Like every other Indian household, we have also transitioned through different TV models. My all-time favorite is the BPL one with a door. Everytime we opened the door, the characters coming alive felt like magic. At a theatre production, when those curtains go out at the start, this TV offered that kind of a feeling. However, it was probably second to Crown, which was a commonplace back at a time when TV was seen as luxury.
So, we transitioned from Crown to BPL to Onida CRT TV before landing on a 40-inch Sony Bravia. During this journey, the TV continued to become less important while they also became more expensive and difficult to get fixed. Then came the pandemic and entered the 55-inch Vu Premium 4K TV. The funny part here is that we have kept this TV right in front of our wall-mounted Sony TV. It was really easy to install the stands and make the TV stand on the table.
Vu Premium 4K TV: Easy to install and use
I was expecting this to be a DIY exercise but turned out to be too easy. Once you power it on, there is a TV with lots of widgets that are easy to read, whether you are young or old. Now that we are all at home, I have been observing how all of us in the family are converging in front of the TV. There is no longer a fight for the remote or quarrel over Hotstar or Amazon Prime Video. It’s usually one person picking the content and the rest follow in line. The amount of time spent in front of the TV has also gone up significantly. I can safely say that we have our TV working for at least 10 hours everyday.
Sometimes, the TV is ON and playing some music because we don’t want to play it on our speaker system, even though that would produce better sound. We always thought that 40-inch was enough for our family but now I wouldn’t mind getting the 65-inch variant. It is clear now: bigger is better. With the 55-inch Vu Premium 4K TV, you get a TV capable of playing back Ultra HD content. It also supports Dolby Vision for HDR and has a rated brightness of 400 nits. I never had an issue with brightness at our home, since we prefer a dimly lit environment while watching together. However, I didn’t feel the black levels to be deep or accurate.
There were times when we found ourselves switching between the display settings of the device. Once you find a level that works the best, it becomes a great option. We were recently watching Ford vs Ferrari and while the scenes stood out, the scenes showing the Ford GT in action were not always smooth. This could be because of the 60Hz refresh rate of the screen or lack of optimization between 2GB RAM and quad-core processor powering the device.
Fire TV Out, Android TV In
For the record, we switched from Fire TV Stick to Android TV, the operating system powering this Vu Premium 4K TV. I cannot tell you how great it is to use an operating system designed for mobiles first on the big screen, especially the continuity it brings between the phone and the big screen. We have been using Google Assistant a lot and also Chromecast to stream content. We are casting school content received on the phone directly to TV because the kid prefers to sit in front of the bigger screen instead of the smaller one.
As I said before, this is not a review but instead an observation of how TV has evolved and our views around it. It’s not like Vu Premium 4K TV is perfect but instead it gets a beautiful experience in front of a large audience at an affordable price point. It starts at Rs 24,990 and the 55-inch 55PM model costs only Rs 31,999. I don’t want to tell you how much we paid for our 40-inch Sony Bravia (whispers it was more). However, that’s not where you cost or investment ends really.
The 30W speaker, even though Dolby Audio certified, is not as good as that seen on Vu Cinema TV. So, I believe investing in a soundbar would be a sound choice. I do love the remote which wants to be a traditional remote and will appeal to older folks more than the millennials. But it does cover all the basics including dedicated buttons for streaming platforms and option to change source. A TV should be where the entire family comes to unwind and for me, this Vu Premium 4K TV has been doing that for the past few months. I couldn’t have asked for more.