Hannspree SV32LMNB

Hannspree has decided to make a comeback in the TV market with a new Edge LED screen backlit using LEDs around the outside of the display.  The new SV32LMNB has a 32'' LCD display that uses MVA technology.  In an effort to keep up with the big boys, Hannspree has included a 100 Hz motion interpolation filter for the first time.  Let's take a closer look at what this entry-level TV has to offer.

Build Quality and Design

Apart from that new 100 Hz mode, Hannspree's latest offering doesn't have much more than the bare minimum: three HDMI ports, two SCART sockets and one each of VGA, composite and component video inputs.  The remote control doesn't change the basic approach, and its only real advantage is that it's perfectly flat, so you can store it vertically.

There's a USB port on one side that you can use to attach some external storage, but not for recording or pausing live TV.  It can only play files stored on your external hard drive or USB key, but it doesn't even do a very good job of that.  Only devices formatted using FAT32 are supported, and it can only play MP4, MOV, MTS and M2TS video files, which is disappointing.

The menu is identical to the one used for the Haier LTF24Z6, and unlike on some other entry-level models, it does include a few graphics.  But it's still a long way behind what we're used to from bigger manufacturers, and there aren't many options beyond the basics like brightness, backlighting, contrast, sharpness, colour temperature, tint and saturation.

Ghosting and Input Lag

This TV really isn't getting off to a flying start.  As well as the very limited number of options, we really can't recommend it to avid gamers because of an average input lag of 66 ms (or four frames) compared to a CRT monitor.  It also set a new record in our ghosting time tests, but in the wrong way: we recorded an average figure of 44 ms!

Image Quality

To try and impress inexperienced viewers, manufacturers usually tweak the picture on their TVs to give a garish, eye-catching picture.  It might look nice, but it doesn't represent reality at all.  In this case, colour reproduction is all over the place and the average colour temperature is far too cold, leaving a blue tinge.

With most other TVs, we'd be able to fix around 80% of these problems by switching to Cinema or Film mode, but that just isn't the case here.  We were very disappointed by the results: even after trying for several hours, we couldn't manage to coax accurate colour reproduction out of the SV32LMNB, whose average deltaE was 4.7.


The contrast ratio, on the other hand, is a decent middling figure: black levels fall as low as 0.1 cm/m², helping it to climb to 2054:1, which is a perfectly reasonable result.

We found plenty of detail with SD content (DVDs, ordinary TV) as well as with HD (Blu-ray discs, HD TV).  Ghosting is, however, very visible around fast-moving objects which end up looking blurry, even in 100 Hz mode.

Clouding

To round the whole thing off, clouding is visible in the black stripes above and below films.  As you can see in the photo above, the uneven distribution of brightness is especially visible in the corners.  This is caused by the Edge LED backlighting.

Audio Quality

The audio isn't great: the thin frame and poor quality speakers result in a muffled sound, with bass almost entirely absent.  If you want to avoid covering your ears, you'd better buy some external speakers.

Energy Consumption

The SV32LMNB uses virtually no energy at all while on standby, with our equipment recording usage of between 0 and 0.1 W.  While switched on, the Edge LED backlighting keeps energy use down to just 56 W.