ALDI Medion P12173 MD 30727

Buyer beware – Before buying a Medion TV from ALDI contact a local repairer and ask if they could fix one if it failed, when mine failed at 14 months every repair person I contacted stated that they were irreparable as spare parts were not unavailable and as it turned out they weren't

Failed just past warranty! – One year and one month the backlight failed - just out of warranty. Not run constantly. Average use. Had weak sound and the usual artifacts when action scenes are played on cheap tv's. Won't be rushing back to ALDI for another one! The features offered were good but the PVR programming was poorly implemented.

Great Value for Money – PICTURE The picture is fantastic. The contrast is good, being backlit, but does have some light leakage, but not bad for the cheapest set. It's not usually noticeable, and less noticeable than my two 6 year old 21 inch edge-lit CFL or not LED ones. BLACKS AND GREYS Black has a blue tinge I don't know if this is common. Grey scale is accurate grey, but darker areas exhibit slight blue tingue. Probably the tint of plastic.

COLOUR

The best bit is colour depth is full and deep, above 24 bit. Possibly 30 bit. Which means no blocky pixel bits in dark areas, but maximum smoothness of gradations with no colour banding or is minimum. I don't know if this is standard on later sets, but not on my other 2 with 24 bit.

100HZ

100Hz can make it smoother, but even on low setting can make it more jerky! Particularly action. Sometimes things go in slo-mo. But again, is a bonus feature to have fun with for such a cheapy. Plus it seems sometimes a frame is added where it shouldn't be, before a scene change, sort of hanging on one fraction too long. It's fine on 50Hz.

PVR

You can program the PVR simply in EPG, you press the green button once for timer, twice to record. Done. Or via the menu the hard way.

It has every control you want, from slow, even step, ironically unlike the DVD.

DVD

DVD has bare minimum features. Not even time display. But again great bonus.

It has a noise filter, not just totally useless on any DVD, but actually cuts quiet sound out. Again, usually not noticeable but is on older movies especially.

ASTHETICS

Lovely looking menus, and splash screen. Takes 15 annoying seconds of course to come on.

Rubbish – went ok for 1 year now it won't turn on occasionally it turns on but have trouble again next time please let me know if this can be repair if do where

Dissapointing EPG and prehistoric PVR – This was a cheap $399 buy recently from ALDI, especially as it included a DVD player and USB recording which is a necessity today. Unfortunately, setting the PVR involves more steps than programming an old VCR recorder - you have to access too many menus and then physically enter the start and finish times... Basically, you cant just find your show on the EPG, click onto it and lock in the start and finish times for recording like other sets allow (eg like my Bing Lee Hitachi 32" TV). Plus, when accessing the EPG and you find a TV station you like, the remote won't let you select that station to view it. You need to exit the EPG then enter the station number - really stupid design and this is the reason I will be returning this set to ALDI before my 60 days is up.

On a brighter note it will play many video formats through usb (eg Xvid) and the quality is rather impressive. Simple setup, picture is adequate, plays many video formats via usb (Xvid etc) tinny 'bass-less' speakers, woeful PVR setup, EPG station select (to view the channel) doesn't exist!