Sony ICF-CD555TV 7-Inch Under-Counter LCD TV/CD Clock Radio
by Sony
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List Price: Category: Home Theater See more product details |
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Sony ICF-CD555TV 7-Inch Under-Counter LCD TV/CD Clock Radio
Customer Review: Audio/Visual
Summary: 5 Stars
Great product. Excellent sound. Screen is a little small, but that was expected. Great picture though. All in all we are real pleased with it.Customer Review: Excellent design-features-quality-value balance!
Summary: 4 Stars
I have been shopping for several months for an under-cabinet LCD TV to replace our 18-year-old 5" RCA tube-type TV in our kitchen, which has served us well but has developed annoying on/off button problems and now looks old, clunky out-of-date.Our requirements for a replacement unit were as follows:
1. Small, sleek, unobtrusive, LCD design that would blend in under our white cabinets
2. CD player so my wife could enjoy her books-on-CD in the kitchen (DVD and radio would be a plus but not essential)
3. We wanted to be able to view both local channels as well as satellite channels without needing to also install a DirecTV decoder box (this would take additional space -defeating our compactness goal -- and require more complicated wiring, not to mention monthly charges).
4. Quality (and warranty) that would ensure it would last several years.
5. Price under $500.
6. Given the limited selection and the poor quality reviews on other models, I needed to be able to examine it in person before buying.
I looked at these options:
1. Audiovox VE-1020 (and its older/smaller siblings). It way too pricey at $600-700 and read too many `poor' reviews on audio quality and overall durability.
2. RCA BLC524: Screen too small, and `poor' quality reviews, plus could not find it in a retail store.
3. Motorola/Moxell Tech KA-A13: Sounded good, reliable manufacturer, but could only find its announcement as it is not yet available.
4. Standalone 13" LCD (Gateway, Aquous, Sharp) with a separate swivel mounting bracket. I eliminated this option early because it would be too large, too expensive (~$100 for the bracket alone!), and it most cases would not include a CD player.
I bought the Sony as soon as I found its availability was advertised at a local electronics retail store. Bought it with an inexpensive 5-year extended warranty.
It's been in place for 2 weeks and we *like* it - it is living up to expectations, despite a couple of design flaws -- the absence of which would have earned the unit *five* stars.
First the flaws-all minor:
1. Fit and connections. As an earlier reviewer on this site pointed out, its installation is a tight fit under our cabinets, leaving only about an inch clearance to plug in the coax and a/v connectors. But this was easily remedied by purchasing right-angle adapters (Radio Shack, $4 each) that can be screwed in after installation with the 1" clearance. These redirect the cable and RCA connectors downward, making attaching the cables post-installation easy. Sony would do well to include these right-angle adapters.
2. Installation instructions. The alternative is to connect all your cables *prior* to installing the unit - something the instructions did not point out. In fact, the instructions could be improved in various areas. For instance, while the unit comes with variable-depth spacers so that installation under cabinets with doors that overhang the cabinet bottom, if you have flush-mounted doors (as we do), you *don't* want to use the spacers at all. Well, the instructions don't suggest this option, leaving you to think that the spacers are required in all cases. For me, this meant re-installing without the spacers, a minor hassle.
3. No built-in TV antenna. Unlike our old RCA, this unit does not have a built-in extending-wand antenna. This makes it a *requirement* that you connect TV and/or A/V inputs to another signal source to receive *anything* on the TV. While many people may be planning to do this, it *does* raise the ante on hooking it up. Sony would have a more versatile product for less experienced people if they included an optional "single rabbit ear" antenna that could be plugged into the TV/cable connector.
Now the good features:
1. TV: Sharp, noise-free wide-format picture, with settable options for standard 3x4 picture size and two wide-format variations. Just the right size. When not in used, screen is easily folded into a cavity under the unit and latches mechanically (more securely than magnetically, which may also wear out).
2. Sound: Perfect for TV viewing and CD story listening, and quite decent for FM or CD music, both in volume and fidelity. Two 3" speakers main the sound forward and downward, and the bass extender works as advertised. As long as you don't expect home theatre quality sound from this unit, you should be quite satisfied.
