Acer AT3201W review

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Verdict:

Review Date: 23 Sep 2005

Price when reviewed: inc VAT

Reviewed By: Seth Barton

Our Rating 4 stars out of 5

ExpertReviews Award

Acer's 26" LCD TV won five stars and a Best Budget Buy award in Shopper June 2005. The company has now released a 31" model that is big enough for home cinema use but priced for a budget market.

High definition (HD) is this screen's key strength, with its 1,366x768 resolution. It provides every input you could want: it has eight video inputs, for example, and we were particularly impressed by the D-sub and DVI inputs, which allow the screen to display any PC or HD content. Standard-definition inputs include a pair of SCART sockets and component and S-video interfaces.

Picture quality with the HD video is simply stunning, easily equalling that of more expensive displays. We used HD DivX and WMV files, and their charms drew a mesmerised crowd. Playing DVDs from the test PC also produced great results, with the DVD software carrying out image scaling. Picture quality from other inputs was less impressive, however, showing up faults in the TV's scaling electronics. We tested this with a DVD of Spider-Man 2 and found that the poor scaling caused significant artefacts in the image. This problem was consistent across all the inputs.

The speakers are loud enough to fill a fair-sized living room without distortion. They are fine for watching TV, but for movies you'll probably want a surround sound setup instead. Fortunately, the speakers can be removed, making the screen slimmer and more attractive.

Most content will be going over to HD in the not-too-distant future, and this display's shortcomings with standard signals will be a distant memory. Meanwhile, you can bypass the screen's electronics by using a media PC or an upscaling DVD player such as Samsung's HD850. If you need to buy a new TV now but you want to be ready for tomorrow, the AT3201W certainly won't bankrupt you in the process.

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