Jul 11, 2005 01:55 PM
21330 Views
(Updated Jul 11, 2005 02:02 PM)
This is a television highly ranked by the only Audio/Video magazine publishers in India called AV Max but thats just about it. My experience with this TV is not good. At the same time I guess it was a case of the dealer sending a bad showroom display piece since they knew it was being delivered to an office and hence nobody may notice the flaws. I work for an Animation studio and so a TV is a must for the occasional break as we work for long hours at a stretch and for days in a row at times. Sometimes its used to watch new movie releases on DVD and for animation references. I was very happy that the big wigg in my company placed an order for this particular model as I was very anxious to know how it performed; considering that the review I read in AV MAX was a very positive one.
Onida has a very good history with televisions as in the early 80s they used to import JVC TVs and sell them as ONIDA in India. Onida had a very good tie up with JVC back then. A little into the 90s and they brought in JVC Mini Component Music systems and they were the best sounding ones. I would still rank those sets better than some of the trash thats available in the market today. My uncle still has one of the first fully loaded Onida TVs sold in the 80s. It had an integrated wireless remote controller on the TV. That set has never visited the service centre till today and the picture is still up there with the best. Thats how good Onidas were.
The Oxygen is simply superb in its design. Onida have taken some help from a well known Italian designer for this set. They have chosen good set of colors for the cabinet and quality is very good. Its sad that the rest of the set does not really live upto it. I would rank it up there for design along with the Sony Wegas and Philips. All functions can be accessed from the TV itself and there are a set of front AV Inputs to make quick connects to a DV Camera or DVD Player. There is a headphone jack too.
Features are quite a bit. Some useful and some irritating. The tuner allows 200 channels to be stored. Audio output is a ridiculous 300 watts PMPO, Stereo Audio/Video Input/Output, Bass/Treble Control, Picture and Sound Presets with Custom option, Music Mode, ON/OFF Timers, LCD Remote Control with a Channel Manager Built in, Onida's much talked about DVMC and 4 user logins which I still have not figured out how to use or customize.
The first and most disappointing part of the set is the picture geometry. Anything that appears on the lower right corner of the screen appears tilted or at a slight angle. I wonder how this set went off the quality checks assembly line with an OK. Its just terrible. Correcting this problem is not a major issue as you could call the Onida Service guys and they could sort things out but I wonder how the dealer never took notice of this. Colors are very good but the contrast setting is very sensitive and you need to play around a bit with the contrast and Brightness setting to achieve good picture quality. Its best not to even touch the sharpness control. DVMC is supposed to improve corner to corner picture quality but I wonder why you really need this as flat TVs don't have such problems. In any case I did not find DVMC of much use. It just makes things more sharper than you really need at the corners of the picture tube. Everything is fine the way it is with DVMC switched off. There is an option to rotate the picture and to an extent I was wondering whether it could correct the problem I was facing at the lower right corner of the screen but this tilts the whole frame and cannot correct particular points on the screen. Forget about using the Picture presets as everything goes out of control.
Sound is not as good as the picture. There are Bass and Treble controls but you really can't achieve much out of it. The best solution is to use the presets. The surround option is very good. I found the volume control to be too sensitive to adjust. You need to fiddle with the volume control, sound presets and the two surround modes to correct or bring things under control.The set seems to achieve maximum volume level at 20 percent itself and the range goes all the way to 63. Onidas claim of 300 watts is madness. Try to bring the volume control to half the level and distortion starts. There is nothing quite like the sound system on a Sony Television. Sub woofer or No Sub Woofer they still sound awesome and clear at peak volumes too. Nothing is seriously wrong with the sound but considering the price bracket at which this TV sells sound should be a lot better. I wonder why Onida chose to have an Oxygen model with and without a bass unit. Being their flagship model it should come loaded to the gills.
The best way to rank a television on ease of use is for you to be able to figure out how to operate things without the need of the user manual. Thats how I look at it. The Oxygens remote just does not live upto this. Its just a fancy remote with a LCD display. The remote is not only for the TV. Its also an Alarm unit and shows you the time too. Don't have any high hopes of the alarm waking you up from a deep snooze; you just won't hear the beep and even if you do you'll end up looking around wondering where its coming from. One very important function on this unique remote is the Channel Manager. It allow a total of 50 most watched channels to be stored using a name but you got to enter this by yourself. A set of 10 channels are stored under one page and you have 5 pages to use. This is a good idea but I found this slow for quick channel browsing. There is a convenience factor as you don't have to remember each channel number but on an overall it would be better if you can actually remember the numbers instead of using the Channel Manager on the remote. The build quality of the remote is terrible. It looks like a unit sourced from the famous computer keyboard and mouse manufacturer called IBALL as it has the same logo on it. The buttons are just too small and too soft that you end of twisting them when you try to press something. The layout is not the best and you can end up pressing the wrong button very easily. Nothing to beat Sony television remotes. The only thing I found easy to use on this remote is the Channel Manager but another annoying thing about this is every time you select a channel the remote comes out of the Channel Manager Menu. You have to press it again and browse through the channels list that requires you to look at the remotes LCD display and not the TV. I prefer the system LG have used for the Channel Manager. Oh and another thing, once you in the Channel Manager Menu you can't control anything else on the TV using the remote. You have to come out of it.
An interesting feature is the Music Mode. This allows you to listen to just the audio of any broadcast but in this particular set the picture tube is actually switched off and this means a good amount a power saving. 29inch TVs guzzle a lot of power. Nearly all other brands leave a Blue Background thats quite irritating in Music Mode.
Well thats just about what I have to for this TV. In my opinion there are better brands and models than the Oxygen series from Onida.
