Olevia 42-Inch 1080p LCD HDTV Review
Olevia 42-Inch 1080p LCD HDTV Review from Pam Russo jpau00. A HUGE bargain, I bought this TV after reading through a lot of positive comments in an online forum. It was actually bigger than I originally wanted, but the price was less than the smaller sets I was considering. I thought it would be too big for my space, but I am very glad for the size now.
It has performed very well for the past 4 months, and I am extremely happy with it.
It is just a little bit heavier than similarly sized sets, and you do need two people to lift it safely.
I compared the set side-by-side to a Sony in a store. The Sony does have some darker blacks, but nothing close to being worth the $800 difference. There are some menu options to boost the black up on the Olevia but I find I lose too much detail. I personally think the hyper black of the Sony looks too fake.
Be sure to set the lighting setting to “dark room”. It makes a huge difference. If you have a Disney or Pixar DVD (better with Blue-ray) there is a calibration section on the menu that can help you tweak your picture.
The sound is pretty good. It helps to boost up the base a bit. I’ve never even turned my volume up to 1/4 of the way and it is plenty loud. Its not a lush stereo sound, but it is good and clear.
The frame of the unit is a nice matte black. My parents have a Samsung with the shiny frame and I find it to be very distracting.
Pluses:
It has an HDTV tuner, so you don’t need the fancy cable service. I have the uber-cheap limited cable, and all the local HD stations come through the cable without any special equipment or upgrading the service.
Additionally, you can get an HD antennae and skip cable altogether (unless you want the extra channels – you need to have a cable box and HD service for those).
It has a one year on-site warranty, but you need to send the warranty card in within 30 days or you lose the on-site feature! They allow you to register online as well. Do that so you don’t forget.
You get plenty of inputs. 2 composite, 2 component, 2 SVHS, 2 HDMI, VGA, VGA component, and cable.
Downsides:
There are a few, but none are too terrible.
The manual is on a CD. This can be a pain if you want to look something up quick.
The inputs run up the left side of the back of the unit. Some of my cables were a little short to reach the top of this very large set where their particular inputs are. The TV is very stable, so having cables plugged in at the top doesn’t pull it. Having the inputs vertical makes them very easy to reach though.
The menu settings take a few minutes to get used to. If changing the source input, you do need to scroll through all the unused options with a bright blue screen. When the signal drops out from a DVD or VHS the screen goes bright blue. My old tv had a setting to change that to black, but I couldn’t find any on the Olevia (those are the times it is nice to have a paper manual). The dropouts hardly ever happen though.
It takes a few seconds to start up – again, with a big blue screen. Once you get used to these, you don’t really notice them
There is a little blue light that stays on when the set is off, but it is off when you are watching it.
The worst thing for me is that the remote doesn’t have an auto shut off if something is pressing it for an extended period. I always have books on my couch burying the remote, so I’ve gone through 2 sets of batteries now. I’ve switched to rechargeables.
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