skyfish
New Member
Hello Everyone,
Based on all the positive reviews on this forum and some other, I went ahead and bought the Micromax 50B5000FHD and I'm absolutely in sync with what has been said here by the members. Here is my brief experience with the purchase; couldn't wait to share
This review is about the 50" model (specifically: 50B5000FHD)
Why did I upgrade?
It was mainly the 'price tag' on Flipkart which sparked the very thought of upgrading my 6 year old Sony Bravia 32" LCD to this 50", but the worry was mainly the quality and durability of something so inexpensive! The old Bravia was going good without any signs of aging or fatigue and the scare of making a stupid decision of giving away something great and bringing in crap was always on the head. After a research of few days we decided to take a chance with it and it was for the first time that we ordered a home appliance online (wow! life is indeed going online). We could not find any store in Bangalore stocking it, forget getting to see a demo/display.
Shipping & Delivery:
The TV was delivered by Flipkart in just a matter of hours! The delivery staff's (eKart Logistics) handling and competent attitude added to the whole buying experience.
Box & Packing:
The TV came in a regular carton with necessary & sufficient thermocol packing, sturdy enough to handle the urban delivery scenario. For a remote delivery, requiring maneuvering bumpy terrains, the packing might not hold good assuring a fault free delivery. I had read issues where freshly delivered units switched on partially.
First Experience:
Right from the time the delivery staff pulled out the carton from the van till it was opened, the big size of the carton kept our excitement up and high, considering we were coming from the 32" segment. Once they carefully pulled the 50" of magestic black marvel out, it seemed even bigger! The downside was the uneven folded protective film stuck to the front of the LED; Micromax could have given us a better experience here.
Well, the moment finally arrived and we were more than eager to know if we have wasted our money in this mundane pursuit of a big viewing experience over quality. The moment the TV was switched on, an intense white screen with sharp orange logo of Micromax stopped the heart for a bit. None of us could get our eyes off the TV. Well, the mind began to demand for a glimpse of picture quality!
Picture Quality:
50" was definitely a bet to play and we were extremely satisfied in that corner, but it all came down to the picture quality; even if it was acceptable, we would convince ourselves that we did not lose our money. We had to wait as the TV first needed to be mounted on its stand, remote had to be assembled with batteries and signal and power connections had to be made.
After a quick juggle though, the unit was ready for its premiere. The very first HD channel we put on it, we all went WOW! It was beyond our expectations and naturally we all had wide smiles on our face.
Settings:
Factory default settings has severe Soap Opera effect and needs a good amount of correction before you can tune it to your taste. Default colors are heavily saturated with sharpness set liberally. The OSD reminded us of first desktop version of Linux perhaps, maybe future firmware might look more contemporary; not qualms there. By default comes set to NTSC, you will have to set it to PAL (India/Asia) by changing the refresh rate to 50Hz to get a smoother viewing experience.
Cons:
- Mounting stand is cheaply built. One we received had a rubber toe missing!
- Built quality is mediocre; two people can easily twist and break the panel off; Its an all-plastic construction. All it can do well is stand on its own feet without falling apart. In other words, will need extreme care during logistics. Compared to the build quality of a Sony Bravia; would rate it 4/10
- Instruction manual is poorly designed, cheaply printed on a bad quality paper, stapled into a book
- Remote is non-intuitive. Illogical placement of buttons shadows the nice brush metal finish of the remote.
- OSD interface is extremely bad. Its as if they have put efforts to design it look awful.
- Power cable quality is very poor; even my table-lamp has better quality 2 pin plug. It would have been nice had the TV been equipped with a 3-pin plug (maybe with a dummy earth pin like the Nokia chargers have), considering most 2 pin plugs do not snug fit into the electrical sockets. Cable length provided is short and non-standard. We are so used to 'Volex' cables in standard electronic equipments now (Dell, Sony, Apple,...) now.
- Software noise reduction feature is not at par with standard displays. Its prominently begins to add the plastic face effect.
- Micromax logo in the front spoils the looks. This model came with a print on the bezel instead of the "now" standard striped aluminium label.
- Inclusion of a light-sensor to automatically adjust the brightness could have been a welcome addon. Its a pain to re-adjust the display intensity separately for day and night viewing.
- Quality of ports is average. Most ports are misaligned to the finish.
- Response to remote is like a zombie walk.
Pros:
- Picture quality is beyond acceptable for the price tag. You can tweak it quite close to the premium displays out there.
- Thin bezel looks very nice and compliments to the large size
- Viewing angles are as claimed. We were initially worried about this aspect too.
- Cost is the highlight feature. Won't be surprised if the costs go up for this display in no time.
- USB ports actually allow playback of almost all movie formats we threw at it.
- Firmware is upgradable via USB
- One USB port can even read external HDDs
- Viewing on a 50" screen at home is beyond comprehension!
- The unit offers good contrast, brightness and color gamut, though we noticed some color dither here and there; but ofcourse we couldn't have asked for it to outrun the premium displays now!
Verdict:
Its value for money. Picture quality is more than what a display of this price segment can offer. Can't compare it to the premium displays, but this display competes quite close to the best out there. The only area to be answered is endurance and durability. The product is just a few months old and we all will have to wait with our fingers crossed to see if this TV can hold on to what is has now, for atleast 2-4 years!
Will try to update back our experience after a couple of months of usage. Hope it continues to hold on to what it is now!
