Customer Reviews

242T - Olevia 42inch LCD HDTV

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I already owned a 27" Olevia LCD HDTV when I purchased this 42" model - I was not disappointed! I had never heard of the company before I bought my first LCD HDTV a few months ago (27" at a RIDICULOUS price of $459!). The brightness, clarity and contrast are exceptional on the 42". AND, it is TRUE 1080i - not the chincey 720's that are being sold as "HD"!

I have only bought Sony for the past 20 years, but I would say that the picture is AT LEAST AS GOOD IF NOT BETTER than the Sony's I looked at in the store. Heck, there's even an adjustment for "Lip Sync" - so if the picture gets out of sync with the sound, you can correct it! Amazing

The ONLY issue is that the Olevia's are so new that you CANNOT ENTER them into your cable box remote or standard "universal remote" using a remote code- there ARE NO OLEVIA (or compatible)CODES in commercially available Universal remotes at this time.

So, you can either use two remotes (one for the cable box, one for the Olevia TV), or do what I did - get the SONY Universal "Learning" remote for $20 at Wal-Mart - this unit actually "learns" the codes from the Olevia remote - you just point the remotes at each other and follow the instructions.

Either way, a small price to pay for a tremendous LCD HDTV!

We'd only had the TV for 4 months and 10 days when the screen suddenly stopped functioning. All it does is flicker. The Olevia logo won't even come up. We, too, have been waiting for over a month for Olevia's so-called "warranty service" to fix our TV. We're entitled to one year of on-site service, according to the warranty card, yet Olevia is trying to make us send the TV back to them. They said they'd have a shipping company pick it up. Reluctantly, we agreed, and ended up spending over $40 and a great deal of time building a wood crate. Phone call after phone call later, the huge wood crate is STILL sitting in the middle of our living room floor, waiting to be picked up. They claim they're waiting on "the shippers", who should be contacting us with a pick-up date. We haven't heard a peep from them. I read somewhere else that Olevia is having trouble paying their shipping company. I don't know if that's true or not, but they're sure not helping us at ALL. We scrimped and saved to buy the TV for our 20th wedding anniversary, so we're very, very upset and disappointed. We will NEVER buy anything from this company again, and recommend that you don't, either! Now we've got an almost-thousand-dollar 42" boat anchor. :-(

UPDATE 1/14/09: They did finally schedule their "shippers" after the TV, but they hired a shipping company who doesn't even deal with these TVs! After much discussion, the shipping company agreed to ship it, but they had no way to get their big 18-wheeler truck into our subdivision. My husband had to load the crate into his pickup truck and take it to them. It was delivered to Olevia on 12/30/08. Two weeks and several phone calls later, they FINALLY say the replacement TV is on the way. We'll see. My opinion of Olevia is unchanged at this point.

UPDATE 1/22/09: We *finally* received a replacement TV. It's in good physical condition and appears to be in working order. However, it's a refurbished TV, not a new one, and only has a 90-day warranty. We bought a 2-year extended warranty through the store where we bought the TV, and the store assures us that their warranty will still cover the TV, even though it's not the original one. Hopefully this is the end of it. My opinion of Olevia is still not a positive one.

UPDATE 6/15/09: We mailed in the warranty card for the replacement TV on 2/4/09, as per the instructions. The card was returned in the mail to me today, stating that Syntax Brillian's PO Box HAS BEEN CLOSED. Boy, oh boy, am I glad we bought the extended warranty. The replacement TV is still working okay (knock on wood), but if anything else should happen, it looks like Syntax Brillian (AKA Olevia) is GONE.

I was a little weary about ordering something so valuable online, but it was the best deal to do. It was shipped to me in three days, and ended up coming in the day before I moved to my new apartment. I was so excited! The Fed-Ex guy told me that they had packaged the tv really well. As soon as I was able to, I plugged it in and everything worked. It is such a great looking tv, and it works AMAZING! I recommend it to anyone!

This TV had a great picture and pretty decent sound. I picked it up for a really good deal on Black Friday and loved it with one major exception. If you are going to use this TV for "over the air" reception be forewarned that it will not output the Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound through the optical or coaxial outputs. I use over the air so this was a deal breaker for me. I made several calls and spent LOTS of time, mainly on hold, with Olevia only to find out they don't have a clue what they are talking about. After the first call the set was returned for another and it did the same.

I've had another Olevia TV with other problems but it output the DD 5.1 fine. If you're using cable or satellite you should not have this problem, just hook directly to the receiver from your cable/satellite box and don't worry about the TV output. If you just want "stereo" instead of surround you can also get that from the output as PCM.

i got the 242v model a month ago, the one with the spkrs at the sides. it's hooked to a toshiba HD-A3 and displays beautifully all this hd dvd player throws at it. excellent upconverted image: the standard dvd's of gladiator and chronicles of riddick could fool many into believing they were watching hi-def. and the hd dvd's look simply spectacular. it cost me $770 and i cannot imagine paying more for a big name lcd hdtv. of course, olevia is a relative newcomer and we'll have to wait and see about the reliability of their hdtv's, but so far so good (more than...)

Ive been working for over 2 months to get my Olevia replaced because the screen went bad. I am now in process of reporting them to the BBB for lack or action on the warranty and going against the terms of the warranty. At this point, I cant even quantify how much time I have put in to this. I recommend spending the extra couple of dollars to get a Toshiba, Sony or Samsung. The saved headache alone will be worth it, but they also have superior picture quality.

Ours lasted 2 months to the day. Claim has been pending with manufacturer with no resolution in sight due to company reorganization. Get the warranty where you purchase this TV whatever you do. You'll thank yourself for it later!! Prior to the set dying, it was a great TV and excellent picture.

OK let me start out by saying that once i decided i wanted to spend alot of money on a tv, i for sure did my homework on it. and the Olevia 42" 242t was on sale at Office Depot. I bought i over a year ao and it has worked perfectly ever since. No problems and no complaints from me. have it now hooked up to surround sound, xbox, ps2, and all and it still works great. Even leave it on at night sometimes for over a year and screen is still like the day i bought it. get one

I just recently bought this tv from office depot for 799 and this tv is awesome, i already owner an olevia 27 inch and for this price added a lot of depth to my tv watching.

I just got the tv a day ago and i must say that I'm impressed. At first I thought a 42" would be a little too big for my living room, but this thing sits perfect. I haven't hooked up my HD yet, but the satellite picture is way better than I thought it would be. The sound isn't even all that bad like some of the reviews stated on other forums. The room its in is 18x15 and its loud enough, but I'm still going to hook up a surround sound for the theater effect. My brothers came by yesterday to watch the all-star game and they couldn't stop saying how nice it looked. I'll update this review in the weeks to come to see if the tv is performing the same. All I can say is for $983($799 before 2 yr. extended warranty which I recommend and taxes, can somebody say Fair Tax) this is a great deal for a 42" lcd hdtv that broadcasts at up to 1080i.