Pros:
– Good picture quality, lively colour reproduction
– Loud and punchy sound output
– Latest Google TV OS
– Access to TV settings on the fly
– Dual-band WiFi
– Affordable
Cons:
– Dolby Vision compliance is wrongly mentioned
– Erratic contrast in certain HDR content
– Average viewing angles
– Lacks HDMI 2.1 ports and analogue audio output
Overall Rating: 3.5/5
Price: Rs 28,999
Late last year, we reviewed a QLED variant of Blaupunkt’s smart TV that ran the Google TV OS, and offered a couple of cool features like far-field microphones for hands-free voice commands and support for popular HDR formats like Dolby Vision. What we have today is a regular LED TV that does not offer the aforementioned cool features, but strives to focus on the basics and deliver a solid performance at an affordable price point. Let’s find out if it succeeds
Blaupunkt CyberSound G2 50CSGT7022 TV – Design and connectivity: 7/10
The design is not too striking but quite pleasant for a budget TV. It is almost bezel-less on three sides with a not-so-thick bottom bezel. The trapezoid chin on the QLED model as well as the first Blaupunkt CyberSound TV, which was a nice design element, has been replaced with a tiny chin that looks quite generic and hosts the power LED and IR receiver.
The connectivity ports are located closer to the centre of the TV rather than near the edge, making them hard to access if you wall-mount it. The TV can be wall-mounted or placed on a desk using the bundled mount or the stands respectively. The stands feel sturdy and hold the TV firmly in place without a wobble. You get a voice-enabled remote in the package along with a pair of AAA batteries and the necessary screws.
The connectivity department is almost identical to the Blaupunkt QLED TV with most of the bases covered, barring one. You get three HDMI ports, one of which supports ARC, but there are no HDMI 2.1 ports even in this 2023 model. Beyond that, you have two USB 2.0 ports, Optical audio out, A/V input and a LAN port. Analogue audio output like a 3.5 mm headphone jack or a coaxial A/V out is missing. Wireless connectivity options include Bluetooth 5.0 and dual-band WiFi with support for 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz networks.
Blaupunkt CyberSound G2 50CSGT7022 TV – Features and specifications: 6.5/10
This Blaupunkt CyberSound G2 model has a 50-inch panel with a 4K resolution of 3840 x 2160 pixels, 500 nits peak brightness and a 60 Hz refresh rate. The panel type is not mentioned but it looks like a VA panel given its sub-optimal viewing angles. HDR formats support is limited to HDR10/10+ and HLG. The TV’s product page and the packaging say it supports Dolby Vision too but it does not; more on that in a bit. The panel offers 10-bit colour depth, which is good to see on a budget TV.
This TV is powered by a MediaTek MT9602 processor with four Cortex A53 cores clocked at 1 GHz each. You get 2 GB RAM and 16 GB of internal storage, a chunk of which is taken up by the Google TV OS and preinstalled apps. You are left with a little over 9 GB for installing more apps. Sound output is rated at 60 Watts RMS with support for popular surround sound standards. Like all Google and Android TVs, it has Chromecast built-in and lets you cast content to the TV from compatible apps on your phone or tablet.
The wireless remote control bundled with this TV operates over IR and Bluetooth. After pairing it with the TV, you can bring up the Google Assistant by pressing the corresponding button and issuing voice commands. The build quality is good with just the necessary keys present and no unnecessary clutter, which is good to see. You do get hotkeys for Netflix, Prime Video and YouTube, which are handy.
Blaupunkt CyberSound G2 50CSGT7022 TV – User interface: 8/10
This Blaupunkt TV runs the latest Google TV OS based on Android 11 for TV. Most of the features are similar to Android TV but with a slightly different user interface. The UI is quite polished with a focus on content discovery. It shows suggested content from various OTT platforms which the AI believes would interest you. The suggestions improve over time. Their subscriptions need to be purchased separately though. Google Play Store is available here to install more apps and games.
There isn’t too much bloatware on this TV, but you do get apps for a couple of popular OTT services preloaded that can be uninstalled if you wish to. There is a dedicated Settings button on the remote that gives you access to picture tweaks and other TV settings on the fly irrespective of the app or input in use. The UI is fairly simple and the learning curve isn’t steep. Barring the odd stutter from time to time, things were mostly smooth and on expected lines.
