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This is a 43inch TV with a couple of plus points, first it has an integrated sound bar which looks little more than an extended area under the screen and second this unit has a full Android computer built in so you can get and send emails and search the WWW in fact anything you can do with an Android Tablet.
It comes with a tiny Wi-Fi USB dongle to connect to the supplied TV’s ‘Air Remote Control’.
The TV is 96x63x1.5cm the supplied feet lift it by 5cm from whatever you place it on and the total depth of the feet are 29cm with the stretch required between the feet is at least 74cm.
I set the level at ‘12’ which for me is correct for hearing normal programs like the news etc. and even for the worst offenders during my test period I never had to go above ‘15’ to be able to understand everything said, for most programs I never made any adjustment from the normal ‘12’ setting. The setting on my normal TV without sound bar is normally 21 to 24 but when watching some films this often goes up to 45 or even 60. Both have a maximum level of 100.
This is a full HD offering meaning you get 1920x1080.
The amount of documentation is not huge. An A5 post-paid card to register your guarantee. An A4 sheet telling you how to get the best from the Android portion your TV and finally an A3 sheet folded in four (a total of eight sides) called a Quick Start Guide which for some sections you might require a magnifying glass to read the smaller text.
External connections are in a line down the left side of the back and along the bottom of the back, you have three USB (one taken by the air remote) two HDMI, you also have AV in, VGA in, Optical out, 3.5mm socket for Headphones, Aerial in, Audio in (for VGA PC connection), Ethernet and Micro SD and Video out as well as a Common Interface slot.
The Source input list is Digital, Cable, Analogue, AV, SCART, YPBPR, PC, HDMI 1, HDMI 2, SMART (this is Android) and USB.
Picture quality was excellent with plenty of colour and brightness along with sound choices for various scenarios.
Android using the Air Remote takes a bit of getting used to and anyone who has tried typing a long document using an onscreen keyboard will know, it’s even harder with an Air Mouse but for entering short choices not too arduous just different. If you are using the TV with the Android part as your only Internet device I would suggest getting a special Wi-Fi USB keyboard.
While there is some internal storage you will probably need a larger amount to store downloads which would mean that your three USB slots are taken however there are some USB mouse/keyboard combos that use only a single USB port.
A nice TV with good sound and the cost is only another 5cm on the height, for someone with not a lot of space it could be an only device utilizing the Android part. Some external sound bars will be fussy about what they play as an example input from the TV may work but input from a PVR may not, here all sound goes through the integrated sound bar.
The Cello 43inch Platinum Android TV is available from Amazon for £449.99 with free delivery.
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