Could this be the world's worst display? (Asda Venturer 15 inch TV review)

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Background

For a while, supermarket chain ASDA (British Walmart) experimented with selling store-brand electronics, under the brand "Venturer". Among the products was this television. It's about 5 years old, but my 15 year old TV (very early LCD) blows it clean out of the water. As does pretty much every other display I've used. And you're soon to see why.

 

To be fair this TV was ultra cheap. It sold for quite a bit less than £100 (though I don't remember the original price). But, I wouldn't have wished it on anyone, even when it was new, especially when you consider what others are/were making for little more than that.

 

Design

This TV is an ugly slab of cheap moulded plastic in glossy black. The bezel at the bottom is around 5cm and contains the world's worst speaker, along with an obnoxiously bright red LED which flashes for 10 seconds whenever the TV is turned on. The word "Venturer" is written above the speaker.

 

The actual panel is covered with plastic, not glass, and can actually be pushed in and wiggled around using my thumb. It's light enough to pick up comfortably with just one hand.

The panel is a 15.6 inch LED backlit LCD display in 16:10 resolution. I don't know what technology it's using specifically, but I'd imagine it's something cheap.

 

The remote contains everything you need to operate the TV, or you can use the buttons located on the back. They feel nasty to press, but it gets the job done.

 

On the back, you'll find a coax in, HDMI in, composite video and SCART. The power cable cannot be detached.

 

Image Quality

This panel is so awful that you don't even need to have it displaying an image to see how awful it is. Let's take a look at what this display looks like when showing a completely black screen.

 

The first thing you'll notice is that black isn't actually black. It's more a kind of dark blue.

Also, the backlight isn't even at all. It's far, far brighter at the bottom than the top.

Finally, though this isn't visible in the photo, it has terrible, TERRIBLE glare. I might as well use it as a mirror. Seriously. It's really bad.

 

 

OK, let's look at it actually displaying something. I've used some YouTube channels. They're a good example of modern interface design (of the type you'd be using on a monitor) and the pages tend to be pretty colourful so I thought it was a good way to test!

 

Firstly mine, because it has a high resolution photo as the banner making it good for comparisons, and also because I know I won't sue myself for copyright! (I don't want to promote my channel and as such I won't be giving anyone links to it on here. Not least because to do so is almost certainly against the rules).

 

I'm aware, by the way, that the pictures don't line up properly. This is owing to the screens being different sizes.

That speaks for itself. The black text is a washed-out grey, the photo is nothing like it should look, the text is fuzzy and hard to read

 

Secondly, this guy called Linus. I don't know if you've heard of him but he makes daily videos about tech stuff. I think his team also runs a forum which you should all go join?? Anyway...

Notice how mismatched and washed-out the colours are. Even the Windows taskbar doesn't look the right colour.

 

Viewing angles

There are no angles at which an image can be acceptably viewed on this display.

 

Speakers

Better sound quality can be achieved by leaving my headset on the desk next to me and routing the audio through that, than by using the speakers built into the monitor. I don't have a good way to demonstrate this unfortunately, but believe me, it's true.

 

Conclusion

I don't think ASDA still sells these. They've moved on to selling TVs made by whoever owns the Polaroid brand these days, and believe me, they are INFINITELY BETTER IN EVERY RESPECT.

However, they turn up quite frequently in clearance or on eBay, so if you come across one - DO NOT BUY IT!

 

The only good thing about it is that it's lasted 5 years without entirely disintegrating, which in and of itself is a miracle, considering how poorly put together it is.

 

Anyway I hope you enjoyed reading my review and look forward to your feedback - please ask any questions you may have!