Cheap Price, High Quality HD Ready TV (Vistron 37 HD Ready)

Member Name: Lukey52

Product:	Vistron 37 HD Ready
Date:	11/09/09 (75 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheap, stylish, inbuilt freeview

Disadvantages: Only one scart port

Looking around on the market for a fairly large LCD television people are spoilt for choice however this comes at a price. A quick look on ebay shows televisions by Panasonic (the same as the Vistron, 37" flatscreen LCD) going for between £900 and just short of £1000. Indeed all well known brands are in this high end region with Sony Bravia's going for £700 and Samsung and Philips models at £800 each. Granted these brands are known around the world so you would expect to pay a premium for their products but you don't have to pay this much!

A search on google shows 37" Vistron TV's are being sold for just £399 on Savapoint and I'm almost certain when I got mine on ebay it was under £350 including shipping costs, brand new.

You may well think that at half the price of it's well known competitors this TV must be of a bad quality but this is not the case. The sleek black shell looks extremely good and can easily work in a varied room layout. The stand as far as I can see is attached to the TV itself so this is not the TV to buy if you are looking for something you can hang from your wall. The speaker is built in the panel below the screen and runs the length of the TV. Look wise the TV has no visible eye sores. The silver circle is simply the power indicator and glows a satisfying blue colour when the TV is in use. The buttons to control the TV are on the right hand side of the TV down the side of it therefore out of view. I personally only use the remote so haven't actually used them but they are your standard volume and channel changing buttons amoung other things.

The TV comes with built in freeview. This is a great extra feature for a number of reasons. Most importantly it saves you having to fork out on a freeview box. On a practical level there is (obviously) no box which means you don't need a space to put it and won't have extra cables running to your TV/wall sockets. As the TV has just the one scart socket being built in saves having to buy an adapter or alternating between whichever product you wish to use with your TV (DVD player/VHS and so on). I would have liked to have more than one scart however my current setup means this is not a problem (PS3 into the HDMI port acting as a DVD/Blueray player + as the console itself. VHS into the scart port) I expect few people will really be hampered by just the one port.

I won't go into any specific details regarding specifications as I don't really understand it myself so I will simply provide the list Savapoint have on their site and allow those who understand these things to see what the TV has to offer in depth:

Television Picture Features
* 1080i High Definition Ready.
* Integrated digital (freview).
* 37" widescreen TV
* Resolution 1366 x 768 pixels.
* Brightness 500 cd/m2.
* Contrast 12001.
* Viewing angle 170/170degrees.
* Progressive scan.

Connectivity
* 1 x HDMI sockets.
* 1 x SCART sockets.
* PC input socket.
* Component video socket.
* Composite.
* Headphone socket.
* AV socket.

Sound Features
* Nicam stereo sound.
* 2 x 8w RMS power output.

Freeview Features
* Digitally interactive.
* Digital text.
* Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) subtitles available.
* Auto setup.
* Auto scan for new channels.
* Now and next electronic programme guide (EPG).
* 7 day electronic programme guide (EPG).
* Top Up TV compatible.

Additional Features
* Teletext.
* Fastext.
* UHF and VHF tuner.
* Auto setup.
* Auto search tuner.
* Auto search sorting.
* Auto search labelling.
* Sleep timer.
* Child lock.
* NTSC compatible.
* Remote control requires 2 x AAA batteries.
* 230v AC mains operation.
* Stand by Power consumption: <2w
* Complete with tabletop stand.

Dimensions
* Size of TV (H)66, (W)95, (D)13cm.
* Size of TV with stand (H)69.5, (W)95, (D)32cm.
* Weight of TV with stand 25kg
* Vesa: 440mmx220mm

Finally to rap it up I will briefly discuss my ratings. Because of the price I was willing to accept a lower quality however I in no way feel that I have an inferior product. At the time of writing this review I've had the TV for 4 months and have so far had no problems whatsoever (touch wood) so I couldn't give the TV anything other than a 5 for reliability. I've not found any issues on the internet regarding the reliability of Vistron TV's in general and have a 2 year warranty included anyway. The TV is simple to use, and if you are in need of help the instructions explain everything. Installing it just requires the TV to scan for the terrestrial and freeview channels and you're all set. I can only really compare the sound to my old TV and this is in a different league so a high rating it is. Lastly features I'm not so good at this but I do feel all TV's should have 2 scart ports.

So overall I give it a 5 and proudly tell people who ask how much I paid and recommend it to everyone simply because I think it's a steal of a price.

Summary: If you are on a budget but still want a decent sized TV this is the way to go

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