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| Date Reviewed: 12/28/2007 |
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 Affordable 1080p! Strengths: Price, picture, quality construction
Weaknesses: black levels, speakers
Summary: I purchased this TV from Sears on sale at $899 and it has been a great overall tv for the past 3 weeks. This is my first hdtv lcd purchase, so all comparasions are to a standard 27" tube tv.
I've used it primarily with over-air tv, dvds, and xbox360(hdmi)
The over-air tv looks great and not as bad at all as I've read in other reviews of HDTVs playing standard television. Standard definition television is very watchable and is overall better than my older, smaller tv.
This tv has a built in hd tuner, so you can also get hd signals over the air. These are simply beautiful as they are basically cable-quality digital channels over the air (for free!). Reception does not affect the picture quality - you either have enough reception to receive the channel, or you don't. An outdoor antenna is recommended, however not required to pick up the most hd channels in your area.
Playing dvds and games from my xbox360 over hdmi is simply beautiful. I have no complaints at all for the exception of the black level.
The bad part of this tv is the black level. As you may already know, black levels are a major weakness of all LCD tvs. Since the screen is constantly lit up from the back, light seeps through the black pixels, so they don't look completly black. Compared to other higher-priced tvs that I've seen in sears, this tv has an average black-level and not quite as good as the vizio 1080p or of course the televisions that were 1.5-2x the price.
For optimal viewing, I needed to reduce the brightness to about 15%-25% of total. This got the best black level without reducing the quality of the other colors. A calibration dvd is recommended, however you can get this optimal black level yourself by simply decreasing the brigness until black stop getting darker.
I was excited to see a black level enchancer option in the video settings. Unfortunately this does not make blacks darker, it simply makes other dark colors darker.
The speakers are a bit puny on this tv and I recommend a home theatre/stereo/surround sound system if this will be your primary movie-wathing tv. The highs are a bit harsh while the bass is nearly non-existant with the default sound settings.
To improve sound quality, I needed to turn up the bass to about 70% and set the rock preset. With these settings, the sound quality is no longer poor, but about average to me.
Fortunately, the speakers are connected through external wiring and are detachable. So these can be replaced or moved easily if you wish to do so.
Overall, this was a great purchase and I can recommend this TV to just about anyone who'd looking for a 1080p set for a good price. If you are looking for a great built-in sound system or excellent black levels, look elsewhere.
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| Date Reviewed: 01/07/2008 |
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 THE OLEVIA 242TFHD OFFERS AN EXCELLENT PICTURE AT A GREAT PRICE! Strengths: Beautiful picture right out of the box. Very easy to set up, just plug in and it searches for channels. Plenty of inputs and outputs. Very nice backlit, easy to program universal remote.
Weaknesses: Have not found any.
Summary: I first saw this TV on display about 2 months ago in November and it caught my eye right away. The picture compared very well with other much higher priced LCD screens. When comparing against other Full HD 1080p it blew away the competition. I waited for the prices to come down at Christmas and it sure paid off.
I bought the Olevia 242TFHD at Sears on sale for less than $899. and I was home watching programs in HD with just basic cable after the initial setup. There are very easy to follow instructions on how to unpack the TV on outside of the box, the step by step quick set-up guide was very well presented. Just plug into AC, connect the video cable and when I turned it on it automatically searched for both digital and analog channels. The picture looks great out of the box and can be easily adjusted to your room lighting via a very easy to follow menu.
It has plenty of inputs for whatever other video components you may have as well as outputs to your A/V receiver.
Even at regular price of $1199. this HDTV is a great buy, but keep an eye out for sale prices.
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| Date Reviewed: 03/21/2008 |
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Just right
Strengths: Price,picture quality
Weaknesses: No included manual,weak speakers
Summary: Overall I am very happy with this television. Picture quality is quite good when you factor in what this tv sell for compared to similarly equipped tv's.
My biggest complaint about this tv is the low quality speakers. The sound quality in my opinion is marginal at best.
I have heard that Olevia is having financial problems and this should maybe factor into any buying decisions you make.
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| Date Reviewed: 12/16/2007 |
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Love it
Strengths: Great picture, good sound quality, lots of connections, fantastic price, seems well made
Weaknesses: Only weakness is the user manual is on cd, but you can download it for free at their website.
Summary: (Edited December 17th by toy4x4boy) For anyone upgrading from something like a 20" tube tv like I did, it's a night and day difference. This tv has everything I could ever want out of a tv for far less than the more name brand tv's. I looked at the Sony's and Samsung's and the picture looked just as good on the Olevia. Even for those who don't have hd cable like I don't, this tv is still definatley worth having.
