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Alba 40"Full HD Digital LCD TV
by llgsimpson
Got this TV about a year ago after the old CRT TV broke on us,
We was looking for the cheapest option really but with a decent enough size screen, our budget was £300 and at the time the biggest size out there was 32 inch TV's which we was considering getting, then through the power of eBay deals we came across this alba 40 ... inch TV, had a quick look at the specification and all seemed promising, so the order was placed and we waited for it to arrive
On arrival we was presented with a humongous box! still excited with the anticipation of a giant TV and being naturally curious we dived straight in!, wasn't that simple though as there was lots and lots of protection, foam, bubbles ect.. I complained at the time haha but looking back I can see it was very well protected during transit.
After getting the TV out of the box and placing it on our TV unit (which only just fit) we plugged it in and then eagerly awaited the picture to come on... Nothing!! a blue light had lit up on the front of the TV but what we didn't realise what that you have to wait a couple of seconds from pressing the power switch on the side then press the power switch on the remote, few.
When the TV was up and running we was presented with a TV Start up wizard which was mainly just to tune the free-view, the screens looked a little complicated and old fashioned but then again its something you only need to see once.
Then the magic began, the TV started up, presented with channel 1 we decided to flick through the channels to see what we had, and we were quite impressed as we had several new channels we couldn't get signal on with our old digital receiver box.
The picture looked "okay" nothing amazingly special, and the sound seemed a little distorted compared to the older CRT TV, but naturally being a Man I took the remote and started playing about with the picture and sound settings, and I was very impressed, there is a lot of tweaking and adjusting possibilities with certain pre-sets programmed ready to use such as "dynamic" or "game" mode, and then your normal colour contrast brightness sharpness ect.
The sound adjustments were equally as good, changing the Echo, sound type (not sure what this actually is but you notice a difference) and various other settings, currently when watching films certain sounds appear as if they are behind you (this took some getting used to!).
I currently have plugged my surround sound speakers into the TV as well for an even more dramatic sound environment.
Games consoles such as the Xbox and Nintendo Wii look amazing on this TV when displayed Via one of two HDMI sockets, however I did find I had to turn the sharpness up a little for the Xbox, but there is no need to adjust it back again as the TV stores the colour settings to the port which is very useful.
The TV itself is quite bulky and quite heavy but then again its a 40 inch so its not exactly going to be featherweight!, I do sometimes take the whole lot upstairs though and watch it in bed :P so its still very manageable. it has a lovely Gloss black finish which looks very smart.
The stand provided with the TV is very supportive, holds the weight of it perfectly, and is very slightly adjustable, the TV can also be mounted to the wall but this isn't an option I ever looked into doing.
If you ever loose the remote then most functions are accessible on the control panel on the side. however most people tend to have sky, but being a well known brand programming the sky remote is a easy task!.
The only negatives for this TV is that I wish it had a DVD player built in!
Other than that I would highly recommend this TV to anyone looking to get a TV in this sort of size and price range. I believe they can be picked up for around £275 now which is amazing!.
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Toshiba 22EL833B
by chrisandmark
We bought this Toshiba television to go in the dining room, with so many people in our house it can be stressful when programmes clash so we thought it made sense to buy a (slightly bigger than) portable TV for that room so that someone could go in there if they particularly wanted to watch something.
We chose this TV simply ... because it was on offer for £169 in Tesco, it had everything we were looking for so I popped it into the trolley on a whim. After rescuing it from the ridiculously huge box it came in I (read: Mark) proceeded to set it up. The set up of this television is so easy; after switching it on and inputting a few details the TV really does it all by itself, pausing only a few times for you to select an option to ensure the settings are personalised to your requirements.
