Best Buy Lcd HDTV Blog

What you need to know
Though I don't watch TV, I bought this unit as a gift for my wife who does and who wanted a receiver in the kitchen. Since we have limited space this unit is ideal. Though the instruction manual is deficient, the on-screen menus are mostly intuitive. Picture and sound quality are good for a unit of this size. Before you buy, here is what you need to know:

Unless you a located within a few miles of the transmitter, the supplied telescopic omni-directional antenna is entirely inadequate. I couldn't get anything except badly degraded reception of NTSC signals off air. Digital HD signals are broadcast on a different frequency band. I had to buy an antenna designed for optimum reception of HD; even then, weaker signals caused the otherwise excellent HD pictures and sound to pixillate and distort. For off air HD reception, expect to pay another to for an antenna designed to receive HD digital transmissions.

In the end, I decided that my wife would be unhappy with the limited choices of off-air broadcasts and so I installed a signal splitter in the cable company's signal feed to her other television and connected the Haier HLT71 to the second output from the splitter.

Connecting the supplied rechargeable battery is fiddly. Be careful inserting the small white two-pin connector and use a wooden or plastic probe to push the connector home. The battery is a tight fit. Connect the power pack to the wall power outlet and insert the round connector into the left side of the unit. Slide the switch on the left side to "ON"; the remote control has no effect until this switch is in the "ON" position.

Once everything is connected, use the remote control to display the on-screen menu. Use the direction keys to select the satellite dish and then use the down-arrow key to select the ANTENNA option; select either AIR or CATV, depending on where you are getting your signal. Use the down-arrow key to select SCAN and initiate the scan sequence with the right-arrow key. With CATV, cable, you should only have to scan once. With AIR, you will likely need to rescan from time to time, especially if you move the antenna around. I noticed that the found-channel counter rolled over from 256 to 1 while scanning CATV, telling me that there is only an 8-bit counter for this function.

Finally, if you are using cable, the standard RG6 coaxial cable is stiff and unwieldy. I bought GE brand ultra thin video cable from Home Depot, Pt. No. AV23278, and used it to connect the unit to the RG6 cable via a female-to-female splice. It is a much better solution and the cable easily concealed.

Overall the Haier HLT71 appears to be a good television, as long as you are prepared to spend more money and effort to get the best performance. It can deliver stereo sound. It comes with a power adapter for the car, as well as an A/V cable with RCA plugs on each end for connection to your component entertainment system; you can select the A/V source from the remote control. It has a flip-out stand to keep it upright on a flat surface and there is a camera tripod mounting hole on the lower edge of the unit.

Enjoy!

Disappointed
TV has the same issues as mentioned earlier by another reviewer--It will not retain the stations in memory when it is turned off. Have to go through the auto scan process each time it is turned on. Since I and at least one other person have experienced the aame failure, it appears there may be a bad batch out there. I will return mine and wait til a quality manufacturer comes out with a reliable 7 inch portable.

Picture quality was suspect also. There is very little detail in the picture and the black level could not be adjusted to improve it. Anything black had no detail unless you turn up the brightness and them the picture is washed out. Sound is ok. Remote is very good.

The tuner found 35 stations in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area. I am using an outdoor antenna since I am about 45 miles from the broadcast tower. I did not try it with any other type of antenna since I was planning on using it in the bathroom and attached to the out door antenna.

I would probably have kept it if it had not had the tuner/memory problem.

TV Loses Memory Settings
I wanted to like this TV because no one else makes anything else like it. However, after programming the channels and setting the picture options, whenever the TV was turned off and back on, the TV would lose all programmed channels and settings and display the error message "Database Not Found" or something similar. Then the channels and settings would all have to be reprogrammed. Kind of annoying. I returned the TV as a result, but didn't order a replacement since I wasn't sure another unit wouldn't have the same problem. As far as the reception, the unit picked up HDTV signals fine when connected to the house antenna. Don't expect to get very good reception unless you hook up to an external antenna. As far as the picture quality, the picture was bright, but the pixel density was not very high, and the contrast was poor. No where near the quality of a decent HDTV in your home. But for the price, I could probably live with the picture quality. I will be waiting until Sony or Panasonic comes out with a similar product that actually works, with a decent screen. Sony already has a portable DVD player with a good screen, they just need to take it and add an HD tuner.

