Not a lot of people know if Devant is a reliable brand when it comes to TVs. If you’re wondering, Devant is a Singaporean brand and you can only find their TVs being sold in big, trusted appliance stores nationwide. That says a lot about a brand’s reputation already.
The Devant 40SEL100 is a 40-inch LED-tech LCD TV. Don’t get confused between LED-tech LCD TV and a LED TV. There’s no difference there. Devant just used the term LED-tech because there’s no such thing as a LED TV. Just like in laptop displays, it’s still an LCD display but with a backlit LED technology, hence, Devant is advertising it correctly as a LED-tech LCD TV.
Setting up the 40SEL100 is very easy although you might want another person to help you keep the TV steady as you screw it on its very sturdy base. What’s nice about how this TV is installed is that you can easily swivel the display sideways to adjust the angle or for easy plugging of some cables at the back.
Speaking of plugging cables, this TV is pretty loaded with all sorts of ports aside from the standard antenna one. There are two USB ports, component and composite ports, a VGA port, and a total of four HDMI ports! This makes the 40SEL100 an ideal living room TV where you can connect your game consoles, set-top box, home entertainment system or what have you.
It’s also worth noting that the two USB ports are for the built-in digital media player. I tried all sorts of media files from AVI to MP4 and MKV and it can read them all off an external drive or a flash disk (I tried my 320GB external drive). It doesn’t support playback resume although there’s a feature where you can skip to a defined time on the movie.
This TV is also DTV-ready with its built-in ISDB-T receiver. Something you may want to consider when buying a brand new TV since DTV is going to make its way to the scene in the near future.
Aside from the fully loaded connections, what you would like about this TV is its slim profile. This TV can really make your living room look modern and the touch panel menu on the right side that lights up when activated gives this TV a premium appeal.
When you’re done setting up this TV, step back and just admire the new star of your home. This is how home viewing should be like. Pop in that Full HD 1080p movie and be blown away with the vibrant colors, the high contrast and the sharp picture. It will really make you want to go home early to catch up on your movies. Even standard definition videos look really good from a comfortable viewing distance. Their 120Hz Vivid Motion display will make sure that your hi-def action movies and console games will be as smooth and sharp as they are meant to be viewed.
I wondered how it would compare to a regular 40-inch LCD TV so I took a visit to my nearest appliance store where they have a 40-inch Devant LCD TV and this 40SEL100 showing the same video side by side. I noticed that on the LED TV, the picture looks ready to pop out from the screen. The animations look more lively and bursting with colors as compared to an LCD TV. I also compared this to a 30-inch LED TV and it’s really way better watching hi-def videos on a bigger screen.
Verdict
The Devant 40SEL100 is a top-notch LED TV that would fit your budget as compared to other leading brands. Its Php59,950 price tag is actually the cheapest among top brands and if you would like to invest on a big LED TV, I can definitely recommend the Devant 40SEL100. The 46-inch version would cost you Php30,000 more so the 40-inch looks like the sweet spot.