Kogan KULED461 46in LED TV review

You might not be familiar with Kogan, an Australian company that specialises in keenly priced electronics, so we were interested to see what its cut-price LED TV offering could manage. We reviewed the 46in model, but you can also buy a 55in version with identical features.

All the ports on the back of the set either face downwards or to the side, which is helpful for anyone looking to wall-mount. It has three HDMI inputs, which is surprisingly generous for a sub-£500 set, and we appreciated the addition of VGA, SCART, component and composite video (via adaptors), as well as coaxial digital audio and headphone outputs. There’s also a single USB port, and a Common Interface slot. It even has an Ethernet port, but don’t get too excited because it’s purely for firmware updates.

Sadly, it doesn’t support DLNA media streaming, so if you want to play your multimedia files you’ll need to do so via USB. We couldn’t get it to recognize our DivX files, but file format support was otherwise surprisingly good. MKV and XviD files worked perfectly, as did MOV and MP4 videos. With a spare USB memory stick or external hard disk, you can also turn the TV into a rudimentary PVR. Timeshift works fairly well, but the buttons that control the feature are incredibly small and the disappointingly basic onscreen program guide can’t be used to schedule future recordings. Without a 7-day EPG, you’re limited to now and next information, although the interface lets you watch one program while choosing another.

Surprisingly for this price, the integrated TV tuner includes Freeview HD, but we noticed that it struggled to maintain an image, occasionally losing signal and flashing up a black screen. It was rare, but certainly distracting when it happened. Broadcast TV suffered from poor image quality, with standard definition content being worst affected. There was a distinct lack of detail, with images either appearing too dull or far too lurid using the three image pre-sets. High definition channels were barely improved, as the slight increase in detail made it easier to spot the terrible motion handling.

We hoped matters would improve when we switched to Blu-ray, but we were left disappointed. There was a shocking lack of detail, which left the opening scene of Casino Royale looking more like an oil painting than a film. Colours appeared smudged in distant tracking shots, with close-ups only faring slightly better. We altered menu settings to try to improve picture quality, but there was little we could do because of the menu’s limited options.

Unsurprisingly, you don’t get 3D support for this price, but at least its sound quality was reasonable. The two 8W speakers were fine for watching television, but they couldn’t do justice to our Blu-ray test discs.

The KULED461HDAA is poor value, even for £450. Its picture quality is shocking, even in high definition, and its simple interface is lacking all but the most basic of features. If you’re looking for a cheap set to fill a space and aren’t concerned about these quite significant flaws, it’s difficult to find a bigger TV for less, but we definitely recommend spending more to get a much better set.