Based on all the positive reviews on this forum and some other, I went ahead and bought the Micromax 50B5000FHD and I'm absolutely in sync with what has been said here by the members. Here is my brief experience with the purchase; couldn't wait to share
This review is about the 50" model (specifically: 50B5000FHD)
Why did I upgrade?
It was mainly the 'price tag' on Flipkart which sparked the very thought of upgrading my 6 year old Sony Bravia 32" LCD to this 50", but the worry was mainly the quality and durability of something so inexpensive! The old Bravia was going good without any signs of aging or fatigue and the scare of making a stupid decision of giving away something great and bringing in crap was always on the head. After a research of few days we decided to take a chance with it and it was for the first time that we ordered a home appliance online (wow! life is indeed going online). We could not find any store in Bangalore stocking it, forget getting to see a demo/display.
Shipping & Delivery:
The TV was delivered by Flipkart in just a matter of hours! The delivery staff's (eKart Logistics) handling and competent attitude added to the whole buying experience.
Box & Packing:
The TV came in a regular carton with necessary & sufficient thermocol packing, sturdy enough to handle the urban delivery scenario. For a remote delivery, requiring maneuvering bumpy terrains, the packing might not hold good assuring a fault free delivery. I had read issues where freshly delivered units switched on partially.
First Experience:
Right from the time the delivery staff pulled out the carton from the van till it was opened, the big size of the carton kept our excitement up and high, considering we were coming from the 32" segment. Once they carefully pulled the 50" of magestic black marvel out, it seemed even bigger! The downside was the uneven folded protective film stuck to the front of the LED; Micromax could have given us a better experience here.
Well, the moment finally arrived and we were more than eager to know if we have wasted our money in this mundane pursuit of a big viewing experience over quality. The moment the TV was switched on, an intense white screen with sharp orange logo of Micromax stopped the heart for a bit. None of us could get our eyes off the TV. Well, the mind began to demand for a glimpse of picture quality!
Picture Quality:
50" was definitely a bet to play and we were extremely satisfied in that corner, but it all came down to the picture quality; even if it was acceptable, we would convince ourselves that we did not lose our money. We had to wait as the TV first needed to be mounted on its stand, remote had to be assembled with batteries and signal and power connections had to be made.
After a quick juggle though, the unit was ready for its premiere. The very first HD channel we put on it, we all went WOW! It was beyond our expectations and naturally we all had wide smiles on our face.
Settings:
Factory default settings has severe Soap Opera effect and needs a good amount of correction before you can tune it to your taste. Default colors are heavily saturated with sharpness set liberally. The OSD reminded us of first desktop version of Linux perhaps, maybe future firmware might look more contemporary; not qualms there. By default comes set to NTSC, you will have to set it to PAL (India/Asia) by changing the refresh rate to 50Hz to get a smoother viewing experience.
Cons:
- Mounting stand is cheaply built. One we received had a rubber toe missing!
- Built quality is mediocre; two people can easily twist and break the panel off; Its an all-plastic construction. All it can do well is stand on its own feet without falling apart. In other words, will need extreme care during logistics. Compared to the build quality of a Sony Bravia; would rate it 4/10
- Instruction manual is poorly designed, cheaply printed on a bad quality paper, stapled into a book
- Remote is non-intuitive. Illogical placement of buttons shadows the nice brush metal finish of the remote.
- OSD interface is extremely bad. Its as if they have put efforts to design it look awful.
- Power cable quality is very poor; even my table-lamp has better quality 2 pin plug. It would have been nice had the TV been equipped with a 3-pin plug (maybe with a dummy earth pin like the Nokia chargers have), considering most 2 pin plugs do not snug fit into the electrical sockets. Cable length provided is short and non-standard. We are so used to 'Volex' cables in standard electronic equipments now (Dell, Sony, Apple,...) now.
- Software noise reduction feature is not at par with standard displays. Its prominently begins to add the plastic face effect.
- Micromax logo in the front spoils the looks. This model came with a print on the bezel instead of the "now" standard striped aluminium label.
- Inclusion of a light-sensor to automatically adjust the brightness could have been a welcome addon. Its a pain to re-adjust the display intensity separately for day and night viewing.
- Quality of ports is average. Most ports are misaligned to the finish.
- Response to remote is like a zombie walk.
Pros:
- Picture quality is beyond acceptable for the price tag. You can tweak it quite close to the premium displays out there.
- Thin bezel looks very nice and compliments to the large size
- Viewing angles are as claimed. We were initially worried about this aspect too.
- Cost is the highlight feature. Won't be surprised if the costs go up for this display in no time.
- USB ports actually allow playback of almost all movie formats we threw at it.
- Firmware is upgradable via USB
- One USB port can even read external HDDs
- Viewing on a 50" screen at home is beyond comprehension!
- The unit offers good contrast, brightness and color gamut, though we noticed some color dither here and there; but ofcourse we couldn't have asked for it to outrun the premium displays now!
Verdict:
Its value for money. Picture quality is more than what a display of this price segment can offer. Can't compare it to the premium displays, but this display competes quite close to the best out there. The only area to be answered is endurance and durability. The product is just a few months old and we all will have to wait with our fingers crossed to see if this TV can hold on to what is has now, for atleast 2-4 years!
Will try to update back our experience after a couple of months of usage. Hope it continues to hold on to what it is now!
Last edited:
hyeah: (Flipkart sells it for 33K).. That is staggering 17K more for a TV if you need to pick it physically from a store...
) definetely go for it.
).
