Aiko 81cm Lcd Tv

[MeeSeR]

Yeah mate that'll be good. Looking forward to it

Btw, did the plastic casing look cheap or somewhat decent? Because in the BigW catalogue, the greyish colour makes it look quite bad.

I personally like it, but I wouldn't go as far as saying it looks as good as the Samsung's latest 'R' Series casings... mmm piano gloss black!...

Well I got the beast out last night and started fiddling with her, from what I can see I have 2 dead sub-pixels (stuck on) which you need to be nose pressed against the screen to even see, both are green.

I haven't had a chance to take any pics or anything yet... for obvious reasons... but I will this arvo.

A SHORT SUMMARY OF THE GOOD AND BAD

until I do a full blown review - or someone beats me to it!

=====================================

GOOD

====

* CHEAP!

$998 you can't beat it for a 81cm

* VERY bright picture!

There not kidding at 500 candles, whites are VERY white (Just watch the Halo 3 Trailer...)

* Xbox 360 supported up to 1360x768 via HD VGA cable

Supports all resolutions via VGA cable, but may need to be switched from input D-SUB to RGB HDTV

depending on the res. eg. 1360x768 is D-SUB... 1280x720 is RGB HDTV... etc

* Gold plated connections on Component etc.

* It's BLACK!

One of my requirements - I have Logitech 5400's

Basically it has reached my expectations on what I needed it for, but with some issues...see BAD

BAD

===

* Backlight uniformity

Not a major issue, only noticeable on a completely black frame eg. TV on and no input.

* Slight ghosting/stepping

Via HD VGA Xbox 360 cable, I noticed slight ghosting on high contrast edges on the dashboard etc.

This is only annoying if you are within 100-300mm from the screen, but in games wouldn't be an issue

* Blacks aren't black

Like most LCD's you never get a true BLACK, possibly due to the brightness of this screen the black isn't

as dark as it could be, but is definitely better than my old 81cm AWA LCD.

* Vertical banding/columns?

When sitting on a completely black frame, I can see like vertical columns all slightly differing in shades

of 'black', I sort of noticed the same thing on the demo model in BigW but thought it may have been

just the DVD upscaling on the screen. I will hook my laptop up to it tongiht and see if this 'banding'

is annoying on a static Windows XP screen (and also check out ghosting/stepping and any blurring)

It may be obvious that I have listed more bad's than good's... all I can say is I'm a REAL picky bugger. But as mentioned before the screen has reached my expectation, it may not have 'exceeded' them - but god what do you want for $998!!

I was playing my Xbox 360 high motion games like FULL AUTO, SONIC without any annoyance/distraction in regards to the TV's picture/response sitting approx 1.5 meters away.

Definintely go and check the AIKO out for yourself before you buy, and if you want them to hook it up to a 360 or your laptop, ask them!!... They are selling well here (Maryborough) I went in the morning of the Big W sale... there was a big pile of them 3 levels high... I went back in after work, and there was only 4 left on the bottom level - people obviously saw the value for money...

Anyway pictures/review will be forthcoming... I best get to working again! Doh

[Guest JohnS119]

I haven't tried mine out with anything other than the standard TV tuner and Foxtel via composite A/V, so far the picture looks pretty good. No bright or dark pixels, yeah!!! I can't make any critical comments about the picture quality until I hook up my computer and/or HD STB, as composite video is pretty blurry to start with. However I didn't notice any backlight non-uniformity but will look closer tonight. Ghosting could be cable or input related, analogue TV is too blurry for me to tell.

The manual states that the D-Sub connector will support 1280x768 and 1360x768, and lists the vertical/horizontal frequencies and dot clock needed for the display to automatically adjust the picture. Otherwise the OSD has manual image adjustment features.

The back of the unit has the following inputs (going from memory here):

1. HDMI that supports HDCP (or DVI via adapter)
   
2. SCART with A/V input and A/V monitor output (perfect for HDD DVD recorder)
   
3. SCART with A/V input and RGB input (perfect for Foxtel)
   
4. D-Sub and 3.5mm audio (for PC)
   
5. S-Video + RCA video + 2xRCA audio
   
6. Component 3xRCA + 2xRCA audio
   
7. RF
   
8. RS-232 via some sort of 3.5mm socket (now this could be interesting)
   

Also the SCART with RGB also has RF output. Not sure why you would want that, maybe some DVB STB can accept RF input over SCART and send back a picture via RGB so save on cables.

I have noticed the following negative/odd aspects:

1. The 14:9 scaling mode doesn't maintain the picture aspect ratio as expected. Analogue 4:3 TV broadcasts sometimes transmit 14:9 which is noticable by small black borders top and bottom. Normally 14:9 should stretch the picture to remove the top/bottom borders and reduce the left/right borders. However on this TV it only stretches horizontally so the small top/bottom borders remain.
   
2. The picture size setting (16:9, 4:3, 14:9, Zoom, Panarama) is a global setting. My previous WS-CRT had a unique setting for each video input so I could watch TV in 14:9 and when I switched to AV1/AV2 for Foxtel/DVD it automatically switched to 16:9, and 4:3 for VCR on AV3. However I think I can fix this in the Harmony remote. Apparently SCART defines a signal that sets picture size, and the Foxtel box controls this. It will be interesting to see if the TV honours this signal.
   
3. Picture-in-Picture only works if the primary input is coming from HDMI, D-Sub, Component or RGB-HDTV. I have seen this limitation on other LCD TVs, including high priced ones.
   
4. The OSD seems slow to respond to the button presses.
   
5. Selecting the video input source is strange, they have devoted 3 buttons to it. The first button displays an OSD list which you scroll through and select. The second button (labeled PC) cycles between the D-Sub and the previously selected source. The third button (labeled Multi) cycles through only the inputs that support PiP. Let's see how I go getting the Harmony 880 remote working with that.
   
6. The manual doesn't state what the RGB-HDTV input is. Every other input obviously matches a connector on the back.
   
7. It thinks channel 2 is 3, 7 is 9, 9 is 11 and 10 is 13. That is common on PC tuner cards, there must be some numbering scheme for frequencies that doesn't match the actual channel numbers. You can move the channels to specific "tuner slots" so you can get channel 10 on number 10, but the OSD still displays C13.
   

P.S. The TV claims to be made in Korea. It claims to use an LG-Philips LCD panel and they have their plant in China, with a second recently constructed in Poland and a third being constructed in China. The other major LCD manufacturer is Samsung-Sony, I believe that the cheap AWA TV that Big-W had a few months ago was a Samsung-Sony panel. Pretty much every LCD TV will have a panel from one of these manufacturers, the only difference is in the driving electronics.

[Guest Adroen]

Thanks for the updates everyone. I'm definately thinking about going with this. Won't get a chance to get one till after the weekend(gives me some more time to think, and read some more feedback hehe), so hopefully there are some left still.

[BobsYourUncle]

Someone asked about picture in picture - Yes, this TV has PIP. Unfortunately you can't use the component input as the sub-picture, it would've been nice to be able to be playing games with the ashes down in the bottom corner. I could use the analogue tuner for that I guess - looks like the sub-picture can be scart, s-video, video (the video/audio-L/audio-R that most game consoles use) and the analogue tuner. Can you get component -> scart cables? That might work.

edit: I was wrong about that, the problem was you can't use PIP when the primary input is analogue TV, scart, AV or s-video.

[boss351]

thanks guys I really appreciate all the mini reviews and look forward to any updates

sounds good for the consoles which is mainly what i want the screen for and as long as it handles fast moving pictures with out smearing or leaving trails it sounds good to me, the older rear inputs scart etc is good for my old consoles /pvr aswell , I havent really taken much notice of the smaller 32 inch sets available and if there are any other brands better around the same price as I have mostly been shopping around for a 50 inch screen but have been dissapointed with quality and bloated price of larger sets, Im thinking of getting this TV as a stop gap until the better, bigger, higher resolution sets become more affordable and then id farm off this tv to the PC

[ssschen]

Anyone remember how much was the cheap AWA 81cm LCD from a few months ago?

[Rosco122]

hi all. Been reading on here for a few weeks and was planning to get a samsung 40" but at $3k+ i was umming and arring! Then i saw this at $998 and i thought i'd go look at it.....coming from a AWA 66cm which i bought for $1500 a year and half ago this looks good enough for me now. Went in, looked at the model setup on analogue Tuner and was "ok". I thought "stuff it" paid for it, brought it home, plugged it in with SD STB, and perfect!

very happy for under a grand. Watching Soccer now on Foxtel now and its great. Watched Star Ward EpIII and couldnt fault it really except for blacks not being "black", but i'm used to that now.

Getting HD STB next week with HDMI so then i can really see how well it performs!

Overall though i'm happy.....should keep me happy for 6 months till our house is built and i can set up our home theatre.

[Guest Adroen]

Watching Soccer now on Foxtel now and its great. Watched Star Ward EpIII and couldnt fault it really except for blacks not being "black", but i'm used to that now. very happy for under a grand.

Well so far no bad reviews on this set. Which for it's price is quite amazing. It's early days..yes, but still, I was expecting to see at least one of the 'i've got a dud' posts by this stage. I'm going to take that as a good sign. And from what i've read about BigW, if I do get a dud, at least it shouldn't be too hard to get an exchange on it.

Edited to add a question:

Can any owners please confirm that the dimensions are the same as the ones on this TV that boss351 linked to in this post?(807mmX643mmX243mm)

i wonder if this is another rebadged and slightly altered version of that tv from over seas http://www.ktvcorp.com/jpn/busi/content.asp?goods_num=364

If so they are a perfect fit for my corner unit. Some of the 32'ers out there don't fit and some do depending on their design.

Edited October 21, 2006 by Adroen

[BobsYourUncle]

Well so far no bad reviews on this set. Which for it's price is quite amazing. It's early days..yes, but still, I was expecting to see at least one of the 'i've got a dud' posts by this stage. I'm going to take that as a good sign. And from what i've read about BigW, if I do get a dud, at least it shouldn't be too hard to get an exchange on it.

Edited to add a question:

Can any owners please confirm that the dimensions are the same as the ones on this TV that boss351 linked to in this post?(807mmX643mmX243mm)

If so they are a perfect fit for my corner unit. Some of the 32'ers out there don't fit and some do depending on their design.

Yes, those dimensions are right.

[rezok]

hi all. Been reading on here for a few weeks and was planning to get a samsung 40" but at $3k+ i was umming and arring! Then i saw this at $998 and i thought i'd go look at it.....coming from a AWA 66cm which i bought for $1500 a year and half ago this looks good enough for me now. Went in, looked at the model setup on analogue Tuner and was "ok". I thought "stuff it" paid for it, brought it home, plugged it in with SD STB, and perfect!

very happy for under a grand. Watching Soccer now on Foxtel now and its great. Watched Star Ward EpIII and couldnt fault it really except for blacks not being "black", but i'm used to that now.

Getting HD STB next week with HDMI so then i can really see how well it performs!

Overall though i'm happy.....should keep me happy for 6 months till our house is built and i can set up our home theatre.

Good stuff! Cant wait to hear your review on one with the HD box!

I saw one today at Big W also - it looked really decent - on paper the specs are awesome - scart, VGA, hdmi, component, HD, 8ms...pity its only 12 months warranty. I nearly splurged but decided not to given I wouldnt have anywhere to put it for at least 1.5 months. I figure by then Ill wait till the sales and it might be a bit cheaper although at $998, ill still get one in Jan if theyh can be found. Great buying! My one complaint (could be due to the 2c DVD player running via composite also) was that it was a little dim - but hey....anyway, enjoy!

ps. they also had an AWA model for the same price/size but it was 16ms but with 3 year warranty. Not a good enough trade off imo...that said, if it was 8ms and 3 years I reckon I would have been forced over the line.

[Guest Adroen]

Yes, those dimensions are right.

Thanks for checking mate. Perfect size.

With that info, and the nice connection options available on it, I think i'll give it a go if they have some left.

[Rosco122]

OK! just received the HD Box, so hopefully i'll set it up through HDMI Tonight!

Got a HOTCHIP 500HDMI for $199. Comes with HDMI cable and component cables. Hopefully it works ok......

[Arc1503559859]

Hey guys, I was wondering if anyone had tried the GameCube on this TV with standard composite (I know I know)? My little brother got one of these TV's and was playing with my GameCube on it, but it was so bright and looked washed out, and anytime the background was light you basically ended up with a completely white background so you couldn't see any details...

I'm not sure why it was happening and I couldn't seem to get a satisfying picture even after playing with the contrast/brightness settings for about 20 minutes..

His Xbox however looked fine through composite (well as good as it's going to through composite on an lcd) but the GameCube just produced a crazy poor image...

I haven't done heaps of testing but was just wondering if anyone else had come across somethign like this?

[boss351]

sorry cant help with the gamecube as I dont have one of these tvs to compare, maybe he should invest in a $6-$10 scart cable for the cube from ebay, does sound very strange though why the cube game screen is so white and washed out and the xbox isnt

[Arc1503559859]

well i did a bit more experimenting and it was actually the gamecube itself I never noticed that it had stuffed up as I've been using component ever since I bought a cable and had a component capable TV.

Ohwell, glad I worked out the issue though.

[Tecnoob]

Just in case people are looking for an alternative with the same size and roughly the same price the Soniq (panels made by Samsung) is going for $999 at JB Hi-Fi and it looks a beaut haven't had a chance to play with mine which I bought yesterday afternoon and apart from a few dead pixels (which I plan to return) but as someone stated with dead/stuck pixels it's about luck

However, there are not much if any bleeding. Colours are great and that's out of the box, haven't played around with the contrasts at all. There were no pixelation and I'm sitting less than 2m away from the TV. I got a 5yr total warranty also for $100 more

[boss351]

Just in case people are looking for an alternative with the same size and roughly the same price the Soniq (panels made by Samsung) is going for $999 at JB Hi-Fi and it looks a beaut haven't had a chance to play with mine which I bought yesterday afternoon and apart from a few dead pixels (which I plan to return) but as someone stated with dead/stuck pixels it's about luck

