Customer Reviews

Audiovox VE727 Ultra Slim 7-Inch LCD Drop Down TV with Built-in Slot Load DVD Player

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

 

 

For years I had a Sony CRT under cabinet TV for the kitchen. alas it died. The AudioVox 7" LCD has some advantages and some deficiencies compared with the Sony.

First of all the picture isn't as good. LCDs have limited viewing angles. Off axis they are dark and/or lack contrast. Viewed from a fixed position like on your desk or on your living room wall this isn't much of a problem. You set it up once for your viewing location and all's well. But a kitchen TV is not really watched that way. You leave it on the Fox News or CNN and look at the screen only when you hear some story come on. You tend to stand up and move about in the kitchen so when you watch it you are usually in some position for which the picture was not aimed.

So with a CRT TV I could just look at the little bright sharp screen from wherever I was at the time. But with an LCD screen I have to adjust it in order to watch it - every time. Even when optimally adjusted the LCD isn't as good as the CRT was. I should have gotten the 9" model.

The AudioVox however has a couple other excellent features. It has an AM-FM radio. This is handy. It has a digital clock. Also handy. It has a timer - very, very handy in the kitchen. The DVD player is less useful but its ability to play CDs is nice.

I have it set up with NTSC (analog) cable and I miss the program guide available on ATSC (digital) cable. I don't suppose that's a fault of the unit but of my cable configuration.

It was a bit difficult to install because unlike a a regular TV that you just set on a table, this one you have to mount under a cabinet. This requires a little woodworking skill. The paper template is meant to be placed on the bottom shelf of your cabinet, but most electric drills are too tall to be used inside a kitchen cabinet. This means you will have to drill from underneath. This isn't an insoluable problem but it does take a bit of figuring. The default configuration expects precise alignment. If the bolts came up from the bottom rather than down from the top it would be lot easier to install - but that would leave nuts on the floor of the cabinet instead of just nearly flat bolt heads.

This is a nice little set for the kitchen. I bought it to replace an analog undercabinet LCD-TV because the change over to DTV was coming and hooking up a converter box wasn't practical. This DTV was the simplest one I could find with the same size screen. It has only a few easy to see and use controls. Even the remote control is simple and easy to use.

For a 7" LCD the picture is surprisingly very good. The fine definition makes the picture easy to watch. Off axis viewing is not as good as I would like. You can see a decent image while viewing from the left or right of the screen. When looking down on the screen from 3' away and 18" above axis the image becomes dark and difficult to see. The screen can be tilted and panned to adjust for this effect. It's a minor annoyance for me.

The audio is also surprisingly very good despite having speakers aimed straight down. Music CDs and the radio sound incredibly crisp and detailed.

The DVD player is something I find useful when I receive mini DVDs in the mail. Rather than warming up the main DVD/DVR and the big HDTV then fiddling with the remotes to choose what inputs to use, I simply pop the mini DVD into the nice little set and press two buttons to watch.

Mounting the set under a cabinet was difficult. The mounting template provided was not accurate enough on where to drill the holes for the mounting screws. The screws must engage the receiving holes on the set's sheet metal cabinet perfectly straight or they won't catch. I ended up having to drill oblong holes for the screws to have a chance at finding the receiver holes. To make matters worse, the sheet metal cabinet is easily warped by misaligned screws and won't bend back to the correct position for receiving a properly aligned screw. My advice is to drill holes of twice the supplied screws' diameter and use something like boxes or books to support the set while you use both hands to align the screws from above and thread them into the receiving holes. Once mounted, it's a nice little set.

We had to return the first one we received from another vendor because it failed after a couple of hours. We ordered this one from Amazon because the other vendor, although less expensive, had no more in stock. We've never been disappointed with Amazon. The TV has been working and is convenient and of high quality, consistent with the price. We're completely pleased with the purchase.

The TV is excellent. I have this one hooked up to a cable signal. Absolutely beautiful picture. Good sound quality for a small TV. Everything works as it should. Outstanding value for the money. I have two of these now that are used everyday (one is over a year old). Install goes easy if you take your time drilling the holes to make sure they are exactly level, vertically. I would recommend this TV to anyone.

