Olevia 323V 23" LCD Monitor

Olevia 323V 23" LCD Monitor
by Syntax Groups Corporation

Our Price: $120.00
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Category: Home Theater
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Customers in the UK, buy this product at amazon.co.uk for British Pounds

Digital Photo Product Details

Manufacturer: Syntax Groups Corporation
Brand: Syntax
Edition: Electronics
Model: 323-S11
Color: Silver
Publisher: Syntax Groups Corporation
Studio: Syntax Groups Corporation
Music Label: Syntax Groups Corporation
Product features:

Big Picture Technology
No Tuner; 23" HD Ready LCD Monitor
User Upgradeable Firmware via USB
User Friendly OSD
Box contains: Manual, Power Cords, Remote, Quick Start Guide

Accessories:

Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Olevia 323V 23" LCD Monitor

Customer Review: Sharp picture, great viewing angle, use external speakers
Summary: 5 Stars

With speakers like these, the TV may as well be totally without sound, so I'm not even considering them in my review. I have some excellent 2.1 computer speakers which conveniently plug into the headphone jack (the only audio out port) without an adapter. Just switch off the TV speakers and pretend they don't exist, unless you're just unpacking and need some emergency audio.

After setting up the TV, I was quite surprised by its quality. I'm using it on my desk in a small room and it truly feels like a home theater. I have yet to notice any clicking noise as I've read of in other reviews.

The backlight is very bright, which is better than the alternative. The menu gives you three levels of brightness, named "bright room", "medium room", and "dark room." Great! Except that the darkest setting still requires plenty of ambient light to avoid hurting your eyes. Not a big deal.

When I first used the VGA output from my laptop to the TV, I thought that it looked great after turning up the sharpness (the sharpness is set low at the factory, probably so that standard definition TV looks a little smoother). I soon noticed, however, that the image was being stretched slightly, creating some horizontal blur. All I had to do to mend this was to choose "1 to 1" aspect, rather than full screen, so that every pixel from my computer is occupying exactly one pixel on the screen. I now have no reservations about selling my lovely CRT monitor.

The remote has a few of these integral options right at the top: lighting (the backlight brightness), aspect (source image scaling), auto (scales and positions the image to show the most on the screen at the default aspect), and freeze, an interesting feature allowing you to hold the current image until you press the button again. This is not a TiVo, and the video is not paused, but continues hidden behind that still image.

I've had the TV for about three weeks now and I'm used to the quirks I've mentioned. One thing I'm not getting used to is the blurred image resulting from the TV deinterlacing very dark video from a composite video source. In an ordinary image with plenty of light and dark, the deinterlacing works wonderfully. However, playing the new Legend of Zelda, I'm moving through dark dungeons and nighttime forests with constant tracers. Also, the feed is delayed about a quarter of a second, presumably to allow the TV to process the interlaced feed. Ordinarily this is absolutely fine. However, the Nintendo Wii, really the reason I got the TV, uses a very responsive pointer. When aiming a bow and arrow or playing a rhythm game, the delay is quite noticable and rather bothersome.

I'm confident that this is not the screen itself, but the signal processing: using the "freeze" feature I mentioned before, I can see that an image with bright and dark areas shows many frames overlayed in the dark areas (what I called "tracers") and a clean edge on the bright area. The LCD is advertised to have a refresh rate of 8ms, meaning video up to 125 frames per second would not blur together, as in old LCDs. I think this is accurate.

Even so, I don't regret my choice in this TV, but I do hope that using a progressive scan source removes this delay. I'll let you know as soon as I get the component cables for the Wii. I've written Syntax tech support asking if it's possible to turn off or adjust the deinterlacing function. I can't find any mention of it in the PDF manual or the menu.

Overall, as you can tell by the FIVE STARS, I'm very pleased. I'll update this review as I spend more time with the TV.

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