BenQ E42-5000 Review

LED LCD televisions have become hugely popular in the past year and this is mainly due to the considerable price drop. Previously, one would have to buy an LED TV after paying an arm and a leg. Hence, the market was mainly dominated by LCD televisions without LED backlighting technology. Once LED televisions became mainstream, the Edge-LED backlighting technology caught on the most, as it allowed manufacturers to launch this segment of TVs with a very slim depth. BenQ, a brand mainly known for monitors, projectors and optical drives for PCs have launched the E42-5000, an LED LCD TV with features such as full HD 1080p video playback, a USB interface, Edge-LED backlighting and other interesting features. Read on to know more about this LED TV offering from BenQ.

Extremely slim side profile

Design and Build Quality
As noted before, BenQ is a brand that is better known as the manufacturer of desktop monitors and for some strange reason they have designed this HDTV, in a style similar to a monitor. When one enters the room in which it has been placed, they may mistake this television for a high end monitor. It is not that this HDTV is ugly, in fact it is quite stylish with a glossy black bezel and a chrome plated stand. The depth of the television, which is an inch thick at its deepest is the design aspect that appealed to us the most.

The bezel, at the bottom features a brushed aluminium strip, which adds a contrast to the rest of the glossy black bezel. The controls located at the front are touch sensitive and the controls here feature options for switching between the channels, adjusting the volume, selecting the different inputs, menu and power. Located to the left of these controls is the power indicator and BenQ could have done better in designing this. When off, the indicator is bright red, which reminds us of some of the LCD televisions that were available a few years ago. The indicator when off is yellow and overall a bit distracting if you're seated in a dark room.

Brushed aluminium finish on the stand

Connectivity options for the television are found at the back and they are side and downward facing. HDTVs using Edge-LED technology tend to align the connections in this way, so it can be wall mounted without any cluttering of cables. This TV has three HDMI ports, component ports, two USB ports, PC audio port and a 3.5mm audio jack, which are located at the side. The down facing connectors featured here, include component, SPDIF, antenna and a port for VGA. The back panel is made of metal and it looks really sturdy. The remote that came bundled with it has a glossy finish with some hints of red.

The build quality of the television is really good and the bezel along with the back panel feels strong. The base of the television is extremely sturdy and the chrome-finished stand supports the television well. Though the television may resemble a monitor, it is stylish and we were quite impressed with the build quality as well.

Features
The primary and most notable feature of the BenQ E42-5000 is the Edge-LED backlighting and with it in turn the slim profile. A feature, which BenQ has not overlooked and is extremely common is the ability to playback full HD 1080p content.

Neat interface

The television boasts of a 120hz refresh rate. This helps in giving that smooth effect to content, especially scenes in which there are fast paced action sequences. This feature can be reduced in the settings. However, even when turned off completely, there is still a slight amount of blurring taking place. The interface of this television is really neat and we liked the layout a lot. The font size was perfect and the widgets have a slight animation to them. It is not too congested and rather minimalistic, which appealed to us quite a lot. Companies have a tendency of adding a lot of colour and images to the interface of their televisions, which may be quite distracting. But, BenQ has done a good job using a simple interface with this television.

The USB interface is good as well with it having a blue background. One can view contents in the form of thumbnails and have access to all contents on the drive at once. Some brands tend to add HD media player-like interfaces with it being divided into photos, videos, music, etc. BenQ has not done this and made it quite simple like accessing files from a Windows folder. Alternatively, one has the option to view a particular media type as well with there being options for photos, music and videos. The television can read only FAT32 drives. We plugged in a number of NTFS drives, but we were greeted with the message saying unsupported device. The television can support a number of video formats and it can play video files of USB flash drives on the fly.