This item was just what I needed. I have a built in desk in my kitchen where I have my computer. I had a bigger TV on the counter top next to the computer taking up lots of room. This small, under the counter drop down screen is just perfect for me. I still have my TV right there where I need it, next to my computer but now hanging under the cabinet and freeing up counter space. Wish I had known of such a TV years ago.

About two years ago I bought a GPX brand undercabinet tv like this one, and my wife ended up using it a lot while in the kitchen. When the GPX screen went blank after about 18 months (apparently a common problem) we really missed having the little tv in the kitchen. So I bought my wife this Audiovox for Christmas. It's been installed for 4 days so this review is based on a brand new model which works fine.

First of all, the GPX unit was a lot nicer than the Audiovox in many ways that I'll outline here. The GPX unit, while it did fail in less than two years, was heavier and felt more substantial than this lightweight Audiovox. Perhaps this is due to weaker components in the Audiovox.

Next, the GPX unit has a convenient little light that we used regularly which lit up the countertop. The Audiovox does not have a light underneath.

With the GPX unit, there is a very basic little wire caddy on the side to store the remote, but the Audiovox does not offer this. The Audiovox remote has a magnet inside and the instruction manual says you can stick it to your fridge. I'd rather have a small storage caddy on the unit itself.

The Audiovox unit does not allow you to change channels by pushing the channel number (no numbers on the face panel), you have to push the up/down arrows. So if you want to go from channel 4 to channel 42, you have to push the up button 38 times. Or, you have to use the remote, which is no big deal, but the GPX unit had numbers on it so you could quickly change the channel without the remote.

The Audiovox screen does deliver a nice sharp picture, a great feature. Something I don't like about the picture though is that it is 6" across and 3.5" wide (I just measured it). This is advertised as being "7-inch" but that's corner-to corner, the industry standard for tv. This Audiovox just seems a bit small, but again, the picture is nice and sharp. I also like the black frame and the overall look of the pull down screen. One thing I must mention however is that you can only spin the screen around 270 degrees rather than 360 degrees. The GPX unit allowed the screen to spin all the way around before it stopped. We have a kitchen nook and it would be nice to be able to spin the screen all the way around so it can be watched from any angle behind the unit.

If this Audiovox stands the test of time, it will be an excellent value. We enjoy having a thin, pull-down tv screen in the kitchen, and this plays dvd and cds, and radio too. I just wish it had a few nicer finishing touches as mentioned above.

We got this TV as a reward item from a hotel stay/mileage program. It has lots of features and was easy to install. While it worked, it was great! It made making dinner and working in the kitchen a nice experience. Unfortunately, after only 2 years of moderate use, it just stopped working. It won't power up at all!! In reading the reviews for the Audiovox 9" Drop-down TV/DVD/radio combo, I find that I was lucky to have gotten 2 years of use out of it. But for something that took almost $200 worth of points and paying $30 for shipping, I expected a much longer life span and use from it. Judging from other reviews of failed units, I will chalk this up to a learning experience and not bother to try and get it repaired. I miss it already, but won't waste my money on something that gets such a short lifespan. Save your money and don't buy this unit. As I said, apparently I was "lucky" to have gotten 2 years of use.

I just installed the TV over the weekend. It requires a coax cable so if you don't have one in your kitchen, you'll need to be able to splice into you're existing system which can be tricky. For me, it was apparently one too many splices and I lost reception to my other TVs so I had to reconfigure everything.

Otherwise, the picture is pretty good and sound is not bad. Maybe a little better than what I expected for the price. The screen is pretty small though. The radio gets really good reception and I was able to hide the antenna pretty good. It does occasionally pick up a little interference from some of the kitchen lights. It has an "MTS" that I'm not familiar but seems pretty cool because it will clean up the static sometimes when you push it. The remote and buttons on the unit itself are not the easiest or most convenient to use, but we're able to figure it out.

We'll see how it holds up. It doesn't look or feel chintzy so hopefully it will last.

This was a gift from my kids - I've always wanted an undercounter unit for my kitchen. I spend a lot of time in the kitchen and it's nice being able to watch a movie or listen to the news while working. BUT....the TV picture started going out within the first year. And less than 2 yrs later, the picture is gone completely. Still have sound, but no picture. The company wanted more to return it and fix it than it's worth....so am looking for another one.

Outstanding performance except for apparently low AM radio sensitivity. Could use an external antenna jack. I owned the previous version and it had jacks for external antennae.