Blaupunkt CyberSound G2 50CSGT7022 TV – Picture quality: 7/10
The colour reproduction of this TV is quite lively without going over the top. The picture is reasonably well-tuned out of the box. Yes, you can always play around with multiple picture settings available here to make it look a little better. You get quite a few options to tweak the picture. Other than the usual brightness, contrast, and sharpness options, you also get adjustments for gamma, colour temperature, white balance and more. In case you don’t want to bother creating your own User preset, the Standard preset works well most of the time.
The panel is quite bright and the contrast is good for most parts with details in dark areas of the scene clearly visible. But the contrast can be occasionally erratic, especially in certain HDR content where there is a considerable amount of flickering in high-contrast scenes. This issue was a lot less prominent in SDR content. On the topic of HDR, the company claims that the TV supports Dolby Vision, but it does not. We tried playing popular Dolby Vision content across three OTT services, but it played in HDR10 at best. I couldn’t find any setting from which it can be enabled, in case it was disabled by default.
Not having Dolby Vision support on a budget TV is not an issue at all, but such false claims should be avoided. Moving on, 4K and 1080p content looked sharp and vibrant on this TV, and the overall picture quality is quite pleasant. The skin tones look quite natural and the black levels are acceptable for the segment. The TV upscales 720p resolution content quite well, and it is perfectly watchable here. Anything in lower resolution understandably looks dull. The viewing angles are average at best with a noticeable colour shift even from 45 degrees.
Blaupunkt CyberSound G2 50CSGT7022 TV – Audio quality: 7/10
This is one area where Blaupunkt TVs generally do well, and the CyberSound G2 is no different. A total of four speakers rated at 60 Watts RMS deliver a sharp audio output. They are supposedly compliant with Dolby Atmos and some other popular sound standards. The sound clarity is pretty good and the speakers are fairly loud in the 30 to 50 per cent volume range. They are tuned for better vocal clarity, and as a result the dialogues are clearly heard.
You also get an option in the sound settings to enhance the dialogue clarity, but switching it on or off made no audible change to the sound output or the vocal clarity. The default audio tuning is quite good, and you also get sliders for Bass and Treble to tune the output further to suit your taste. You do get a few sound presets to play with.
The default sound is better suited for dialogue-heavy content like news or sports, but after enabling DTS Studio Sound from the audio settings, music and an episode of The Boys was also enjoyable on the TV speakers. Having said that, they are TV speakers afterall, so keep your expectations in check. If you seek better sound quality, you can always connect a soundbar or a speaker system with Bluetooth, optical or HDMI input.
Blaupunkt CyberSound G2 50CSGT7022 TV – Overall performance: 7/10
The TV takes about 50 seconds to a minute to boot up when you switch it on from the mains, which is on the slower side. Post that, the TV comes back on in just a couple of seconds from standby mode. Media playback through USB is perfectly fine through the default media player, and there’s always an option to install a different player from the Google Play Store. Things were generally quite stable with no app crashes or unusual behaviour during the course of testing.
The voice assistant works well and promptly responds on most occasions when you keep the corresponding button on the remote pressed. There is only one small UI element that can be fixed. When you select something inside the settings menu, say picture presets for instance, it jumps back to the previous screen rather than staying on the same menu. This can get irritating, especially when you are trying to tune the picture or sound.
Blaupunkt CyberSound G2 50CSGT7022 TV – Price and verdict
The Blaupunkt CyberSound G2 50CSGT7022 TV is priced at Rs 28,999 with a one-year warranty, which is not a bad price for what it offers. Things have been kept simple, and the TV gets most of the basics right with a lively picture, enjoyable sound, Google TV OS and decent wired and wireless connectivity options. Newer HDMI 2.1 ports continue to evade Blaupunkt models though. An incorrect mention of Dolby Vision did rile us up, but its absence is not a deal-breaker in budget TVs.
Overall, this Blaupunkt Google TV is a decent option for a sub-30K price tag, but the competition is quite stiff in this budget. Other than in-house (SPPL) options from Thomson and Kodak that sell for a little less, you also have 50-inch models from Hisense (50A6H) and Toshiba (C350MP) that offer comparable or better performance in this budget and actually support Dolby Vision.
The Hisense 50A6H also offers far-field mics just like the QLED variant of the Blaupunkt TV, and it is currently selling for less than Rs 30,000. And if you can stretch your budget by another thousand or so, you can also get your hands on the Hisense 50A7H, commonly known as the Tornado 2.0 due to its 102 Watts JBL sound system. It also has the newer HDMI 2.1 ports and broader HDR format support. Take your pick depending on the features that matter to you more.
0 Comments: