December 24th, 2007Review Of The BenQ VA371 LCD TV
 
A brand that’s made up of some ten companies, of which AU Optronics (one of the biggest LCD panel makers) is one. They maintain to “operate separately while distribution resources and leveraging synergies”. Perhaps they work by synchronized universal functions in a huge mechanical city within ten differentiate color-coded zones. I envisage industrial clanking, steel trusses frightening overhead, purple silhouettes with mechanical machines… maybe a game should come out called ‘BenQ Force’ or something (are you listening, Valve?)
Before I get unfocused further, let me get back to the task at hand . We received BenQ’s already well-established LCD model called VA371, a 37-incher. It’s been around for a while now; my awful for not reviewing it till date. Better late than never, right? You be commendable of to be spoilt for choice. I shan’t let the big boys with their marketing muscle push the others back.
Performance
We ritualistically fall in a DVE disc and proceeded to calibrate the unit. This process more frequently than not strips the TV down to size, quality-wise. I ran the video demo at the end of the disc, and found some motivating things: the color has a nice level of saturation, while skin tones and landscape seem nothing short of impressive.
a quantity of scenes looked a bit redder than usual, but that is offset by a shift of the color setting to the negative. Couple this with skillful seams of clearness in the image, and you have a physically powerful candidate at hand. The menu system is polite without too much mess, and provides basic setting change.
On running test patterns we found that the black levels were not being passed to the fullest, and the TV needed a jolt in brightness to get that killer shimmer in the image. This can live done via the remote settings, but the overall image is affected a bit if intensity is turned method awake difference settings be flat when we received the unit, but a little shove to the right of the meter standardize it just fine.
Noise was there in usual amounts and jaggier lines too in the acute edges. I’m learning to live with this, as no TV really surprise in this department. What was good in the TV, as well the color and static detail, was the dynamic detail: action scenes looked very good in 720p via our PS3. We play some racing games, which went well.
Design & Features
Good-looking but predictable, the body is a blend of metallic silver and black. The glossy silver frame cradles the dense black bezel and 37-inch frame, while the front board, below the screen, has appropriate logos imprinted in contrasting silver fonts. beneath this is situated a perforate tinny orator grille. Yet another replica that has the speaker panel below. I like it though; it looks nice.
The build quality is quite good; with tough plastic being the material of choice. The stand is quite sturdy too. This stand is permanently fixed (no swiveling around is possible), but the good obsession is that setup is made radically simple, unlike some brands that include Allen keys and screw. You can also opt to wall-mount the panel; the mounting trimmings are not built-in though.
The VA371 is equipped for HD compatibility, with a 1366 x 768 pixel LCD panel, also known as WXGA. The contrast ratio is 1200:1, and the good part is that it’s native contrast ratio and not dynamic values, unlike the big boys who talk about 10000 and 12000 ratios which actually isn’t a pale deal. Intensity is highly rated at 500cd/m2, while the response time of 8ms is fast enough.
I decided to plug in the PS3 to check it out. The TV has plenty of connectivity options: an HDMI terminal, plus three sets of component video input sockets. In addition there’s a PC VGA cable input, and so are old-timers like S-video and Composite. One set of Composite connections is on the left side of the TV for quick and easy setup, though the main rack is at the back, facing downwards. This makes it a bit of a hassle to connect up an HD rig, especially for lazy bums like me.
Bearing in mind the price of Rs 56,000, it’s not a bad deal, as the good points of this LCD panel be more important than the negatives. I was enjoyably astounded by the performance, which surpassed my expectations. The VA371 is a decent looker too
