Olevia 537H LCD HDTV Review

Almost Perfect: A Few Imperfections Mar This Otherwise Flawless HDTV

If you’re looking to get into the world of HDTV on a budget, you can’t do much better than the Olevia 537H LCD HDTV. Currently retailing on Amazon.com for under $700, this 37″ LCD flat panel delivers picture quality comparable to units costing twice as much.

The 1600:1 true contrast ratio produces excellent colors and bright whites, although the darks require a little adjustment from the factory settings to get just right. Otherwise, the picture quality is excellent, and the 8ms response time ensures that even the fastest action movies will display without ghosting or tearing.

A couple of features of this HDTV set it apart from other budget units. First is the high-quality built-in tuner. Most units at this price point have cheap ATSC tuners, meaning that standard definition television programs can look very poor. While SD television programming will never look as good as HD, the quality of SD programs on the Olevia 537H is outstanding. With the built-in tuner, the unit is already prepared for the digital switch-over in 2009.

Another excellent feature is the wide number of inputs. There are ten unique inputs, covering everything from HDMI for your HD-DVD or Blu-ray DVD to a VGA port allowing you to use the unit as a computer monitor. That being said, this is also where one of the flaws in the Olevia 537H pops up: the unit doesn’t remember what input it was on when powered down, switching to the “tuner” input every time it’s turned off. Having to cycle through ten inputs every time you then it on does get a little old after a while.

While on the subject, the power on/off is another minor quibble. First, the Olevia 537H has a rather long start-up time, about 10-15 seconds. Second, the power light comes on when the unit is on and turns off when powered down. This is counter-intuitive to how most power lights on televisions work today, and means that when it is on, an otherwise dark room is illuminated with a faint blue glow.

One very nice feature of this unit is the user-upgradeable firmware, dubbed “FutureProof” by Olevia. It allows you to download firmware updates from Olevia’s website to a USB key drive and just plug the drive into the unit to upgrade it. Other manufacturers would be well-served to copy this feature.

The styling of the unit is very nice, although a little thick for a flat-panel, with the previously mentioned power light being the most noticeable flaw here. The on-screen menu is exhaustive in the features you can access and adjust, but takes a little getting used to.

Olevia HDTV-537H The biggest complaint about the Olevia 537H is its lack of 1080p support. It supports 1080i, and the vast majority of people can’t tell the difference, even with side-by-side comparison. You’re also unlikely, quite frankly, to find any HDTV at this price point that supports 1080p. But if you’re absolutely determined to have a unit that supports 1080p, this is obviously not the one for you.