Mar 16, 2016 11:39 AM
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The LED Television's had caught my fancy many years ago. But I didn’t want to part away with the CRT set in my house. There were many reasons to it. The most important being its robust built and quality- it was going super strong for over 17 years. It was the AIWA Flat 29 inches with stereophonic Tru surround sound system. The picture and sound clarity using an SD box was just remarkable.
Over 12 years ago, my neighbour, who frequently travels abroad, had got a 32 inch VU LCD TV and I was intrigued by the brand name and got smitten with its picture quality. In those days the standard cablewala was supplying the feed and LCDs were making inroads. He said VU is a quality brand in the US and will hit Indian shores soon. That impression stayed with me. Though VU was launched without a big fanfare. It somehow did not become as popular as SONY, LG, SAMSUNG; who in turn had flooded the market with a wide variety of screen sizes and features and at astronomical prices.
Ever since, we decided to bid adieu to our old TV, a lot of research went on Plasma v/s LCD v/s LED v/s HD v/s Full HD v/s 3D v/s Smart v/s brands v/s prices, leaving me totally confused. On a shopping spree, chanced upon VU showroom at Phoneix Mall(Lower Parel, Mumbai), and saw the range on offer and the prices. Both were stunning. There was something different in VU than all the others. Months passed into years, then read about VU offering few models on Flipkart at unbelievable prices and reading the reviews on Flipkart made the urge to buy one immediately. But still, something kept me back from doing so. Months continue to linger on and during one window shopping spree, chanced upon VU showroom at Inorbit Mall(Malad, Mumbai) and got to know more about VU Technologies and my conviction to buy one only got stronger. Here they told me that buying on Flipkart comes with a catch - the service is provided by a third party. We then decided to go for a 40 inch no-smart TV. But, once again, something kept me back from buying it then and there. My better half just could not digest it, but was also happy that I did not add on to the EMIs. She was still content with that big box at home.
But, on 26th Jan 2016, VU came up with an unbelievable Republic Day offer on their 4K ICONIUM series at a Retail Showroom(Kohinoor Electronics). I saw the demo piece and made the showroom executive go mad with my volley of requests –changing channels, seeing HD and SD version, listening to sound. Since there is no 4k content, the HD content was just brilliant compared with other brands on display. The sound quality was exceptional. VU 4K was unique. We fell for it hands down and joined the LED league. Their offer was just incredible. It burned my pocket by about Rs. 38K(including buy-back of our old CRT TV and 2 years extended warranty). The price of other two leading brands offering more or less same features was in the range of Rs. 95, 000 to 1, 20, 000/-
The set was delivered the very next day and VUs Technician called me for a convenient time to install it. They were prompt and wall mounted it with precision. The VU 4k Iconium series UHD is, simply put, unbelievable. The 40 inch that's laced on our wall has changed watching Television. On an SD connection, the picture clarity and sound quality was mind-blowing. Later on, we upgraded to an HD connection and that's when the true beauty of VU technology came to light. The detailing is laser sharp and colour contrast picturesque. The default factory settings are just about enough. However, you can change it to your taste and liking.
The 4k Iconium LED 40K16 comes with a host of features:
Video features- DLED- Ultra High definition Panel- A+ Grade Panel, 3840 x 2160 Resolution, Aspect Ratio(16:09, 16:1, Auto, Zoom 1, Zoom 2), 1780 Wide Viewing Angle, Response Time - 6.5 ms, Refresh Rate of 60 Hz, 4X Quad Core Graphics Engine including advanced Vudoo engine, 1:1 Pixel Mapping, Ultra Local Dimming, Energy Efficient, Ultra Smooth Motion Rate, Auto Backlight Scan, DivX Decoder, H264 Decoder, HEVC, Digital Media Player(DMP) for Music, Video and Photographs and Text, White Balance, Micro Lens Optical Design. It also comes with a Full Colour optimiser that renders Blackest blacks & whitest whites. No grey hair standard. It digitally analyzes brightness, colour, contrast, clarity & colour temperature – automatically.
A+ Grade Panels. Only 15% of TVs in the world pass A+ Grade rating. Vu is the only TV maker giving A+ Grade panels in India. By eliminating ambient light reflection, the A+ grade pure prism panel ensures that the integrity of the picture is always deep and detailed, perfect and pure. The grading of panels means that in an A+ Panel no bright spots are allowed, 3 or less dark spots are allowed, only 3 spots or less are totally allowed, connecting spots, spots in central area, scratches, lines, light leakages are totally not allowed. (This is absolutely true. In my research, I did see that on almost all leading brands you could observe on closer examination more than 3 dark spots in corners, centre, or spread across the screen, some even had minute lines.)
Audio Features- 7+ 7 Watt Audio, Automatic Volume Level(AVL), Audio Equalizer, Digital dbx TV Audio Enhancement, Total Surround, Lip-sync Adjustment. DBx Sonics- Vu Provides surround sound experience with psychoacoustic processing to place sounds beside, behind, and above the viewer The dbx-tv feature delivers deep, rich, enthralling audio to match the superior video quality. You don’t need external speakers or sound bars.(Which is very true- at 14/100 sound level, it’s enough to render a blast).
Internet Features- Built in Wifi - IEEE802.11N, Network Ethernet Port, DLNA, Any View Streaming(Miracast- Laptop, Tablet & smart phone can be connected), Browser- Opera TV store, Youtube, Facebook, Picasa, Movies support in USB mode
Other Connectivity- HDMI ports x 4nos( HDMI ARC/CEC/ MHL), USB x 3nos(2.0 x2 and 3.0x 1), HEVC & MPEG H.264 decoder.
It also comes with a Table Top Mount and Wall Mounting Bracket assembly. A sleek remote control with You Tube and Netflix button(inclusive of battery).
Since there are no 4K UHD content available, I happen to downloaded some content from youtube and, believe me, it just needs to be experienced. The clarity and detailing is awesome. The VU 4K UHD upscale HD content 4 times and watching National Geographic, Discovery keeps you glued to the screen for hours. Tata Sky HD also comes with Dolby Digital Plus and it adds to the overall experience.
I have experimented with SONY P4 and it plays without any hindrance along with smooth graphic motion, plays MPEG 4 audio, supports all kinds of movie files(.avi, .mkv, .mp4), JPEG files from USB/external hard disk etc.
VU has nailed it (read competition) with the 4K UHD ICONIUM series. Hope they keep it to ours and their expectations.
