Top Christmas Present, Top Performer (Aiwa VX-D2120K)

Member Name: Grimsbygal

Product:	Aiwa VX-D2120K
Date:	25/01/02 (223 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: xmas present, good quality features

Disadvantages: heavy, hard to fit in car

We were very lucky to receive a TV/Video combi for Christmas this year from my future mother in law. We have started to get things we will need for our own home and a good TV seemed like a good idea to get us started. Unfortunately Father Christmas couldn?t carry it on his sleigh on Christmas Eve so we got to go and choose one a few days after. We had already decided we wanted a TV/ Video combi as then we were killing two birds with one stone and Simon, my fiancé decided he needed one bigger than 14?. This didn?t leave us with a lot of choice but we went around the usual electrical shops and spotted this one in Curry?s. It was reduced to £249.99 and although it looked quite big we decided it would be fine for our bedroom until we get a place of our own and then it would be ideal for our main room.

Our first challenge was to fit it into our small three-door Ford Fiesta and still fit three adults and two children in. It wouldn?t have proved a problem if it fit into the boot but nothing runs smoothly. We then tried getting it into the back seat but as we only have three doors and the box was huge we couldn?t even get it over the front seats. We must have looked a right comedy act in Curry?s car park as we tried every possible way to get it into the car without obstructing the gear stick. Eventually after many giggles and shouts from the children we all managed to squeeze in.

I will now get onto the subject of the TV itself without going totally off the subject. It looks quite stylish with a nice silver frontage and lots of buttons to press. This might sound a nightmare when kids are about but our theory behind this was it would be easy to use when the remote control goes missing every other day.

Many combi TV/videos have a big problem. They don?t smell or anything they just make life difficult for their owners. Often you find that if you want to record something you cannot watch any other channel. Fortunately this is a twin tuner, which me
ans you can watch and record different channels at the same time. Recording programs is simple, all you have to do is put the TV on the channel you want to record and press the record button. To make things easy for those not technologically minded the button turns red and states in the top hand corner of the screen that it is recording. This is good but also has its bad sides. When you forget to record anything you cannot blame the video as it?s down to your memory. The TV also features a One-touch playback button, which goes green after recording has finished. By pressing this button the video will rewind to the place you started recording and play it back.

Unfortunately at the moment we haven?t got the best picture in the world as we are still living in the Stone Age using an aerial made before channel four was even thought about. The video picture is another matter though as it is almost as good as a DVD picture and the speakers nicely placed on the side of the TV provide quite good sound quality.

It offers fast text, which is a first for us, as we have never experienced teletext in our bedroom before. It also has video plus so it makes it so much easier to record things.
Once we have the aerial sorted I think I will spend even longer in bed at the weekends.

I would recommend this TV/Video combi and I think it is really good value for money.
All I have to think of now is how the hell we are going to get it in the car when we move.

Summary: