ViewSonic VT4210: A Thin, Attractive LED HDTV

The ViewSonic VT4210 LED HDTV is simple and unassuming, and it really is a good selection if you're looking for a Tv with out all of the frills typical in present day sets. This 42-inch set sports an antiglare, antireflective TFT active-matrix LCD and 1080p picture resolution, but it also has zero Web functions, few input ports, and less-than-excellent speakers. The VT4210 (about $750 as of March eighteen, 2011) is astonishingly thin and light, nevertheless, so if it is a fundamental Tv you might be searching for, this may be the 1.

Designwise, the VT4210 is rather unremarkable. Surrounding the HDTV's LED display is really a skinny, shiny black bezel with sharp, squared-off corners. The bezel has few embellishments conserve for that mirrored silver ViewSonic brand with the bottom along with a little strength light within the bottom left. It is possible to wall-mount the HDTV (it weighs just 29.seven kilos) or place it on the sharply rectangular, shiny black stand. The stand weighs an additional 6.six lbs and is fixed (it doesn't swivel). That is just as properly, because the TV's off-axis viewing angles are mediocre.

The VT4210 is surprisingly thin--1.four inches in the thickest point, however the stand widens the footprint to 8.9 inches. That thinness, blended using the light bodyweight from the set, signifies that you need to significantly think about wall-mounting this design. Nevertheless, if you're seeking ports that operate parallel towards the Television (relatively than perpendicular, which can limit your wall-mounting options), the VT4210 comes up missing.

Around the back again left facet from the HDTV, you are going to discover bodily manage buttons--power, channel up/down, quantity up/down, menu, and input--as well as a few parallel-running ports, specifically a USB 2.0 port, two HDMI-outs, one particular Television hookup, a headphone jack, and 1 electronic audio-out. About the back again with the HDTV, managing perpendicular for the set, are composite and part video clip hookups, a VGA-in, plus a VGA/HDMI1 audio-in.

Naturally, wall-mounting indicates you almost certainly would not have all set entry towards the physical buttons positioned within the facet. Thankfully, the remote control is small, light-weight, and simple to use.

The buttons are all likewise sized and shaped. That would be considered a dilemma in the event the remote had 60 various buttons, but thankfully it does not. Aside from your fundamental amount buttons, volume and channel controls, and menu navigation controls (arrows, Menu, Exit), the remote has mute and input buttons, as well as dedicated buttons for that Tv programming manual, closed captioning, as well as the sleep timer. The only genuine situation using the remote is its restricted array: The remote sensor is found following for the strength light about the bottom-left corner with the HDTV, and also the remote will react only if it really is pointing directly with the sensor.

The on-screen menus are rudimentary (blocky, not terribly beautiful, and blue), but straightforward and easy to navigate. The primary menu provides image, audio, preferences, locks, and setup submenus. The preferences, locks, and setup menus are only what they sound like--the very first permits you to tweak closed-caption configurations, AV input, and menu language; the next permits you to put in place a parental PIN-code lock; and the final lets you reset your Television.

You are going to uncover only a few predefined photograph modes beneath the photo menu, instead of a lot of sophisticated possibilities for the average tweaker. The presets contain 'standard', 'sports', and 'movie', in addition to 'preference' or custom. The essential visual controls--contrast, backlight, brightness, shade, tint, and sharpness--are all existing. The advanced controls about the major picture menu include colour temperature and dynamic contrast; choices to tweak noise reduction and theater settings can also be available. Theater settings let you modify the picture dimensions, change the picture scroll, tweak aspect ratio, and go into cinema mode or use movement estimation-motion compensation (MEMC) 120Hz.

Within our jury testing, the VT4210 earned regular quantity scores but nonetheless landed a bit reduced compared to other TVs in its testing group. On our 1080i soccer testing clip, one among our jurors noticed a gentle halo result around the gamers in the first scene. On our 1080i vineyard testing clip, the entire scene appeared a tad dark for our tastes--unfortunately, this darkness haunted the remainder of the testing also.

In our Phantom in the Opera DVD clips (which check the HDTV's internal upconversion), the scenes appeared darker than usual and a bit choppy. Scenes in Blu-ray Disc clips from Mission Impossible III and also the Darkish Knight also seemed much as well black; in one Darkish Knight scene, Christian Bale's tuxedo merely appeared like a black blob.

The VT4210 did poorly in our Television motion assessments, equally horizontal and diagonal. Inside the horizontal-panning examination, the set acquired a score of two from 5 from 4 of our jurors, along with a score of one out of five from our most senior juror. The horizontal-panning check exhibits a blueprint panning throughout the screen; on this Television the blueprint was so blurry that it absolutely was virtually difficult to go through. While in the diagonal-panning test, the VT4210 rated only slightly much better, which has a unanimous two from five from all 5 of our jurors.

Two 10-watt speakers are located about the again from the set. This positioning means that they're not occupying the front from the set, cluttering up useful bezel property, however it also signifies that they are not excellent. Though the audio in the speakers is loud enough--I managed to have it to fill a room very nicely--the high quality is quite hollow and lacks timbre and fullness, even with all the bass setting cranked all of the way up. The audio configurations are minimal, as well, as being the set delivers bass, treble, and stability scales, as well as an audio selector, but that is it--no try at imitation surround audio. In my view, the speakers are agonizing to pay attention to. This can be definitely a set for use with external speakers.

ViewSonic's VT4210 just isn't for everyone. At about $800, it is much more expensive than other average-performance, average-quality 42-inch HDTVs on the marketplace. The style is something to note, even so.