Best TV for Sports; Football, Basketball or Baseball; 2011/2012 Top 5 Recommended
Fast action is a particular weakness for many TVs in the marketplace. There have been many feature enhancements to LCD TVs to try to make up for deficiencies which cause motion lag or blur and judder (a jerky effect during side to side panning). LED back lighting has helped the cause and is a technology specifically employed to attempt to remedy some of these issues.
Historically, we have favored plasma TV technology over LCD or LED when it comes to response rate (speed of processing), viewing angles, and black levels – all elements that will be very important when viewing football, tennis or baseball. However, some LCD TVs have made significant inroads and have improved so much that we are now recommending them in areas that plasma TVs once dominated such as black level and contrast.
Our list below for best sports TVs is chosen based on 1) Great viewing angles without contrast loss – when you've got the guys over watching the game you do not want contrast to degrade and black levels begin to look washed out at angles. 2) No Motion Lag, blur and minimal judder – judder is that annoying jerky effect when the object or person moves side to side across the screen. It should be smooth. Motion lag or blur are produced when the processing in the TV are slower than the object moving on the screen causing some delay. 3) High Contrast and Deep black levels – these two go hand in hand but you certainly don't want the picture to appear washed out. Good contrast and deep black levels prevents that.
All of these models are available in different sizes, check the manufacturer's main page for more.
Samsung UN55D7000 Editor's Choice: Quality
55" LED TV 
The UN55D7000 uses a 1080p, 240Hz LCD panel with LED edge lighting, the edge lighting is capable of local dimming for increased contrast in dark scenes and better contrast than LED or LCD televisions with constant back lighting.
These Samsung LED panels can get very bright and they produce rich, saturated color. Sometimes the colors can appear oversaturuated but many viewers like that look and broadcast and cable networks comply by oversaturating their content. Color leap off the screen but if you desire more realistic color you can use the wide variety of picture controls to tone down the appearace to one more suitable for your viewing.
>Sharp LC60LE830UN Editor's Choice: Value
60" LED TV
Sharp's new X-gen LED panel with Quattron Quad pixel technology is impressing me more and more. Once you review as many TVs as we do, you get used to the most subtle differences in a TVs picture performance. What I am beginning to realize is that Quattron panels offer something more than your average LED TV. Not only are yellow and gold colors more acutely interesting, all of the colors pop more – but not with typical contrast enhancement. Maintaining a natural richness while improving color dynamics is a difficult task, and I am more and more a believer in this technology which I initially thought was a gimmick to be quite honest. The LC-60LE830 enjoys all the benefits of Sharp's best panels while foregoing some of the more expensive features.
LG 55LK530 Editor's Choice: Price
55" LCD TV
Everyone is on the the latest and greatest 3D TVs and LED TVs, but dont underestimate some of these excellent little LCD TVs for delivering the best value (along with plasma) in the marketplace. From past reviews and viewing at CES we know that this TV has a strong picture performance.
We've advised users in the past to turn off the 120/240Hz feature when watching film and broadcast based video content, and our sentiments remain the same. It introduces too many unnatural artifacts. After doing so however there are some very nice picture attributes to this TV including good black levels, natural beautiful colors, and plenty of dark shadow detail.
Samsung UN46D8000 Editor's Choice: Quality
46" LED Television
For 2011 Samsung ups the ante in TVs again, their UN series LED TVs were immensely popular in 2011 and each one we reviewed was impressive in picture quality, appearance, feature set and overall quality. Replacing last year's C8000 series are the D8000 series and they are slimmer, lighter, better looking and loaded with even more features. It doesn't look like Samsung will be losing the TV crown in 2011.
LG 42LV5500
40" LCD Television
The LG 42LV5500 will only be produced in the 42" size. It will contain the extremely valuable Magic Wand remote control for use with the SmartTV (Internet Apps) features. Further, it is 1080p and Wifi ready with the Wifi adapter included in the price. It moves up a notch in HZ rate to 120Hz (LG calls this feature TruMotion). It contains all of the basic LG LED TV feaure but with these upgrades. DLNA certification is present.
We reviewed the magic wand remote at CES 2011 and are impressed with its fast flexible functionality. The point and click application was spot on from the IR remote. Even typing is fast.
Toshiba 32C110U
32 inch LCD TV
The C110 series from Toshiba are a line of affordable 720p televisions available in a range of smaller sizes. A PC input allows the C110 series to double as a PC monitor and Toshiba's Photo Frame feature turns the C100 series into a digital picture frame displayig your photos in a customizable slide show.
Gaming mode bypasses the picture processing to lessen the input delay often associated with HDTVs. This feature is a must for console gamers or gamers using the C110 series as a PC monitor.
