Really good value
Full-screen media (without black bars) looks great on the U500. To see pixels you need to get your face practically on the screen. Up-scaling works very well, I have played many DVDs, as well as Blu-Rays, and they all look great. I‘m using a Sony blu-ray player, which works nicely with the Sceptre remote codes.
If you need a perfect picture you should spend more on a TV with localized dimming and higher contrast ratios. On the U500 you will see back-lighting glare on blacks, which is particularly noticeable on media with black bars. The U500 also has a contrast ratio of only 1200:1 (so you will sometimes see banding in sky images).
I‘m using all three HDMI ports. CEC works with my blu-ray player - turn on the blu-ray player, and the TV turns on and switches to the HDMI port. Another one or two ports would be helpful for future growth, especially with the component video ports being shared with the composite video port (which is very common on TVs these days). I have a Wii hooked up using the composite video, and the Wii picture looks great.
I also have a leaf antenna connected to the co-ax input, and over-the-air digital signals look great too.
The USB port is ...to be honest... almost a joke. It is limited to 2GB. These days you‘d be hard-pressed to find a USB stick under 8GB! It also only plays JPG pictures and MP3 music. It would be nice if a firmware upgrade would enhance this, but I suspect the TV‘s processor can‘t support MPG video, or more than 2GB.
The sound from the TV is acceptable, and has adequate volume. I also bought a Sceptre sound bar, since I got the TV at such a good price on Black Friday, and my biggest gripe is that the U500 has a SPDIF optical output (red laser), but the soundbar only has a SPDIF co-ax input. So I‘m left with using the TV "line-out" to feed the sound bar. It does improve the sound, but I would expect the SPDIF to do better. Anyway, that is an issue with the sound bar, and not the TV.
Overall