However, there are not much if any bleeding. Colours are great and that's out of the box, haven't played around with the contrasts at all. There were no pixelation and I'm sitting less than 2m away from the TV. I got a 5yr total warranty also for $100 more

sounds good, especially the 5 year warranty for extra $$ , can you please post back what rear inputs the tv has and if there is any smearing /trails left behind when fast action scenes are on screen eg football, console gaming

and would it be the 32 inch on the web site

http://www.soniqav.com/home.htm

http://www.soniqav.com/images/spec/largepic/lcdtv32.jpg

...resolution seems different to the Aiko

soniq 1280 x1024 compared to the Aiko 1366x788...someone with knowledge might have to explain whats the best to me, im not up with all the tech

[Rosco122]

hello again!. Set up the Aiko last night with the HOTCHIP 500HDMI settop box

and everything worked straight away after it tuned all the channels. hooked it

up through HDMI first which looks great.! All the high def shows look crisp and clear.....i'm about 2.5m away.

In terms of sport ive watched Soccer through foxtel, was good close up, further away i could notice a slight "ghost" with the players. I'm putting this down to the connection through my hdd recorder. I've also watched V8 Supercars on SD channel 10 and that was fine in terms of blur, which i've never experienced on LCD even with my 66cm AWA.? I always test new LCD's with the start of Star Wars EPIII as it has explosions, dark scenes and fast motions, and both of my LCD's handle the picture with no breakups or blur.

Eventually i'll look at 40inch plus screens and i'll go for 1080p as i want a PS3 so i'll be looking at a sony, but till then these screens are good enough for me! $998 LCD, $200 HDSTB........laughing.

[gooseball]

Hi all, long time reader, first time poster.

Thank you all posters for the informative posts on this product.

I raced down to BigW today straight after work to take a look, luckily they had one on display but the source was from an aweful amplified splitter analogue TV/vcr - very very grainy. Didn't have time to ask the sales rep to test a DVD, will try tomorrow. The build quality is acceptable, it reminds me of the old black Sony Trinitron CRT TVs. clean matte black finish, even lines etc.... Very Bright screen.

A question to the owners of this 81cm unit. On the packaging/box, does it tell you who the wholesalers are? Are they a company called Konka??

[Guest Adroen]

Well I went to pick one up today, but no luck. They didn't have any in stock, and from what I could understand they hadn't even received any, as opposed to being sold out. So i'll keep watching those catalogues over the coming weeks from BigW, Kmart, and Target and hope one of them comes out with something as sweet as this deal, and actually gets stock in ..that always helps.

[Guest Adroen]

Well I went to pick one up today, but no luck. They didn't have any in stock, and from what I could understand they hadn't even received any, as opposed to being sold out.

Well I rang BigW again out of interest about why they hadn't received any of these TV's. Turns outs they did, 10 in total, and all were bought by the same buyer on the first day Guess someone is making some extra cash out of this low pricing, so people who actually wanted one miss out.../sigh

Next time I'll have to be ready and waiting for the doors to open and ready for a mad dash to the TV area ..in the meantime checking out other options.

[daryl]

Well I rang BigW again out of interest about why they hadn't received any of these TV's. Turns outs they did, 10 in total, and all were bought by the same buyer on the first day Guess someone is making some extra cash out of this low pricing, so people who actually wanted one miss out.../sigh

Next time I'll have to be ready and waiting for the doors to open and ready for a mad dash to the TV area ..in the meantime checking out other options.

Hi Adroen,

I don't know what area you are from, but I went into Big W in Sunbury last nite and I think they had about 5 in stock.

[Guest Adroen]

Hi Adroen,

I don't know what area you are from, but I went into Big W in Sunbury last nite and I think they had about 5 in stock.

Thanks for the heads up. Sorry I didn't mention it before that this was at the Rockhampton(QLD) BigW, and the closest BigW from Rockhampton would be Mackay. But with petrol prices the way they are, the discount wouldn't work out quite as well anyway, so will just have to be a liitle bit more on the ball next time an offer comes up like this.

Thanks again daryl.

[petecol]

HI All,

I'm new to this site, so be gentle with me.

I just bought one of these lcds and am quite pleased with the picture. I've been playing around with the picture settings and I'm curious what final settings you guys have for contrast, brightness, colour, etc.

It may save me some time if those that have one of these sets, share.

Cheers

[Rosco122]

Hey petecol,

Yeah i'm in the same boat as you. Not sure if i've got the best i can get out of the tv?

at the moment off the top of my head.

Contrast 70

Brightness 80

Colour 50

Sharpness 50

colour temp COOL

I've been changing everyday cant seem to find one i'm happy with yet....