Nice picture, weak tuner
I bought this to replace my old battery 5" CRT emergency TV. My hope was that I could somehow get a local digital channel which would play on it without power, using a rabbit ears. I managed to get it to do that. With the supplied antenna, though I live in a major metropolitan area about 8 miles east of the city and 17 miles northeast of most of the transmitters, I can get no digital signals, and a half dozen or so analog, all fuzzy. With something like the TERK HD rabbit ears, with the power turned off to it, I can get one or two local digitals (but NOT the one station I wanted to get). So, I can say it passed the emergency test.

On the other hand, the picture is outstanding and near HD, comparable to one of those portable wide screen DVD players. Playing time seems fairly robust, too, plus it has a car connector.

I give it a couple of negatives for not having an apparent real time on-screen signal strength meter, so you have no way of aiming the antenna easily. The included antenna does not telescope inside the case for easy storage, either. And you cannot just tune to some arbitrary station. There has to be enough signal for the AUTOSCAN to pick up a trace. So if you autoscan with the supplied antenna, it can find very few channels. Best thing to do is hook it up to the best antenna you can find somewhere and then autoscan, then take it home and see if you can tune in a signal there.

I'm also hoping after February 2009 that once every station is up to full digital power and on their permanent assigned frequencies this unit will work much better.

Nice, but........
This is no doubt a good value, but be aware that digital signals are inherently 'weak' in that they require lots of power for transmission. And at this time (pre-digital switch over) most digital signals are not strong enough to carry more than a few miles. So... if like me you live more than 20 miles away from the nearest transmitting tower, you won't get any digital reception. And the analog reception on this set is about the same (or a little worse) than a cheap analog portable - I get the same one station that my old set gets. Reception is enhanced by using a better set of 'rabbit ears' especially one that has a 'booster' that you plug in. But that eliminates the main use for a tv like this - to watch while traveling or camping. I'll keep mine and hope that stations boost their signals post-switch over. If I had it to do over again, though I would have waited until then and read the reviews.

What you need to know
Though I don't watch TV, I bought this unit as a gift for my wife who does and who wanted a receiver in the kitchen. Since we have limited space this unit is ideal. Though the instruction manual is deficient, the on-screen menus are mostly intuitive. Picture and sound quality are good for a unit of this size. Before you buy, here is what you need to know:

Unless you a located within a few miles of the transmitter, the supplied telescopic omni-directional antenna is entirely inadequate. I couldn't get anything except badly degraded reception of NTSC signals off air. Digital HD signals are broadcast on a different frequency band. I had to buy an antenna designed for optimum reception of HD; even then, weaker signals caused the otherwise excellent HD pictures and sound to pixillate and distort. For off air HD reception, expect to pay another to for an antenna designed to receive HD digital transmissions.

In the end, I decided that my wife would be unhappy with the limited choices of off-air broadcasts and so I installed a signal splitter in the cable company's signal feed to her other television and connected the Haier HLT71 to the second output from the splitter.

Connecting the supplied rechargeable battery is fiddly. Be careful inserting the small white two-pin connector and use a wooden or plastic probe to push the connector home. The battery is a tight fit. Connect the power pack to the wall power outlet and insert the round connector into the left side of the unit. Slide the switch on the left side to "ON"; the remote control has no effect until this switch is in the "ON" position.

Once everything is connected, use the remote control to display the on-screen menu. Use the direction keys to select the satellite dish and then use the down-arrow key to select the ANTENNA option; select either AIR or CATV, depending on where you are getting your signal. Use the down-arrow key to select SCAN and initiate the scan sequence with the right-arrow key. With CATV, cable, you should only have to scan once. With AIR, you will likely need to rescan from time to time, especially if you move the antenna around. I noticed that the found-channel counter rolled over from 256 to 1 while scanning CATV, telling me that there is only an 8-bit counter for this function.

Finally, if you are using cable, the standard RG6 coaxial cable is stiff and unwieldy. I bought GE brand ultra thin video cable from Home Depot, Pt. No. AV23278, and used it to connect the unit to the RG6 cable via a female-to-female splice. It is a much better solution and the cable easily concealed.

