Real life sucks. Just when one thing seems sorted another knocks you sideways instead. Gah. Slowly g...
Real life sucks. Just when one thing seems sorted another knocks you sideways instead. Gah. Slowly getting back to grips on here but can they please stop changing things?
Member since:25.06.2003
Reviews:257
Members who trust:55
Last month I decided it was time to treat myself to a working TV as my previous one got slightly smashed when I moved from scotland down to Harrogate. So I set myself a budget of £250 and head in to town.
Being a lazy so and so my first stop is Argos, where after a short perusal of the catalogue I find this TV, it meets my budget at £249.99 and exceeds my other ideas about what I wanted (15-17in) as its 19in with a built in DVD player (a dvd player was the next item on my list of puchases).
So I hand over my cash and take the slightly unwieldy box from the counter. My first problem being that it doesn't fit in the boot of my car (the first time my beloved Micra has failed me in this manner) so on to the backseat it goes- my poor bf now has to risk sitting up front where he can see how poor my driving really is!
It is silver in colour and the DVD drive sticks out on the right as a blue plastic semi circle. Around the screen is a narrow black border, and the speaker is at the bottom of the TV. The TV, can be attached to a pc, extra speakers and of course anything that a scart lead can be used to attach. The TV controls are at the top of the tv, these are of course, power on/sandby, menu, function, vol +/- and up and down for selecting the menu options. The DVD controls are on the right below the DVD slot these are open/close, play, pause, stop, skip forward, skip backward. Obviously there is a remote control which means these are not going to be used often.
Back in my room it gets placed on my desk and plugged in, as my room hadnt a working ariel socket I can only use the DVD player. Switchingon the TV the DVD slot glows blue (its kinda pretty). Watching DVD's the picture is good, as long as the screen faces where you happen to be sitting, at shallow angles its also great but as with all flat screens at wider angles the picture disappears. Some of the DVD's I've watched have been burned from my computer and these also play well, any problems with the picture are due to the quality of the original image.
After my move to Lydd I now have a working ariel socket but no ariel cable, so I've invested in a freeview box, the box plugs in to the SCART socket on the back of the tv, the connection is secure and can withstand some amount of pulling on the cable as the box is in the middle of my floor (the ariel socket is on the opposite side of my room to the tv and i regularly trip over it).
The TV picture is clear and as with many TV's only affected by the quality of signal in your area. Although on some channels there is a black stripe across the top and bottom of the screen, but this occurs with some DVD formats as the TV isnt quite 'widescreen' so I guess depends on the format the station is transmitted in.
The remote is pretty standard it has the TV functions and DVD functions on twice separate areas and a blue fnction button to switch between DVD, TV, YUV, PC,DVI, AV1, AV2. The only 2 of these I use are the DVD and AV2 as this is the SCART socket.
This TV is also HD ready. So for £250 you get a HD ready, 19in flat screen tv, with a built in DVD player. Ok its not a big name brand but the picture quality and ease of use are as good as any other TV. Normally argos sell the TV for £399.99 and the same size TV without a DVD player is just £149.99 (normally £229.99), £100 for a built in DVD player seems quite steep but the convienience of it makes the money worth while.
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