Refine search for TVs

  Leave a comment      Email this to a friend TrustedReviews Newsletters

Even the internal analogue tuner produces very disappointing pictures, even by the generally poor analogue tuner standards.

Looking at sources connected via HDMI, things still aren’t anything to write home about. The colours look washed out and lack any kind of vibrancy that you would associate with a high definition image, while trying to adjust this in the OSD just resulted in garrish skin tones that made everyone look like tandoori chickens.

The ViewSonic has issues resolving dark areas as well, with what should be black turning out to be grey. But if you adjust the brightness and contrast to try and create a more natural looking black, you just end up losing detail in low light areas of the picture.

Input wise you get a single HDMI port and component video ports for high definition duties. There’s also two SCART sockets along with composite and S-Video inputs. What’s really annoying is the manner in which you have to switch between inputs. On the remote control you’ll find a button labelled Sources, but pressing this presents you with a menu listing “MP Sources” and “PIP Sources”. This clearly indicates that there is a version of this TV that has picture-in-picture functionality, but this actual TV does not, making this menu somewhat confusing. Selecting MP Sources brings up a list of inputs, although confusingly the component video input is labelled HDTV.

The stying of the remote control is as uninspiring as the TV itself – it doesn’t feel comfortable in the hand and the button layout is messy and unintuitive. You might want to be careful opening the battery compartment too – ViewSonic sent two with the TV and the battery hatch on both of them was so stiff that I almost broke my finger nail trying to open it.

Although the ViewSonic has a higher recommended retail price than the other two TVs on test, but after a bit of searching around the web I found it for around £642, which is about £57 cheaper than the competition in this roundup. But despite being cheaper than the other two TVs, the N3260W still brings up the rear of this group.

Verdict

I expected a lot from this TV since ViewSonic makes very good computer monitors (just look at the review of its VP2130b, but unfortunately my expectations were dashed. The ViewSonic N3260W may tick all the right boxes on the specification sheet, but there’s a lot more to a television than that. The disappointing design, awful sound and poor picture quality make the N3260W one to avoid.

Add your comment