I had been looking for a machine to replace the increasingly problematic small analog TV in our office. We like to keep a TV in our office largely so we can keep informed of any major news events like a storm, a space launch, or if some lunatics put together some kind of national emergency of which everyone should be aware.

Of course, we can also use it for sports events like the World Series, but, this being a businesslike business office, nothing like that would ever happen. Yeah right.

I also wanted one that would play recorded media, preferably DVDs, and I wanted it to be digital of course so that we could keep up with the digital bandwagon. I was also hoping it was easy to set to “closed caption” so we could turn the sound off and just leave it on at times so we could work without the distraction of the sound while we occasionally glanced up to see the news events of what was going on in the world.

So, it was off to Bust Buy and a chance to see their wares. Of course, it was also a chance to hear their salesperson give his spiel, and that’s always nice.

What I came away with was a 15-inch little wonder called the 15DLV77. It’s got the player setup you want all in a wonderfully sharp little LCD TV.

This little LCD TV is handier around the office than the old tube-style analog TV we used to have. Why? It’s lighter. It looks cooler. And it takes up less space. This particular model is about three inches wide and weighs less than 14 pounds, so you aren’t risking a hernia with it and it’s handy to move around if you need to. Its resolution is 1024 by 768 pixels, and that gives you a sharp-edged picture indeed, especially when compared to a typical analog set. I love the black frame around the screen and the way the lights and controls are very subtle. No big digital readouts and no chrome and bling. It’s all very simple and elegant.

Playback with the media player was simple. It can handle six different formats, even including that of playing JPEG images burned from your computer onto a CD as a slideshow. All the media worked flawlessly with the remote. It also has a zoom feature which is nice at times if you want to magnify an area. Media such as DVDs looked sharp and the sound was great.

The connectivity is state of the art, circa 2008. If you are still getting traditional analog signals, it has a 181-channel NTSC tuner. Of course it also has a digital tuner, so it can get ATSC and QAM signals if and when those become available. You also have a headphone jack, a coaxial connector, 2 L-R audio inputs, 2 RCA video inputs, an S-video port, and a Colorstream component video input.

Sound comes from a couple of speakers on the bottom. The sound is in traditional stereo, but if you have a surround sound system, you also have a corresponding signal through a coax connection.

The unit comes with everything you need: the TV Combo unit, a nice remote, VESA mounting holes, and a product manual.

Four hundred bucks may seem a little pricey for a 15” TV that plays recorded media, but this one has a very superior picture and sound delivery that is so far ahead of what we had before I was easily persuaded to get purchasing to spring for it. And I especially like the fact that the little unit will indeed sit in the corner and silently give us CNN footage without sound but with closed-caption commentary.

It’s beautiful, it’s light, it plays media well when you want it to, and it actually uses less electricity than its largest analog predecessor did. Think you’ll like it.


Four Stars/ ****


Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 400.00