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| Date Reviewed: 12/12/2007 |
- greenkitty
- Member Since:
Dec 2007
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Reviews
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Excellent Picture Quality
Strengths: - solid construction
- crisp picture, vibrant colors
- good variety of inputs
- full 1920x1080 output from VGA source(a lot of sets scale down to 720p)
- simple yet stylish case
Weaknesses: - it's not free
- the menu system is kind of awkward
Summary: This is the first Olevia TV we have purchased. We have been searching for a large 1080p set for a while and finally settled on this one. We are very happy so far. While we haven't tested with cable or OTA, video from various other sources looks incredible.
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| Date Reviewed: 12/10/2007 |
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4th one
Strengths: crisp picture
Weaknesses: sound
Summary: This is my fourth Olevia. I've purchased 3 32" in the past 3 years and haven't had a problem with any of them. Picture is good directly from the box. Great picture for the money!
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| Date Reviewed: 12/17/2007 |
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olevia 42 inch lcd
Strengths: the easy set up
Weaknesses: tv takes a while to come on
Summary: this is a great tv and i am very surprised at the perfomance of this television. I will recommend this tv to any and the price was great. This tv has all the popular brands beat.....
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| Date Reviewed: 08/01/2008 |
- CC51
- Member Since:
Aug 2008
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Reviews
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OLEVIA 1080
Strengths: Excellent picture.
Price excellent.
The HDTV built in tuner is excellent.
Plenty fo INs and OUTs of every type I can think of!
Weaknesses: sound.
seriously suggest sub & surround sound system..
Summary: Sears had one left, I grabbed it. Manager added discounts. $650 out the door.
In the store it was washed out, I took the rmeote and it matched nearby tvs costing 3 times the cost. The smaller 42 screen really looks better in my opinion than the "over-sized" ones for distance under 50ft.
HDMI was required to allow best picture from my DVD player.
Split screens was really fun to compare 480 vs 1080, or Component versus HDMI etc...
I found out, using the straight cable and removing my analog cable box, the HDTV Tuner Auto Channel Search function, pulled in around 250 channels....numerous, 20-60 so HDTV channels!!! from 1080i to 480, 720....very cool!
Highly Recommended.
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| Date Reviewed: 02/28/2008 |
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42"lcd tv
Strengths: great price and picture many extras
Weaknesses: no writen manual
Summary: I've been looking for LCD HD tv 1080p for some time. I can tell you that this was a great buy. From what I seen while I was looking around is that you can't touch this tv (with all of the extras 2 comp and 2 hdmi ) any where else for less then 1200.00. It was easy to set up and the picture looks great. Sound is also very good. It maybe a so called off brand put I bet it will last just as long as any name brand for half the price. If you are looking for your first big screen tv I would really recommend this product.
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| Date Reviewed: 12/23/2007 |
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Olevia 242 tfhd 1080P LCD TV
Strengths: Great bang for the buck, picture quality equal or exceeding anything costing up to $1,000 more.
Weaknesses: One very small one. Olevia's website claims this TV has an alarm ( to wake up to, like a clock radio) and it doesn't. It only has a sleep timer. Maybe a firmware update will addresses this problem.
Summary: This is my second Olevia TV I've purchased, the first being the HVS37 HDTV 2 years ago. That set has performed flawlessly and so far, so has this one. Although I don't have a 1080P source hooked up yet (like an HD DVD or Bly-Ray player), I have noticed a picture with better detail from HD Cable and HD OTA (over-the-air), compared to the 720P Olevia of 2 years ago.Installation was easy and the remote is a big improvement over the one from 2 years ago (it's backlit, yea!).
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| Date Reviewed: 12/14/2007 |
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excellent tv with lots of features
Strengths: all the latest features Good Size, 1080P, 1920x1080, HDTV, HDMI inputs, . WideScreen
Weaknesses: the refresh rate could be a little better and should come with printed user manuel instead of cd-rom
Summary: (Edited January 09th by johnabrahamjr) for the buck...this is by far the BEST tv on the market(1080P, 1920x1080, HDTV, HDMI, WideScreen) for about $795 bucks!!!! 1080P is the best feature....it is amazing to view....the HDMI connection makes the biggest difference in the world.....it is not even close how much hdmi connection is far better than component for anything else. it has a easy to use remote and features. nice looking tv, the stand and speakers come off and the tv even looks better....also the warrenty is nice (1yr IN HOME SERVICE is it breaks).....the refresh rate could be a little better and should come with a manual...instead come with an 80page CD-ROM manual that you have to print....kind of a pain....but great tv with all the latest features for a price you are not going to find anywhere else. BUY IT!!!!!
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| Date Reviewed: 12/10/2007 |
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olevia makes a great lcd tv
Strengths: easy setup, beautiful picture, have to print handbook from disk or they will send one to you
Weaknesses: most chanels great but a couple look waxy must be due to transmission of some chanels
Summary: great price...watch for lower prices for price matching I got this one in dec. 07 for $892 plus tax. you will need a strong console for these heavy weight lcds. the forty two inch one is plenty big. 52 inch ones must be for huge rooms.
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