Review The Toshiba 26DV615DB is rather big and chunky for a 26in telly, but that’s because it has a DVD player built into the casing. The result is that it measures 100mm in depth, so it’s by no means thin.
In addition, the bezel is a substantial 50mm all round, so this relatively small HDTV measures 681mm wide by 514mm tall.
Toshiba’s Regza 26DV615DB: big bezelled
Despite that, the all-up weight is only 8.8kg so it’s quite feasible to move the Tosh around the house when you have guests staying, or fancy watching the cricket in peace and quiet in the kitchen.
The Electronic Programme Guide (EPG) looks good. It offers handy frills such as a progress bar that indicates how far you are into the current show, but it falls short of the perfection offered by Sky. For one thing, the ‘i’ button gives you very little information about the show you’re watching, but does tell you both the signal strength and the signal quality of the station in question. Read the rest of this entry »
Review LG’s 42SL9000 is billed as a ‘frameless’ set, and indeed the pictures on the website seem to give the impression of the picture spilling out of the frame, in an immersive manner that’s somewhat reminiscent of philips‘ Ambilight.
LG’s 42SL9000: when is a frame not a frame?
So it’s a bit of a disappointment on taking it out of the box to discover that ‘frameless’ really just means that the front is a single piece of glass, and that there’s still a black border – about an inch wide – around the edge of the picture. Still, it certainly lives up to the billing when it comes to slim, being only around an inch deep. However, if you don’t use the Desktop stand, with all the sockets on the rear it will certainly sit further from the wall than that.
The stand – which requires a few screws to put together – is about eight inches deep, but fairly unobtrusive. Also in the package are two remote controls – a full size, full featured one, with a stylish silver trim round the top edge, and a smaller one with just basic functions, for the more bewildered or less technically adept members of the household. The set has some buttons on the right hand edge for power, volume, channel and menu, should you lose both remotes.
As you’d expect at this price, it’s a full 1080p set and the connectivity is pretty good, with four HDMI slots, three on the rear, and one available at the side. There are two Scart inputs too, plus component, and an audio in for use with a DVI adaptor, as well as a PC RGB input. There’s the usual Common Interface slot for pay channels – though that won’t get you very far in the UK – together with a USB socket accessible from the side. Read the rest of this entry »
Review Freesat recorders are currently rather few and far between with Panasonic only the second company to launch models supporting this service. In doing so, it has adapted its existing DVD recorders by adding satellite tuners. It’s a slightly different approach to hard-disk recorders like the Humax Foxsat-HDR or Sky+, which have no optical drive and are built as DVRs first and foremost.
Panasonic’s DMR-XS350 Freesat DVR
The DMR-XS350 is the entry-level Freesat model going for £699, but shop around and you can pick it up for about £570. It has a multi-format DVD writer and a 250GB hard drive. Further up the range are two models that swap the DVD for a Blu-ray writer, with a 500GB disk option. All have twin satellite tuners and bear the Freesat+ logo, so tricks like series linking are supported.
The case is a standard AV-width unit, with an uncluttered front panel; a flap at the bottom reveals analogue video, USB and DV inputs together with an SD card slot and a few buttons. Along the top there’s an eject button and a power button – curiously the power button is on the left, by the disc tray, with the eject button on the far right. Read the rest of this entry »
Review Think of a widescreen TV. The widest one you’ve seen, you know, one with big, garish speakers stuck on the side. Well, whatever it is, it’ll be nowhere near as wide as this new, premium-priced LCD TV from philips.
Current widescreens have an aspect ratio of 16:9, so when viewing a movie on them, there are black bars along the top and bottom of the screen. Why? Because movies aren’t actually produced in the 16:9 format. Most DVDs have movie aspect ratios of 2.35:1, or 21.15:9. Even this isn’t the full picture, which is 2.39:1 (or 21.51:9) and viewable from the latest Blu-ray discs. It’s this measurement which is matched perfectly by the philipscinema 21:9 56PFL9954H TV. Purists please note, it’s the product name, not the shape of this 2560 x 1080 screen, that has been approximated to 21:9, for simplicity. Read the rest of this entry »
Review It was a smart move by Panasonic to time its recent ad campaign to coincide with the French Open and Wimbledon tennis season. Indeed, tennis is certainly the sort of sport that highlights benefits of the company’s 600Hz ‘intelligent frame creation’ technology used in its Viera NeoPDP televisions.
Panasonic’s Viera TX-P42G10 plasma HD TV
The technology was first introduced last year as a way to improve the smoothness of moving images in fast-motion sports programmes. Panasonic has now extended the use of this feature to its latest crop of plasma screens, including this 42in Full HD model, which is currently the cheapest and smallest model in its G10 range. Panasonic quotes a price of £1199 for the P42G10, but you can pick it up for about £850 on-line – stacking up well against comparable LCD models.
We should point out, though, that Panasonic’s model-numbering scheme is deeply confusing – especially when you realize that there’s a G10 series of LCD screens as well. However, it’s only the plasma models that boast the 600Hz option, so it’s important to check the specifications of the various G10 models to ensure you get the right one. Read the rest of this entry »
