I>&mdash;features.

Price: $2,999 Highlights: Accurate color • A high contrast ratio with convincingly deep blacks • Bright, punchy, dimensional image

Features
With its 65-inch (diagonal) screen, the Mitsubishi WD-65835 is the second from the largest set in Mitsubishi’s full-featured Diamond line. But it’s a lot lighter and more maneuverable than you might expect.

The set offers a full array of the usual video and audio connections. Plus, it includes the increasingly common USB port for viewing your JPEG photos. There is no RGB computer input. You can only connect a computer via a digital link to one of the HDMI jacks.