BIOS: Technology Means Business

Would you like to watch exceptional high-quality colour TV anywhere for only £99.99? Hell yeah! Perfect for the kitchen, the bedroom or even a caravan, the cute 8-inch T807 LCD (195x170x33mm) set from Evesham offers decent quality colour pictures for a very competitive, if not, giveaway price.

Evesham is attempting to reinvent the portable set with the T807 LCD TV. And we think it’s onto a winner. Designed to fit unobtrusively in a kitchen set up, or even to move around the home, the wholly-silver T807 delivered clean and crisp images in our tests, with viewing angles of 110-degrees, on its 4:3 screen.

The display also comes with an analogue terrestrial TV tuner on board for TV viewing (no aerial supplied), and sports an AV output so it can be hooked up to a DVD player or other compatible device. You could even connect a security camera to the screen. Unfortunately there’s no SCART or S-Video ports.

The T807 travels well too and comes with a 12-Volt cigarette lighter adapter (as well as a traditional mains plug), enabling you to power the set from your car or in your mobile home. It is also compatible with PAL, NTSC and SECAM signals, so it will pick up terrestrial TV signals in many countries across Europe. Other key features include a brightness of 380cd/m2, 250:1 contrast ratio, resolution of 640x480 pixels, and 25ms response time.

Having said that, it was only by looking through the on-screen menus that we found the option to change the system between PAL and SECAM. And we needed to change it to PAL-I to get sound (PAL-D/K, PAL-B/G did not produce sound). There was nothing about this in the manual! Another weakness in the instructions is the absence of explanation of what is required to complete the tuning process.

The set features integrated speakers and a headphone socket for listening on your own and can easily be operated via the supplied infrared remote control. The downside is that there’s no radio tuner and only one AV input, which requires the supplied USB cable. It’s a real shame you can’t connect a SCART or S-Video device, as this would have been really cool for videogaming on the go.

The matching silver stand was also a bit of a disappointment. Firstly, because we had to screw the stand onto the screen using the two supplied screws - trickier than it sounds because the screw holes are towards the top (or bottom depending on how you look) and inside of the stand, requiring a steady hand (or a magnetic screwdriver). Versatility of the set’s tabletop stand is relatively versatile as the lockable ball joint allows you to tilt, swivel and raise/lower the display.

Tuning functions allow you to alter the brightness and contrast of the display, along with colour, hue and sharpness levels. You can also setup and skip TV channels, fine tune the reception, adjust the frequency of the display, adjust the horizontal and vertical position, and alter the on-screen language.

A major benefit of this type of screen is that you can attach it to the side of a wall or cupboard, in a high position so it is readily visible and takes up no space at all. The rear of the casing also has a slot which enables the set to be hung on a wall using a single screw. The low screen resolution is not really suitable for normal everyday PC use, but it should be ideal for a kitchen, caravan, car or any other area tight on space.

If you’re looking for an inexpensive small set that you can view wherever you want in the house or on the move, Evesham’s 8-inch LCD set should more than fit the bill. Picture and sound quality were only average though, and our review unit had a dead pixel. Sound was also very tiny, but you could hook up a pair of external speakers using the 3.5mm headphone jack. There’s no Sleep Timer function either, and the lack of a digital TV tuner is rather poor given today’s TV climate. [6.5]

[Best LCD Monitor Pricing UK]
[Best LCD Monitor Pricing US]

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