John Lewis JL22LCD HD
High street favourite's own brand telly
Review John Lewis may have some odd traditions, such as the one about the chairman being the only person in the partnership allowed to write in green ink, but the posh store has also long been popular with canny TV buyers. Besides a decent selection of tellies, the other reasons are because of the company’s price match promise and free five year extended warranties. Now, taking things a step further, John Lewis has launched its own range of branded TVs, with the 22in model looking like a possible option as a second set.
The duvet diving companion: John Lewis' JL22LCD HD
From the front, the John Lewis JL22LCDHD TV doesn’t look half bad, as the glossy black finish and silver highlights are pretty inoffensive to the eye. The speaker grille at the bottom of the set does look a tad old fashion in today’s world of ‘invisible’ TV speakers, but it’s the thickness of the chassis that’s the most off putting aspect of the design. I’ve seen a fair few portable TVs with built-in DVD players that are slimmer than this model.
The TV may only have a rather small 22in screen, but this still hasn’t stopped John Lewis from packing in the pixels because this set boasts a Full HD 1080p panel. Around the back it also has a decent line up of ports for a portable set.
There are two HDMI sockets for hooking up high definition equipment like set top boxes and Blu-ray players, plus a set of component inputs, a Scart socket and a VGA port for use with a PC to function as a monitor.
Once you’ve tuned the Freeview channels – it’s an SD tuner only, rather than a new DVB-T2 HD version – you’ll find that both the main menu and the EPG are beautifully presented in a light green and blue colour scheme.
Handy selection here with headphone, card slot and composite access on the side too
However, the EPG only fills the central two thirds of the screen, so if you’re viewing it from a fair distance it can be a little difficult to read. Also, the smaller size of the layout means that only two hours of programming are shown at any one time.
COMMENTS
Viewing angles? Is it a TN?
It wasn't mentioned in the review, but smaller, cheaper screens (especially at Full HD resolution) are very often TN types, whose contrast varies enormously with viewing angle. You have to be sitting right in front of them. This is fine for a desktop monitor, not so great for a home TV.
[Easy to spot the duff ones in a shop, btw: just look at the screen from below.]
Linsar - correct
Yup, I worked in Audio & TV while I was at university (graduated last year), and I can confirm as above that the Washing Machines (and white goods in general) are Electrolux, the digital radios either Pure or Magicbox, depending on the range, and the TVs Linsar (the same company, funnily enough, as Avtex).
Rebadged.
"No Alan, It's called a Rover Metro now"
"They've rebadged it you fool"
I would imagine it's a cheapo set rebadged with a nice big mark up. Those who know quality will return it, those who don't will make them a lot of profit.
Own brand
Actually the washing machines, fridges and dishwashers are Electrolux; I think Miele are a bit like Kellogg's when it comes to white-boxing. Let's just say I have insider knowledge on these things.
These TVs are made by Linsar and all I will say is you get what you pay for but be thankful JL give you a 5-year guarantee.
And there was me thinking....
...anything like this by John Lewis would have had the numbers 3 through 5 optional.
