Kogan 32in Full HD 100Hz LED TV

Kogan’s newest LED TV can pause live TV and has good speakers

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The Kogan 32in Full HD 100Hz LED TV is a cheap small-screen TV that has a few features that make it more attractive than other budget brands’ offerings. The PVR function works well and we like the speakers — they’re good for a small TV and are well suited to a small room like an office or study.

Pros

  • PVR functionality works well and only requires a USB flash drive
  • Speakers are surprisingly good for a cheap, thin TV
  • Picture quality is acceptable

Cons

  • 100Hz mode isn’t quite as good as competitors
  • Sony’s better-featured EX420 is only $200 more

Bottom Line

Kogan’s 32in Full HD 100Hz LED TV is a good television for the price you’re paying, and it has some useful features we haven’t found in other cheap models. If it was under $600 we’d recommend it in a heartbeat, but as it stands you can buy an excellent Sony for only $200 or so more -- which makes the decision harder.

Would you buy this?

  • Price

    $ 639.00 (AUD)

Kogan 32in Full HD 100Hz LED TV: Design, features and remote control

Kogan’s 32in Full HD 100Hz LED TV follows the standard template for a no-frills LED TV pretty closely — it’s reasonably thin at 31mm thick, has a clean glossy black bezel and a translucent plastic-and-glass base. It doesn’t stand out from other cheap LED TVs like the Grundig Vanto, but it definitely isn’t ugly.

The Kogan 32in Full HD 100Hz LED TV distinguishes itself from no-name competitors with a built-in PVR function — as long as you have a partially-empty flash drive plugged in via USB, you can pause, rewind and record live TV using the remote control. We used this feature a little when testing the 32in Full HD 100Hz LED TV and it didn’t miss a beat — a small flash drive will fill up quickly, but unless you’re recording more than a couple of programs before you watch them all this won’t be a problem.

We’re familiar with Kogan’s standard remote control layout from way back — it’s near-identical to the remote bundled with the company’s older TVs and Blu-ray disc players — and we don’t think it needs to change. It’s simply laid out and well labelled, and we don’t think it would present any problem to even first-time users.

Kogan 32in Full HD 100Hz LED TV: Picture quality and performance

The Kogan 32in Full HD 100Hz LED TV has good but not excellent picture quality. We think it’s worth the asking price, but it’s possible to get superior picture if you pay a little more — Sony’s 720p EX420 is able to display slightly more detail in black and bright white areas of the screen, and the Panasonic TH-P32X25A can show marginally more detail when viewing high quality content like a Blu-ray movie.

To get the best picture, we turned the sharpness down and also dropped contrast, saturation and brightness levels slightly. After this bit of tweaking, we found the Kogan 32in Full HD 100Hz LED TV to be able to display good levels of detail in 1080p Blu-ray video — matching the Kogan’s 1080p native resolution — with good skin detail and no evidence of over-sharpening or artifacting. The TV isn’t as great when it comes to displaying DVD video, which looks a little soft, but digital TV looks good — especially HD channels.

We liked the speakers in the Kogan 32in Full HD 100Hz LED TV — for a small TV they do a surprisingly good job and are clear until painfully high volume levels. We’d happily use this TV in a small or medium room — only a large living room would need the help of a larger sound system, but then screen size would also be an issue as well.

The Kogan 32in Full HD 100Hz LED TV’s 100Hz mode does a reasonably good job of smoothing broadcast TV, which can tend to look a little choppy on cheaper screens. It does occasionally struggle with Blu-ray video, with some fast-panning scenes in The Dark Knight tending to be blurrier than when displayed with 100Hz disabled.

Kogan 32in Full HD 100Hz LED TV: Conclusion

Kogan’s 32in Full HD 100Hz LED TV does a good job of displaying TV as long as you’re not expecting the utmost in picture quality. Its speakers are better than we expected in a cheap TV, as well, and the PVR functionality comes in handy. Kogan’s main problem comes in the form of ever-lower prices from big-name competitors like Samsung, Sony and Panasonic.

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