Overall the Haier HLT71 appears to be a good television, as long as you are prepared to spend more money and effort to get the best performance. It can deliver stereo sound. It comes with a power adapter for the car, as well as an A/V cable with RCA plugs on each end for connection to your component entertainment system; you can select the A/V source from the remote control. It has a flip-out stand to keep it upright on a flat surface and there is a camera tripod mounting hole on the lower edge of the unit.

Enjoy!

Disappointed
TV has the same issues as mentioned earlier by another reviewer--It will not retain the stations in memory when it is turned off. Have to go through the auto scan process each time it is turned on. Since I and at least one other person have experienced the aame failure, it appears there may be a bad batch out there. I will return mine and wait til a quality manufacturer comes out with a reliable 7 inch portable.

Picture quality was suspect also. There is very little detail in the picture and the black level could not be adjusted to improve it. Anything black had no detail unless you turn up the brightness and them the picture is washed out. Sound is ok. Remote is very good.

The tuner found 35 stations in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area. I am using an outdoor antenna since I am about 45 miles from the broadcast tower. I did not try it with any other type of antenna since I was planning on using it in the bathroom and attached to the out door antenna.

I would probably have kept it if it had not had the tuner/memory problem.

TV Loses Memory Settings
I wanted to like this TV because no one else makes anything else like it. However, after programming the channels and setting the picture options, whenever the TV was turned off and back on, the TV would lose all programmed channels and settings and display the error message "Database Not Found" or something similar. Then the channels and settings would all have to be reprogrammed. Kind of annoying. I returned the TV as a result, but didn't order a replacement since I wasn't sure another unit wouldn't have the same problem. As far as the reception, the unit picked up HDTV signals fine when connected to the house antenna. Don't expect to get very good reception unless you hook up to an external antenna. As far as the picture quality, the picture was bright, but the pixel density was not very high, and the contrast was poor. No where near the quality of a decent HDTV in your home. But for the price, I could probably live with the picture quality. I will be waiting until Sony or Panasonic comes out with a similar product that actually works, with a decent screen. Sony already has a portable DVD player with a good screen, they just need to take it and add an HD tuner.

Nice picture, weak tuner
I bought this to replace my old battery 5" CRT emergency TV. My hope was that I could somehow get a local digital channel which would play on it without power, using a rabbit ears. I managed to get it to do that. With the supplied antenna, though I live in a major metropolitan area about 8 miles east of the city and 17 miles northeast of most of the transmitters, I can get no digital signals, and a half dozen or so analog, all fuzzy. With something like the TERK HD rabbit ears, with the power turned off to it, I can get one or two local digitals (but NOT the one station I wanted to get). So, I can say it passed the emergency test.

On the other hand, the picture is outstanding and near HD, comparable to one of those portable wide screen DVD players. Playing time seems fairly robust, too, plus it has a car connector.

I give it a couple of negatives for not having an apparent real time on-screen signal strength meter, so you have no way of aiming the antenna easily. The included antenna does not telescope inside the case for easy storage, either. And you cannot just tune to some arbitrary station. There has to be enough signal for the AUTOSCAN to pick up a trace. So if you autoscan with the supplied antenna, it can find very few channels. Best thing to do is hook it up to the best antenna you can find somewhere and then autoscan, then take it home and see if you can tune in a signal there.

I'm also hoping after February 2009 that once every station is up to full digital power and on their permanent assigned frequencies this unit will work much better.

Nice, but........
This is no doubt a good value, but be aware that digital signals are inherently 'weak' in that they require lots of power for transmission. And at this time (pre-digital switch over) most digital signals are not strong enough to carry more than a few miles. So... if like me you live more than 20 miles away from the nearest transmitting tower, you won't get any digital reception. And the analog reception on this set is about the same (or a little worse) than a cheap analog portable - I get the same one station that my old set gets. Reception is enhanced by using a better set of 'rabbit ears' especially one that has a 'booster' that you plug in. But that eliminates the main use for a tv like this - to watch while traveling or camping. I'll keep mine and hope that stations boost their signals post-switch over. If I had it to do over again, though I would have waited until then and read the reviews.