This TV is HD ready, an important consideration for us as we were planning to connect a Blu-Ray player to it, and also has built in Freeview (although unfortunately not HD Freeview). The Freeview was as simple to set up as the TV itself, I actually did this myself and once I'd found the correct menu (a bit of a mission actually) it was a simple case of pressing 'start' and allowing the TV to scan for available channels. This was done and dusted within five minutes, the only problem being that for some reason the Freeview channels had over-ridden the five terrestrial channels - I had to call Mark to deal with this and after a few shouty episodes he managed to suss it out.
Once set up using the TV and remote control is extremely easy - as usual with Toshiba there seem to be too many buttons on the remote and not all of them we use (or even know what they are), the instruction manual doesn't dwell for long on the remote and doesn't feature an illustration naming each button so some of them I doubt we'll ever know what they're for! The simple channel/volume changing buttons and the various menu options are easy to find and use, with the remote itself being designed in a way that you'll quickly become oriented to it and be able to practically use it in the dark.
This TV is LED backlit, which visually means it provides crisp clear picture and better contrast levels and functionally means it consumes less electric than other types of television. I'm looking at the screen now and even when watching non-HD images I'm very impressed with the colours displayed on screen, personally I think contrast levels are excellent on most modern TVs so I wouldn't say this is particularly special in this respect although it's as good as on our main TV in the living room. When watching in HD the screen comes to life, delivering deeply coloured and incredibly sharp images - this became completely apparent over Christmas while watching 2012 with the kids, despite the fairly small 22" screen the film was as crisp, sharp and colourful as you'd expect from a Blu-Ray disc.
As well as watching TV and films, we have also connected a PS2 to the television so the kids can have a play - this was a simple case of plugging the console into the back of the TV and allocating a channel for its own personal use. This would be the case whether it was a different console, a second DVD player or even a Sky box - I've listed the various different types of connection available at the end of the review, basically it's all gubbins to me so I'll let you read the facts for yourself! It is, apparently, possible to connect your modem to the TV and use it as a monitor for surfing the internet - I say apparently as we haven't done this but my brother-in-law tells me it can be easily done.
I'm 100% happy with this TV and considering the ease of use and quality I think we got quite a bargain. Aesthetically the design is good, the black casing of the TV is stylish (as you'd expect from Toshiba) although these types of flat panel TVs all look pretty similar so I'm not sure a purchase would be decided on looks anymore. We haven't had any screen burn or issues with the screen and I doubt we will have based on my experience with other Toshiba TVs of a similar standard. Obviously the fact that this is a 22" TV means it's not suitable for use in a large room or the living room, in our dining room however the picture remains clear and crisp wherever you're standing or sitting and the volume can be adjusted in increments to the perfect level.
So, that's my experience of this television and now onto the aforementioned gubbins. There are two HDMI connections, a USB port and a Ci slot (what?) for you to use and also a scart socket - which Mark says is very important, I say what's a scart for?! The aspect ratio for this TV is 16.9 and sound is delivered through Dolby Digital, there is a parental control function (note to self, set it to avoid Jonathan Ross and Eastenders) and it has a fairly standard resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels. This information was taken from the user manual and may or may not be of importance, I thought it best to include it as obviously different people look for different things when shopping for a TV.
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Samsung UE-22D5000
by Belindavc79
I decided to buy this TV and I wasn't disappointed. It was really important for me to make sure I bought a product that was extremely good quality, stylish and HD ready; to keep up with the times. After purchasing this item, I couldn't help but notice the fantastic screen quality. For a relatively small screen, it somehow encompasses a ... great 'cinema view' experience, which is ideal for the smaller room. I think this definitely has something to do with the 'Samsung Wide Color Enhancer Plus' feature. It really doesn't feel like you're watching a 22" screen at all and that's not an exaggeration!
Although this won't matter so much in the future, watching analog programming is also amazing, extremely clear - which is a true sign of a good quality TV set. Also, because it's a modern TV, you can also connect your USB cable from iPad to TV! Just a couple of downsides were the length of time it took for the screen to come on via the remote control. About 10 seconds. Also, the installation was quite a lengthy process too. But other than that, I'd highly recommend it.
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