Screen
dreams.
No,
we didn't know Polaroid made anything other than those instant print
cameras either, but by golly they do. You might be more familiar with
thinking of Polaroid as a strictly photographic brand, but apparently
they have a whole range of products out there, including bloody huge
tellies! We got our hands (and our eyes) on one such example, banged
the popcorn in the microwave, sat back, and enjoyed the hell out of
the Polaroid Series 6 Ultra HD Smart TV.
This
model of TV, which is being exclusively sold through ASDA, comes in
two sizes; a 55 inch screen (which is what we tested), and also a
whopping 65 inch version as well. We normally leave this till last,
but the crucial thing to mention first off is the price which really
caught our attention. For just £699 you can get the 55 incher, while
£1099 will get you the 65 incher. That is pretty incredible these
days for a TV that claims to be Ultra High Definition and includes
features such as 3D conversion. So for that price it must be a big
pile of crap, right?
Well,
no. First of all the TV itself is extremely thin, can be either
wall-mounted or sit upon the two included feet, features Bluetooth
connectivity, and ships with four pairs of decent 3D specs. In terms
of physical connectedness, there are four HDMI ports, two USB ports,
as well as an old school SCART socket. And of course, as this is
indeed a smart TV, there is WiFi as standard. The unit feels very
robust and solid, and at no point during freeing the thing from the
box and getting it into position in the living room did we think we
might accidentally put too much pressure on the screen and damage it.
It all feels very well put together. You're still waiting for the
'but', aren't you?
But...
nothing. Set up was a doddle, and as soon as you plug it in and use
the remote to switch it on, the Polaroid Series 6 Ultra HD Smart TV
will immediately start to scan for channels. So long as your aerial
or digibox is already connected this whole process takes a couple of
minutes. In no time at all we had access to 60 Freeview channels, as
well as 12 HD channels. The on-screen programme guide is nicely
laid-out and easy to navigate, as is the TV's main menu which allows
you work your way to the 'Smart' functions. This is what we were
really interested in.
To
be honest, we don't tend to watch normal TV in Test Pit Towers. Our
main source of entertainment (other than threatening the neighbour's
cat with Nerf guns) is the internet, via Netflix and YouTube. We were
mainly excited to see how these online sources of fun were handled by
the Polaroid Series 6 Ultra HD Smart TV, and we were impressed. Both
Netflix and YouTube are delivered by way of pre-installed apps, and
in fact (although it took us about three days to notice this) those
two also have their own dedicated buttons on the remote, complete
with printed logos. Nice touch indeed, Polaroid.
So
how about the view? Both sizes of the Polaroid Series 6 Ultra HD
Smart TV feature a 3840 x 2160 display, which (on the 55 inch screen
at least) looked great. Obviously it will seem much better depending
on what you're watching, and also how fast your internet is that
provides it. More modern shows on Netflix, which were filmed and
presented in HD, looked great, while older analogue shows tended to
fuzz up a bit around the edges. This is to be expected however, and
certainly wasn't enough to spoil the enjoyment of show. The screen
really showed off it's true Ultra HD capabilities when connected up
to a Blu-ray player playing a similarly Ultra HD film.
We
also got great joy out of the Polaroid Series 6 Ultra HD Smart TV's
ability to play media files. After plugging in an external hard drive
into one of the USB ports, we could quickly browse the files on there
and play them in Ultra HD. Again, if the compression of the digital
file is quite low the poor quality will show itself a lot more on a
TV like this, but a large-size file (such as .mkv, like all the stuff
we tried it with) looked awesome.
So
there really wasn't anything bad to say about the Polaroid Series 6
Ultra HD Smart TV, despite our assumption that some corners must have
been cut to get the price down so low on both versions. Granted,
we're not TV experts at all, so although we found the quality of the
picture, and of the user interface, to be good, you might have a
different experience if all you've ever had is £2000+ TVs. But if
you're looking for what possibly might be your first foray into the
world of smart TVs, of just need one that does the job and does it
well without a massive song and dance, we truly do recommend the
Polaroid Series 6 Ultra HD Smart TV.
55”
- £699
65”
- £1099
Exclusively available in ASDA stores.