Devant 55WIZ830 55-inch LED 3D TV Review

This is the second Devant TV we’ve tested and reviewed and so far we still continue to enjoy all of the HD movies we can get hold of, minus the 3D ones. Check out what we think of this 55-inch Devant 55WIZ830 LED 3D TV after the break.

I’ve been using the older 50-inch LED TV that Devant gave us for 4 months now and have not had any problems with it. I moved that one to the bedroom while the new 55-inch unit sits on the living room for about a month now.

Design and Construction.

Devant’s biggest TV size is this 55-inch display. It’s slim, relatively light (although it took me some effort to install it on my own) and has simple yet nice exterior features. The glass display run from edge to edge and has a silver accent and all-crystal border around it. This gives you the impression that the picture has no bezel or borders although you can still see the silver lining around it.

Without the base, the thickest part of the body is about 35mm thin (around 3 smartphones thick when placed side by side) which is already pretty thin.

The base is in the shape of a quadpod offering a pretty stable platform to set the display and with merely 4 mid-sized screws, the panel managed to sit up still very firmly and not wobble.

We liked the crystal frame the surrounds the panel — it looks like a thick sheet of glass but could just be some tough, transparent polycarbonate resin. Devant was pretty much spot on with the design of the display panel and although that quad-pod base isn’t really something new, it does give it a bit of a flare.

Display and Playback.

At 55-inch, diagonally, the TV is already huge. The set-up in our living room was simple and I believe the display from the sofa to the TV set is exactly 6 feet away giving us an optimal viewing distance.

The 55WIZ830 delivers impressive picture quality, images are crisp and the colors are vivid. The LED panel renders very accurate colors, a good a mount of saturation and contrast. We noticed though that the blacks aren’t really deep black but rather a tinge of bluish-black.

At 6ms, the refresh rate is fast enough but there will be instances when we noticed some tearing and ghosting effect especially when the movies we’re watching has a lot of fast action or moving scenes. We initially thought it was due to the wireless network that delivers the HD videos but the same can also be noticed even when we’re connected to a local player attached with a USB 3.0 HDD.

The TV has a built-in picture and video player and supports a number of common file formats when reading from an attached storage like a USB flash drive or an HDD. However, we weren’t able to access files stores in the NAS using the built-in File Manager.

The 3D capability is something we noticed but rarely used due to the fact that we didn’t even had any 3D content to start with. However, the TV has the ability to convert 2D to 3D picture which really didn’t work out so well.

After downloading a full HD 3D movie (took us weeks to download the entire 16GB file), we tried out the 3D feature to our enjoyment. The active glasses needed to be charged via mini-USB and settings were adjusted for proper viewing and after everything was set, we realized the difference between a flat 2D and an active 3D movie. Subjects pop out of the screen although by not much.

Everything else considered, we were still impressed with the unit mainly because of the good picture quality and the sheer size, built-in playback support for common file formats and 3D capability.

Audio and Smart Media

The Smart TV features of this TV set is a bit limited. In fact, we think Devant’s attempt to make their TVs smart is still in its infancy stage and this is evident with all the models we’ve tested from them.

Basic apps include Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and a native web browser. The TV apps are usable but they’re still very basic. The browser supports flash though and the YouTube app can come in very useful especially if you have good internet connection to the TV.

The audio coming from the speakers at the back side of the TV is decent although we think it needs a little bit more power. For better experience, especially when watching movies, we’d recommned hooking it up to a more powerful surround-sound speakers.

Connectivity

We could not ask for anything more from this model. It comes with 3 HDMI ports, two USB 2.0 ports, the usual VGA ports and digital TV receiver. Internet and LAN connectivity is accessed via a separate WiFi dongle that plugs into one of the USB ports, leaving you with one other for connecting to external media storage.

The TV remote control control is pretty basic, easy to understand and use but could be a bit unwieldy when used for navigating on the built-in web browser (I think this is the time when Devant needs a different set of web browser remote).

The only issue we noticed with the TV is that it would not recognize the Macbook when plugged via the Display Port (using a DisplayPort to HDMI adapter).

Conclusion

There are a few things we’d usually look into a TV set when we’re out to get a new one — price, display size and picture quality. And aside from that, rest takes a backseat and are only tie-breakers. Devant’s 55WIZ830 get very high scores in those three departments — huge display size, great picture quality and really affordable price.

We also appreciate the wireless LAN connectivity because it fits right well within our home network setup (we use a 5-bay Drobo FS to store all our media files in the local network).

The Smart TV features is something we don’t really use and care about. Same goes with 3D, unless we have very compelling content to use it for. In the end, what we look for in an ideal home TV is something that looks good, big yet not very expensive. The Devant 55WIZ830 kinda fits the bill.

Devant 55WIZ830 3D LED TV specs:
55-inch Edge LED @ full HD 1080p (1920×1080 pixels)
3,000,000:1 Dynamic Contrast Ratio
3D
2D to 3D Conversion
Smart Functions
Perfectly Clear Panel
3 x HDMI ports
2 x USB 2.0 ports
Supports USB Device: JPEG, MP3, MKV
Digital TV with built-in ISDB-T receiver
WiFi and LAN
Remote
USB WiFi dongle
140-watt power consumption (maximum)
1247mm x 788mm x 35mm (dimensions)

The Devant 55WIZ830 3D LED TV has a suggested retail price of about Php119,000USD 2,028INR 171,907EUR 1,931CNY 14,768 in mall stores and comes with a lot of freebies like Blu-ray player and speakers but can be bought for about Php85,000USD 1,448INR 122,791EUR 1,380CNY 10,549 in some online stores (forgot which Multiply store was selling it) just for the TV alone.

What we liked about the set:
* Elegant, thin and sexy design
* Internet features
* Very affordable in its class
* 3D capability

What we didn’t like about it:
* Limited internet and apps feature

Disclosure: I asked Devant if they can give one of their HD TVs to one of our lucky readers in a raffle and they agreed. Details about that contest will be posted once we’ve finalized it.