I found 2 stores with 1 each near me, but I had to keep plugging in zip codes. The search radius is apparently pretty limited. One was a display unit, and the was sealed. I went to go see the display unit, hopefully to compare to other TVs.
Similar to TallPilot's experience, the audio was set to "News" mode and sounded bad. "Normal" sounded fine. It looks like "News" emphasizes voice frequency ranges.
The option to change the sound mode is on the remote only, as is a setting called "picture mode", which seems to slightly adjust color temp.
RS effectively defeated my purpose of coming to see a display model. It was up next to a Sylvania and an LG of the same size (Sorry, didn't take model #s), but they were fed by standard def.
The LG looked very nice, actually trouncing the Akai. The Sylvania was "squished" in 4:3 (but looked nice doing it!).
The Akai's video scaler certainly didn't look up to par with the LG's. In fact, despite the squished screen, the Sylvania looked better as well.
RS offered a 10% discount and 2nd year of warranty on the display unit. With a 30 day return policy, I decided to see for myself at home.
At home I connected to the cable box via HDMI, and set the box to output 1080i over HDMI, and 4:3 override to "off".
Going through the HD channels, Food Network looked not so good. National Geographic looked good. Ratatouille was on OnDemand and looked great.
For the regular channels, TNT non-HD (NBA playoffs) looked _TERRIBLE_. Food Network non-HD looked decent. In short it seemed that the Akai just couldn't deal with non-HD stuff very well. Most HD channels looked pretty good.
I hooked up a non-upconverting DVD player via composite cable, and got much better results than I expected. Pressing an A/V cable into service as a component cable got a slight improvement. I'm encouraged that there was this much information to get off of a 480i DVD. I may still get an upconvert DVD player with HDMI since they're cheap.
What it shows though is that Comcast is compressing their channels to death.
In short - plug in a lot of zip codes if you want to find a store with one.
My opinion is, this TV's a pretty good deal if you're watching HD content or watching DVDs (I'm sure blu-ray or HD-DVD looks even better). If all of your video inputs are switched via your AV receiver via component or HDMI, this makes it even better. Of course, if you have all of that, a few hundred more for a better LCD may not be an issue.
If you're watching standard def, especially on cable, I think it will wear on you.
pros - It's cheap! It shows HD content OK. It shows DVDs OK. It has plenty of inputs. If I keep it I'll end up with cable and upconvert DVD via HDMI and Wii via component and PC via VGA.
cons - Standard def (at least on cable) isn't very good. It has trouble handling high dynamic range, especially dark scenes with a light source. You can see the banding, but that's the nature of LCDs. You can't label the inputs, and it won't auto-switch inputs if only one is active. If you use all the inputs, you'll either need the remote to switch, or invest in a decent universal.
Well this turned into more of an Akai LCT32Z5TA review than an update on the deal, but hopefully it helps others.
The price makes me consider keeping it, but it's not a slam dunk. I'll keep looking at other models during my 30 days. I'll likely lug around a laptop with VGA to HDMI cable and play DVDs on-site.