Kogan 1080P-47

This Full HD LCD TV from Kogan has a budget price but performs well.

Good Gear Guide

The Kogan 1080P-47 LCD TV has a much lower price tag than you would expect given the impressive image quality. It offers a 100Hz mode, dynamic contrast and digital noise reduction.

Pros

  • Cheaper than chips, decent contrast and high brightness, Full HD

Cons

  • Lower contrast and fewer HDMI ports than other 47in models

Bottom Line

At this price you would struggle to find a 42in LCD TV from competing brands, making the Kogan 1080P-47 an absolute bargain. Picture quality is impressive for the price as well.

Would you buy this?

  • Price

    $ 1,699.00 (AUD)

Its design is not particularly impressive, however. A matte dark grey finish and a relatively thick bezel with bottom-mounted speakers combine to give the television a very heavy, hulking stature. This is despite it being reasonably thin at 12.4cm. A power button is hidden on the bottom of the bezel on the right, while the standby and volume buttons are on the unit’s right side.

There are no side-mounted ports like competitors offer, with the two HDMI and component ports and single D-Sub, composite and S-Video connectors all rear-mounted and facing downwards. This aids mounting because the television can sit flush with the wall. Kogan offers a wall mount that supports the Kogan 1080P-47.

The television has a 10,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio, which falls to 1600:1 with dynamic contrast alteration disabled. This is obviously significantly lower than LED backlit televisions like the Sony BRAVIA XBR45 and the Samsung Series 9 as well as traditionally backlit models like the Samsung Series 8, but we found it was still more than acceptable for everyday watching. The dynamic contrast mode altered backlight brightness quickly and with few errors. With the mode enabled we were impressed with the range and gradation of colours visible as well as detail obvious in dark and light areas of the screen.

When using the default cinema setting we were equally pleased with the colour depth. Bright colours were vibrant but never seemed oversaturated. Skin tones were impressively accurate, with only a small amount of tweaking necessary to get the best picture.

The panel performed well in our high-definition gaming and Blu-ray tests, rendering a crisp and sharp image with minimal digital noise. We noticed some artefacts on the edges of the main menu screen when using an Xbox 360 but this is the only instance in which we could pick out a significant high-definition fault.

Standard-definition content was handled acceptably, with the Kogan television’s upscaler occasionally struggling to smoothly reproduce 480p footage from The Matrix's motion-heavy lobby scene. We were able to notice some artefacting and graininess here, with the Kogan 1080P-47's upscaling delivering a jagged look rather than the smoothness we prefer.

Motion reproduction was another strong point of the television, with the 100Hz mode reducing jitter without looking unnatural or introducing distortion. A response time of 5ms ensures that there is no ghosting or trailing of images. We gave the arcade racing game GRID a run on the Xbox 360 and the computer-controlled cars exhibited no odd motion blur — gaming was sharp and lag-free.

Kogan’s 47in TV is not an impressive model when turned off, we admit; it is when it is displaying high-definition content that it shines. If the brand name was hidden, we think it could easily pass for a model costing $1000 more. As it stands, $1700 for a 47in panel with image quality this good is a bargain.

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