 "ONIDA Xaria 32 LCD TV")
Onida will always be remembered for its cheeky ads; mainly the ones starring the bald devil. This Indian brand often comes to mind when Mr Upwardly Mobile realizes he can’t afford that shiny new Korean TV after all. To gladden the hearts of such folk, Onida has come out with its new range of Xaria LCD TVs. And we at Tech2.0 recently got the Xaria LO32XRGBB for review. So how does it stack up? Let’s find out.
Form factor
Onida has been innovative with the bezel, which will attract the style-conscious – especially women who like to color-coordinate gadgets with the furniture and curtains. The bezel comes in three shades, including a dark orange. Thankfully we got a bluish-gray piece, and it looks good. Apart from the bezel, the frame is glossy black. The sides are quite thick, making the TV look larger than the screen indicates. The flush, touch-sensitive controls look good too.
The back panel looked surprisingly empty, which prompted me to look closely at the sides. Yes, all the connections are on the left side, leaving the back panel bare. The connections include 2 HDMIs, a PC (VGA)-in, and a stream of component/composite-ins. It’s the regular stuff that you would find in a 32-inch LCD.
One point I noted in the specs is the inclusion of a Faroudja image processing chip, which Onida is marketing as ‘VisD’. Faroudja is a manufacturer of image processor chips, which are found in many good DVD players. VisD claims to do the ‘intense notching up’ of image quality, like all foreign brands that do the same for their respective image processing technologies.
The response time is 8ms, while the contrast is 8000:1 (dynamic). These ratings may seem to be on the lower side, but high ratings don’t really mean much – as far as I’m concerned, it’s the performance that matters, rather than impressive contrast ratios and response times.
I tend to gloss over the sound, as TVs usually sound like crap. But Onida seems to have concentrated on the audio, at least on paper. The specs state something called a ‘MeloD’ processing engine for the sound, which includes some DSP tricks.
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Performance
I have to say that the first model Onida sent me refused to work. The company sent a technician to fiddle around; but eventually we saw it replaced with a brand new piece. To their credit, all this was done very promptly. Maybe such hiccups occur due to problems in transportation, who knows?
Setting it up was easy. I viewed this TV from a PS3, DVD player and also a Blu-ray drive on my PC (via VGA). The menu system and options weren’t as intuitive as I hoped, and calibrating the TV does not hit that sweet spot. This leaves the brightness and contrast levels not too satisfying. It wasn’t bad; just lagging a bit behind its peers.
The colors, on the other hand, were very good, and came across as very natural with subtle warmth. I had HQV HD Benchmark, DVE Pro DVD, and DisplayMate software to run tests, and watched the I Am Legend DVD to see what upscaling and processing this TV can do.
Motion is largely good, despite some inevitable minor flaws such as jaggies and moir
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