3. CD Player: Quality feel of its slide-out tray. Plays commercial and my home-recorded MP3s flawlessly.
4. Remote: Small, intuitive, well-constructed. Its bottom magnet attaches to our refrigerator nicely.
5. AM/FM presets: 5 of each, easily set, with manual tuning buttons on the unit and the remote.
6. TV/Video switch: Easily switches from the antenna/cable input to the a/v inputs. This is important, as the way we wired the unit, it only takes my technology-challenged wife one button click to switch from local channels to satellite channels coming in from our home theatre system.
7. Clock: Intuitive and easily set.
8. Timer: Doubt we will use - or care about -- this feature.
Bottom line: We like it a lot, both how it looks and how it works. The Sony name (and their 1-year manufacturer's warranty) - coupled with the inexpensive 5-year extended warranty we bought - should give us several good years of service...until it is again technologically out-of-date and needs upgrading again!
Customer Review: Good picture and sound.
Summary: 4 Stars
Bad points:
1) As all of the other reviewers have pointed out, this unit is almost exactly the same depth as a standard cabinet -- with about 1/2 inch to spare at the back. Very funny, Sony... No room to connect the cables to the back. I would like to thank the previous reviewer who pointed out that you can buy a right angle coax adapter at Radio Shack. It works good with that.
2) The LCD screen is 'wide screen' format. In other words, it is not the shape of a normal TV picture. This would be good if you played DVD's in letterbox format, I guess, but who is doing that under a kitchen cabinet? You end up having to decide if you want the TV picture to be a) kind of stretched widthwise (even in what they call Full screen mode), OR b) with a smaller square 'normal shaped TV' picture in the middle of the screen with about 1/2 inch of black bars on each side, OR c) in a slightly ZOOMed full screen mode, with a little of the top of peoples heads slightly chopped off sometimes.
3) The screen should flip down to end up in a more forward position (and not half-way under the cabinet) in case you are standing closer the the cabinet with the TV.
Good points:
1) Good picture and sound. Good quality.
2) Very compact after it is installed.
3) It's cool.
4) Sony's Zoom mode can make up for the odd shape of the screen.
Customer Review: Replacement
Summary: 4 Stars
We bought one of these to replace our old counter top TV that we used in the kitchen. I like the under cabinet design, but would like to caution you on the dimensions. These dimensions on the box only define the foot print of the unit. Be sure to allow room to plug in your AV components (1 to 2 inches)! I had to fudge the placement of ours, otherwise we would not have been able to plug in the antenna. The reception is a little less than average on the radio and TV. I'm not bothered by this because we are going to use this tv as a "Slave" monitor from our Direct TV system. We have had this is use for about 4 months now. The only problem is the LCD screen has a ripple in the center. I don't know what caused it. There are no heat sources close by. For a tv to watch the local news, football, etc on while cooking and viewing for short periods of time it will do the job. If you're looking for something to watch all the time, buy something else. The seven inch display is just too small. The chief goal of this TV is to out of the way and free up counter space. Which it does very well.
******UPDATE*******
I got the ripple in the center of the screen to go away! One of the kids changed the aspect ration to zoom. It appears that the zoom feature distorts the center of the screen. Why? I have no idea, but now the image looks fine.
Customer Review: Great Little TV
Summary: 4 Stars
We purchased this Sony after buying & returning an Audiovox under-the-counter tv/radio. We were very unhappy with the picture quality of the Audiovox, so we went to Best Buy and looked at their system which was a Phillips. The picture was much better than the Audiovox. Yet, we were still not satisfied. So we purchased the Sony system, which is better than both of those. We are very happy with both the picture quality and the sound quality of the Sony. It's perfect in our kitchen. The only issue is that you need to buy a right-angle wire connector in order to hook up the cables in the back -- no big deal, my husband got it at Radio Shack. We even hooked up a little dvd player to this system. Just a note, we don't leave the dvd player plugged in to the outlet because it causes some interference when you're not using it. I don't know if this is specific to my house outlets or if it's something with the frequencies of the tv. Anyway, we are extremely satisfied with this product!