Syntax Olevia LT30HV 30-Inch HD-Ready Flat-Panel LCD TV
This thing is going back
After reading all the glowing reviews, I was really excited to get this.  After using it for 5 minutes, I knew it was going back.  Reviews of this seem to be either glowing or harsh, without much middle ground.  I think the people who like it are those who care only about picture quality, and don't want to use many of its features.  If you only want a TV monitor for a bright room, the picture and sound are great.  However, there are many bad things about this unit that make it just not worth it.  Where do I begin:   <br /> <br />Black level & buzz - even with the backlight down low, a full black screen on this will light up your room.  And with the backlight on low, the built-in speakers emit a horrible loud buzz.  It is not a faint hum as I read before buying, it is a LOUD buzz.  I don't understand why LCD makers think we want these things as bright at the sun, I am much more concerned with having black look black. <br /> <br />Computer - forget about using this as a monitor.  There is no Windows driver for it.  You can tweak it to look good with a 3rd party tool called PowerStrip, but even then any mode change causes it to slip back into unreadable mode.  And DVI did NOT work with my brand new computer - I had to use a VGA cable.  I heard that if it does work, it will only show a signal after windows starts, so you can't see the boot process or DOS.  The screen is far too bright (or loud) to use for hours at a time without eyestrain. <br /> <br />Remote - The remote barely works - you have to press each button 2-5 times to get it to go through, and then it only has a 6 foot range.   <br /> <br />Interface - The menu system is asinine, with the center button being cancel, and \\"right\\" being enter.  After much use I still can't get used to it, and it still takes a lot of thought to figure out how to do simple tasks.  Just about everything you do has a 5 second delay as the monitor changes modes. <br /> <br />Misc - The headphone jack is in the back behind a screw panel, limited aspect ratios (3), very bad std tv image.  I gave this 2 stars instead of 1 because it will be good for people who have no desire to use its features or remote. <br /> <br />Even if they fixed half of these problems I wouldn't want this unit.  It just has way too many issues.  The sad thing is they all would be pretty simple issues for the manufacturer to fix.