Excellent TV, missing that DVD promise! (UMC 19/16)

Member Name: cpj1987

Product:	UMC 19/16
Date:	31/10/09 (59 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: High-quality sound and audio, ideal for gaming and for watching television.

Disadvantages: Unreliable DVD player.

I was given the UMC television as a gift for my 21st birthday, making it just over a year old for me now.
Unfortunately for me, it's not in perfect condition, and hasn't been for over half of its life in my hands (perhaps a lesson to get hold of warranty certificates in the future!). The television itself is an excellent piece of equipment; high-quality sound and image, excellent built-in Freeview (I've never had a problem getting a signal!), and an integrated DVD player (a slot on the right-hand side that's tiny and invisible from most angles).

Unfortunately, the DVD player is the aspect of this television that let me down. Within a few months (and I don't watch hundreds of DVDs), it had stopped reading discs. It grinds and whirrs, but never finds what it's looking for. The traditional method of repair for such problems, as mentioned online, is to buy a laser-cleaning DVD, yet they rely on the disc being able to load so that you can select the 'clean' track, and if your DVD player won't load at all you're going to get nowhere.

With the DVD slot being so small, there's also no chance to look inside for problems, or to attempt a repair yourself if you're feeling brave enough to do so. For that reason, my slim, light TV now sits on top of a bulky, silver DVD player, thus taking up far more space than the set-up should need.

The TV itself is well-shaped (rounded edges), and ideal for a bedroom. I'm sure that if I weren't living in private rented accommodation, it would also look lovely on a wall-bracket, and it's entirely capable of being mounted in this way. However, it comes with an (again) well-shaped, slim stand that makes it ideal for placement on a desk or chest of drawers.

Easy to set-up, it has an autotune feature, and (with a code found easily online) the ability to make the DVD player (whilst it works) region-free. This, however, is something I only discovered during my attempts to fix my own.

Overall, a high-quality audio-visual system for television and gaming purposes, that's happy with everything from my old Mega Drive to my boyfriend's state of the art, HD XBox 360.

Summary: High-quality television, ideal for watching TV and for gaming, but with an unreliable DVD player.

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