Audiovox VE727 Ultra, LCD Viewing in the Kitchen
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LCD Viewing in the Kitchen
For years I had a Sony CRT under cabinet TV for the kitchen. alas it died. The AudioVox 7″ LCD has some advantages and some deficiencies compared with the Sony.
First of all the picture isn’t as good. LCDs have limited viewing angles. Off axis they are dark and/or lack contrast. Viewed from a fixed position like on your desk or on your living room wall this isn’t much of a problem. You set it up once for your viewing location and all’s well. But a kitchen TV is not really watched that way. You leave it on the Fox News or CNN and look at the screen only when you hear some story come on. You tend to stand up and move about in the kitchen so when you watch it you are usually in some position for which the picture was not aimed.
So with a CRT TV I could just look at the little bright sharp screen from wherever I was at the time. But with an LCD screen I have to adjust it in order to watch it - every time. Even when optimally adjusted the LCD isn’t as good as the CRT was. I should have gotten the 9″ model.
The AudioVox however has a couple other excellent features. It has an AM-FM radio. This is handy. It has a digital clock. Also handy. It has a timer - very, very handy in the kitchen. The DVD player is less useful but its ability to play CDs is nice.
I have it set up with NTSC (analog) cable and I miss the program guide available on ATSC (digital) cable. I don’t suppose that’s a fault of the unit but of my cable configuration.
It was a bit difficult to install because unlike a a regular TV that you just set on a table, this one you have to mount under a cabinet. This requires a little woodworking skill. The paper template is meant to be placed on the bottom shelf of your cabinet, but most electric drills are too tall to be used inside a kitchen cabinet. This means you will have to drill from underneath. This isn’t an insoluable problem but it does take a bit of figuring. The default configuration expects precise alignment. If the bolts came up from the bottom rather than down from the top it would be lot easier to install - but that would leave nuts on the floor of the cabinet instead of just nearly flat bolt heads.
Update (2/9/2012): This item is currently on sale here for the lowest price I’ve seen.
The featured review for this product, Audiovox VE727 Ultra Slim 7-Inch LCD Drop Down TV with Built-in Slot Load DVD Player Electronics May 1, 2007, was written by Patrick L. Boyle.
The average rating for this item is out of 5 stars, according to 3 reviews.
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Tags: audiovox, drop down tv, dropdown tv, hdtv, kitchen tv, small kitchen tv, tv-dvd combinations, under cabinet tv, under counter tv, undercabinet tv
Posted on: May 9, 2010
Filed under: Reviews
Reviews (3)
on-line buyer
March 26th, 2010 at 8:13 pm
Fully Satisfied
We had to return the first, we have received from another supplier because it has failed after a few hours. We ordered this one from Amazon, as other suppliers, although less expensive, had more in stock. We have never been disappointed by Amazon. Television has been working and is convenient and high quality and compatible prices. We are completely satisfied with the purchase.
Patrick L. Boyle
April 8th, 2010 at 3:45 pm
LCD Viewing in the Kitchen
Rated 4 stars.
R. Carboni
April 26th, 2010 at 4:06 am
Nice little set.
This is a nice little set for the kitchen. I bought it to replace an analog undercabinet LCD-TV because the change over to DTV was coming and hooking up a converter box wasn’t practical. This DTV was the simplest one I could find with the same size screen. It has only a few easy to see and use controls. Even the remote control is simple and easy to use.
For a 7″ LCD the picture is surprisingly very good. The fine definition makes the picture easy to watch. Off axis viewing is not as good as I would like. You can see a decent image while viewing from the left or right of the screen. When looking down on the screen from 3′ away and 18″ above axis the image becomes dark and difficult to see. The screen can be tilted and panned to adjust for this effect. It’s a minor annoyance for me.
The audio is also surprisingly very good despite having speakers aimed straight down. Music CDs and the radio sound incredibly crisp and detailed.
The DVD player is something I find useful when I receive mini DVDs in the mail. Rather than warming up the main DVD/DVR and the big HDTV then fiddling with the remotes to choose what inputs to use, I simply pop the mini DVD into the nice little set and press two buttons to watch.
Mounting the set under a cabinet was difficult. The mounting template provided was not accurate enough on where to drill the holes for the mounting screws. The screws must engage the receiving holes on the set’s sheet metal cabinet perfectly straight or they won’t catch. I ended up having to drill oblong holes for the screws to have a chance at finding the receiver holes. To make matters worse, the sheet metal cabinet is easily warped by misaligned screws and won’t bend back to the correct position for receiving a properly aligned screw. My advice is to drill holes of twice the supplied screws’ diameter and use something like boxes or books to support the set while you use both hands to align the screws from above and thread them into the receiving holes. Once mounted, it’s a nice little set.
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