The Digital Prism 7" Portable LCD TV: A Review

I was able to snag one of these for $40 on sale a couple of months ago at Office Depot. The more regular retail price I'm seeing around for them is $70-$80. At $40 I'm pretty satisfied, but at $80 I might have felt like I paid a little too much given the list of little niggles it has.

First, the features. This is a 7 inch LCD screen (measured diagonally) that runs off of AC power or a rechargeable battery. It also has a coaxial cable jack and the red-yellow-white audio/visual jacks for hooking up DVD players and game systems and such. The TV can run in a 16:9 widescreen mode for movie watching. It also comes with a car adapter and remote control. The attached antenna telescopes and folds, and can be fixed in position once extended. There's also a small stand in the back to prop the TV up.

The TV does function while moving or in any position, but if you're receiving a broadcast signal, it has to be upright. This is the first problem with the unit, as the stand in the back does not prop it up at a good angle to give you a flat viewing surface from the front. With the LCD screen this is a problem, as these screens are hard to see when not viewed from the right angle, as any laptop owner surely knows. I had to kind of clumsily jury-rig something to prop it up at a flatter angle while also providing a counterweight in front to keep it upright without worry about knocking it forward on the face. This problem does only apply to broadcast, however; if the input is coming from cable or A/V, you can do whatever you want with the TV with no problems.

The picture is quite decent, but at the factory default brightness, it's way too low. This combined with the problem of propping it up at a good angle can make it frustratingly hard to see unless you're less than 2 feet in front of it. If you do get one try cranking the brightness up at least 25% immediately for a much better picture. Sound is adequate, with two small stereo speakers mounted in the front, and a headphone jack.

Aside from having to keep the unit upright, broadcast reception presents another problem. With the new digital standard, "hiccups" in broadcasts come in the form of pixel explosions on the screen and really annoying, jaggy robot noises. That isn't entirely the fault of the unit, but when it loses sound for a period of more than a few seconds there's a really loud mechanical "pop" for some reason from the speakers. When you have iffy reception on a channel it can really get jarring and torturous to watch and listen to.

The remote is the final issue. It's very cute and compact, and has a surprising amount of features. It's totally unreliable unless you're directly in front of the TV and no more than about five feet away, unfortunately.

Ultimately this TV depends on what you want to do with it. If you primarily intend to use it with cable or A/V input, it's a pretty great deal for $40 and works very well. I consider broadcast almost unwatchable unless you have an extremely strong signal, however. It's also only really "portable" in the sense of "easily packing it to set up in another fixed location", not "holding it in your lap in the car or at a ballgame", since you have to keep it propped upright to receive broadcast signals.