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Alba LED16911HD
by rji0907
When we had our new kitchen last year, my partner had the idea to knock down the kitchen wall into the conservatory to make one large living/kitchen area which has turned out to be the best idea ever as we spend more time in this room now than any other. For this reason, we decided to get a television to put in the conservatory area but ... as space is limited, we had to go for a 16" television.
As it isn't the main living area and we have other, better televisions in the house, we decided to only get a cheap one as I would tend to be working/cooking so it wouldn't get daily usage, but it would be handy for when we relax in that room. My partner told a friend of his that we were after a television and he had a second hand one for sale for £40.00 so we snapped it up. This television was an ALBA LED16911 HD ready television.
Apparently they purchased it for just under £100.00 when they'd had it a year or so earlier so we got it for a bargain. Although only a cheap make, the television almost looked brand new when it came to us which shows it wears well and it looked quite good with a black frame and sleek black stand which felt quite sturdy.
It took a while to get it working and tuned in properly but we got there eventually. I was a little disappointed in the sound and picture quality as the picture wasn't as clear as I would have liked and the sound was a little muffled. Don't get me wrong, it was perfectly watchable and was good enough for our usage of it, but when comparing it to other televisions we have in the house, the quality of the television in general wasn't great at all.
The television does have built in freeview which gives you more choice of channels which is handy and is the perfect size if you are limited with space as it doesn't take up much at all and fits nicely into a corner but it still has a large enough screen that you can watch television with ease without the picture appearing distorted.
I don't tend to have the television on too loud just because I have found that the higher you have the volume, the more distorted the sound seems to be so if you have it on just below average, you can still hear the programme (provided you don't have much background noise), and the sound is clearer. The remote control for this television works well and we have never had any issues with it. On the reliability front, we have never had any issues here either which I think is quite impressive for such a cheap television that has been going for a while. Apparently the people we purchased it from had never had an issue either which proves this is a well made television.
Overall, for the price we paid I think I was asking a little too much. After being used to a rather expensive 3D television in our living room, I think I was expecting as good a quality from this television in terms of sound and picture quality and it was just never going to be that way. This television is perfectly watchable, looks ok and fits nicely into the space we had available and although I have stated that the quality isn't brilliant, programmes are still perfectly watchable and I regularly find myself watching this television when I have a spare 10 minutes and to be honest, you do get used to it. The picture is perfectly watchable, it just isn't as clear and crisp as my living room television, which is the case with the sound too. For a bog standard cheap television though, this isn't bad so gets 3 dooyoo stars from me.
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Alba LCD 16"
by Jacksymonds21
For £90 this is a good little TV. The freeview is very useable and the teletext too, although both have the habit of performing a little stickily at times. The whole set-up is of pretty reasonable build quality and provides generally good image quality. I use mine predominantly as a PC monitor, it does stand up to this task but seems to ... suffer from a slightly odd colour palette. I have tried adjusting every available setting but still the reds are a little pale and only at rather low brightness can great contrast be achieved, this is my only major gripe. The sound quality is surprisingly good and it really is a very dinky little screen, making it really convenient as a desk top choice. It's also nice that, even for a more budget television, the Alba 16" still comes with three pin AV ports, SCART and HDMI input, making it actually quite versatile.
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