Reviewer: Thomas Bartlett
Black is in, and I most certainly wish it wasn’t. Just about all panel TVs come framed in either a metal look or gloss black. But the Baumann Meyer DT3220DW bucks this trend with its entirely white frame. The desktop stand looks at first glance like it is part of the TV, but it can be removed so that the TV can be wall mounted.
Oh, you can get a black version (for $200 less expenditure), but check out how the white one looks. Marvellous I reckon. And it makes the picture look better too, at least when the room is lit. The white surround tricks the eye into making onscreen blacks look darker.
This TV’s 1366 x 768 pixel LCD panel does not implement dynamic contrast ratio enhancements, so in a dark room blacks are really just a dark grey. But I found that by turning down the adjustable backlight to around ’50’ on the 100-point scale, you could get quite nice black levels without taking too much of a hit in brightness. Just remember to turn it up again when the lights go on.
The compact size of the screen makes for sharp images, even with DVDs. As seems to be so often the case, the conversion of interlaced video to progressive scan isn’t really up the mark, with the TV assuming that it is all video-sourced. That produced the odd artefact and occasional instability in the picture from some DVDs.
The TV is quite easy to use, and has a convenient fast selection for the ten different inputs that are available (a couple of them are European SCART sockets). The digital TV tuner was a touch too sensitive in my area, but a $5 aerial attenuator fixed this. If you’re in a low signal strength area, this TV could serve you particularly well.
