Home   •  Print this Page   •  

RCA LED50B45RQ LCD TV (LED50B45RQ)

50" diagonal, 16:9, 3000:1 contrast Add to Compare List


Confused? Check out the HDTV Buying Guide!

RCA LED50B45RQ LCD TV
User Rating 

2 User Reviews Rated 2.7
Image Quality 2.5
Features 2.5
Construction 2.5
Ease of Use 3.0
Reliability 3.0
Value for Money 2.5

Specs Reviews Rate It Similar Units Related Info
RCA LED50B45RQ LCD TV Reviews
2 User Reviews
Apr 30, 2016 w1dce
    I got this TV used, it is 1 year old this month, the 2015 model. The seller demo...
Aug 14, 2014 Preacher2b
    Television is garbage I bought on May 29, 2014, it died completely yesterday, Au...
Apr 30, 2016 w1dce 4.3
Image Quality 4.0
Features 4.0
Construction 4.0
Ease of Use 5.0
Reliability 5.0
Value for Money 4.0

My Experience: I got this TV used, it is 1 year old this month, the 2015 model. The seller demo's it in his home on Comcast CATV, and it looked OK, but when I got it home, I let it do a scan for broadcast TV, and it found all 28 available digital channels. Some of my sets can't pick up a few of the weaker channels, so the receiver sensitivity is above average to excellent. The picture quality seems far better on broadcast digital signal than what I saw on the seller's cable. It detects the quality of the broadcast signal (480, 720, 1080, etc.) and it adjusts automatically to size the image to the screen with correct aspect ratio. I really like the on screen information, since it tells me the title of the program on now AND it tells me the program schedule for that channel many hours in advance; the program schedule switches to the information for the next channel and the next if I flip through the channels while the guide is showing! This is the only TV of the many I own that does this, and I love not having to go to my computer to look at tvlistings.aol.com to see what is going to be on broadcast TV in my area. The sound is okay and can be adjusted with equalizer and there are pre-programmed sound profiles in the equalizer for different kinds of music (rock, pop, jazz) and there is a separate setting for Bass Treble and Balance which also has presets (Soft, Normal, Dynamic) or "User" settings to manually adjust. There are more options for sound (surround and digital audio output)

Problems: The TV works as it is supposed to. The problems below are just shortcomings in design and construction.

There really should be more inputs--there are only two HDMI inputs and one composite input. I like to connect DVD player, Xbox, and a Videoke unit through HDMI. It is not at all uncommon even for cheap TV's to have 3 or more HDMI inputs.

The USB input is limited to MP3 and JPG whereas many modern TV sets can play MP4 videos and movies from a flash drive through the USB port.

The internal speakers are not the best--they sound "okay" but not great.

As with most of the larger size LCD and LED TV's, I can notice small "steps" in the motion of images--the motion isn't perfectly smooth. This is less noticeable on 1080 high def signals and most noticeable on 480, probably because increments are larger on lower resolution signals. I think the 60Hz refresh rate might be a factor too. Comparing many large TV's in the store, most of them have the same stepping motion that I described above. The ones with 120Hz refresh rate aren't perfect either, but the motion does seem smoother on those. I think the larger the size of the screen, the larger and more noticeable the steps in motion become. I think that 120Hz refresh rate makes the steps half the size of 60Hz by refreshing the image twice as often (what appears to us as motion on the screen is a series of still images, or at least that is my understanding), so this is a weakness of the technology, rather than this particular model. If you want smoother motion, choose a TV with higher refresh rate.

The actual construction of the TV, the plastic edges around the screen and the rear housing are not very sturdy. I could feel the edges twisting and back shell flexing some when I picked the TV up by the sides to carry it. Maybe there are instructions somewhere that would say I lifted the TV improperly, but there are no handles and no "LIFT HERE" markings anywhere that I see.
Free NewsAlert