26" HD Ready LCD TV - £317.24 inc VAT

madpom

OK I now have my set. I've spent an hour playing with it and these are my thoughts so far:

It arrived with UK and Euro power cables, plus added to the box (by Pixmania?) a convertor adaptor for the Euro plug. It used standard PC power cables so it's not difficult to get replacements if necessary. Despite Pixmania's claims, it DOES have a HDMI socket, rather than a DVI. The manual also states it supports HDCP. The manual claims both SCART sockets are RGB enabled and that SCART2 is also S-VIDEO. Because of the wiring layout this isn't possible. I fed an RGB source into SCART2 and it looked like garbage! Disabling the RGB (I have a switchbox that can do this!) made the image look normal (well for a composite video signal anyway!).

Setup was easy - it found and stored all analogue stations, though re-ordering them is a pain (the remote responses here are very slow). It is a sensitive tuner - I live 7 miles from the main TV mast and all stations were strong, but it also picked up (weak but watchable) a mast about 50 miles away in Wales.

On strong signals, the built-in tuner's picture quality was fantastic for a LCD set, especially in this price range. Using the default settings there was little evidence of artifacts (images that shouldn't be there) and little blur, though I haven't seen the quality on fast moving images with strong contrasts (e.g. football pitches) yet.

On the RGB scart I fed in a Freeview tuner. Picture quality at first was poor, with plenty of artifacts especially around on-screen text. Reducing the picture sharpness helped to eliminate this, though it left the picture a little "soft" (i.e. looks slightly out-of-focus but it isn't if that makes sense). The quality though was rather good, better than I expected for a set this price and was actually much better than some sets I have seen in Currys (see my earlier comment about their poor sources!).

Sound is very tinny, even with the bass turned right up (this actually makes it sound muffled like there's a pillow over the speaker). It's the only weak point of the set that I can see. If you have a separate amplifier, I would really suggest using that. I might invest in a cheap 2.1 speaker set intended for computers (£10-£20) in the future.

The connectors are at the rear and there are removable plastic covers that help hide cables and channel them into one entry point at the rear. There are holes at the back for a wall mounting stand, 6 in total, but the manual doesn't make reference to what "standard" these are (if any). EDIT: To remove the desk stand place the set on it's back, look up the shaft of the main stand and there are 4 Philips (cross-head) screws. Remove these and the stand pulls away.

Dimensions of the set (excluding stand) are 660mm(W) x 490mm (H) x 110mm (D).

Remember I've only had the set for a couple of hours and this represnts my initial opinion, but overall for the price this is a good buy.

Hope this helps.

pinkhammy

Hi - I was looking at these and for the price might give it a go.

Silly question will it accept Sky + ?

Thanks for taking the time to report back and would appreciate any more plus or negs you find in the next day or so.

:beer:

madpom

$ky+ uses analogue Scart sockets so yes it will be fine - I bought this as a second set for my home office so it's not near my $ky box. I tested it with a Freeview box however (see my comments) and it was pretty good quality once the sharpness was reduced.

Another positive I found was in the warranty card - it's 3 years not 2 as stated on the Pixmania site. It's manufacturer backed, and is on-site swap-out (e.g. whatever the problem they replace the set without yo having to send it away).

I've also tried the set on VGA output from my PC and the quality is very good - pretty much what you'd expect from any TFT monitor. This is where you will notice the lower response time (16ms) as games with a high frame rate will challenge it. I wouldn't expect it to out-perform my 5ms TFT which is my main PC monitor.

If you want to wall-mount it you will need a VESA-3 type mount (often referred to as 200mm). I have one on order (sorry I've lost the link - will add it later if it's wanted) for about £16 incl postage.

b21playa

madpom wrote:

$ky+ uses analogue Scart sockets so yes it will be fine - I bought this as a second set for my home office so it's not near my $ky box. I tested it with a Freeview box however (see my comments) and it was pretty good quality once the sharpness was reduced.

Another positive I found was in the warranty card - it's 3 years not 2 as stated on the Pixmania site. It's manufacturer backed, and is on-site swap-out (e.g. whatever the problem they replace the set without yo having to send it away).

I've also tried the set on VGA output from my PC and the quality is very good - pretty much what you'd expect from any TFT monitor. This is where you will notice the lower response time (16ms) as games with a high frame rate will challenge it. I wouldn't expect it to out-perform my 5ms TFT which is my main PC monitor.

If you want to wall-mount it you will need a VESA-3 type mount (often referred to as 200mm). I have one on order (sorry I've lost the link - will add it later if it's wanted) for about £16 incl postage.

whats the resolution on vga?

i picked up a 20" LG LCD from PCWorld for £280 but not 100% defo keeping it

i see the price on pixmania has gone up £10 as well

madpom

VGA Res is 1360x768 which is a Widescreen resolution. I had to reboot with the VGA cable connected before this screen res was offered to me.

b21playa

madpom wrote:

VGA Res is 1360x768 which is a Widescreen resolution. I had to reboot with the VGA cable connected before this screen res was offered to me.

how good is that resolution, im using 1680x1050 on my 20"

MINCER_2

OP one now -

£299.99
£352.49 inc VAT

and Misco link not working.

Xstyle

urbanmac wrote:

no 1080p though

1080p is useless on a 26" tv anyway.
You truly need a 50" TV to get the benefit of 1080p ... or else 720p is more than adequate, IMHO.

MDTyKe

Bought one for £299 from directtvs (https://www.directtvs.co.uk). Two arrived (not complaining!). Very pleased with it, and delivery was dirt cheap.


Matt