Insignia Connected TV review: Insignia Connected TV

Photo gallery:
Insignia Connected TV series

The Insignia Connected TV has a plastic construction that mimics some of the cheaper LGs or Samsungs on the market--it's black and it's glossy. The TV is an edge-lit model but still reasonably chunky in profile. The Insignia's stand is also piano black and held on by a cylindrical pedestal that swivels for better viewing angles.

The TV features a swivel stand.

The backlit remote is a unique element of this package. It's not only infrared but also RF, based on Z-wave technology, and it lets users control the TV without needing line of sight. The remote is ergonomic and, while not as friendly as the original "peanut," it should still be familiar to TiVo fans. Familiar but also tantalizingly inadequate. Though it features the patented "thumbs up/down" buttons, they don't work and the large DVR button does nothing.

However, the remote can also be programmed via the TV's onscreen user interface to control up to three other devices in the home via infra-red. The system includes what appears to be a comprehensive database of devices, and the remote was able to recognize and control our DirecTV box.

The remote may have RF control, but unfortunately the TiVo-specific buttons don't work.

The TiVo interface should be familiar to fans and non-fans alike. While similar at first glance, the menu system lacks the pizzazz of a true TiVo and can be frustrating to navigate at times, timing out too quickly and dumping you out of submenus. We were also annoyed that the famous TiVo program guide didn't work with broadcast TV.

Features

Interface aside, the Insignia is a pretty standard Internet-compatible TV. Although it's missing media access via DLNA and USB, the built-in Wi-Fi is an extra not found on all competitors' models.

While the Insignia company touted the Tivo involvement quite heavily at the products' launch, Best Buy seems to have backed off a little and barely mentions it on the product page at bestbuy.com--instead opting for the fresher "Smart TV" moniker. The TiVo interface brings with it some "smart" streaming functionality and search capabilities, but the selection pales compared to a real TiVo DVR or competing connected TVs.

Search is tied to the Insignia on Demand service and really is designed to push its (expensive) downloads rather than to let customers search off-the-air programs, YouTube, or Netflix.

The TV uses apps adapted from the Chumby system with Facebook, Twitter, Reuters, Accuweather, and a decent array of further apps is available. Unfortunately the process to add new apps is labored and involves signing up and downloading them via a PC. TVs from other manufacturers make this process simpler with downloads available from the TV itself.

In addition to Netflix and YouTube, the TV includes the in-house offering, Insignia On Demand.

If you're a tweaker, prepare to be frustrated by the TV's video settings menu. If you want to change brightness or color, you are given a limited one-line-at-a-time menu, which also times out too quickly. There's very little for the advanced user to tweak here, though, with tint and color temperature presets as technical as it gets. Annoyingly, if you attempt to change the settings of one mode--Theater, for example--it instantly supplants the Custom mode with the new settings, so in practice there's only one adjustable mode.

The Insignia features four HDMI ports, which is very respectable for a TV at this price, while the single component, composite and VGA ports are now standard practice. Internet connectivity is aided by both wireless and wired capabilities. The USB port is currently inactive and plugging in a USB device brings up a "visit our forums for your suggestions" dialog box.

The TV features a proprietary Rocket Boost port that lets you add one of Best Buy's wireless audio peripherals.

The Insignia boasts four HDMI ports and an unusable USB slot.

Performance

Picture settings:
Insignia Connected TV

The Insignia performed worse than most of the edge-lit LEDs we've tested, but that's expected at this cheaper price. Its best characteristic is relatively deep black levels for the price, but its subpar color, uniformity, and video processing kept it solidly mediocre. Insignia performed on par with the recently reviewed and somewhat more expensive Toshiba 46SL417U, outdid the Philips 40PFL5706/F7, and failed to match the other reviewed TVs in our comparison, most of which cost more.

We were able to improve the picture over the default Theater setting somewhat during calibration, but the lack of settings kept us from doing much about the inaccurate color.

Black level: Blacks are surprisingly deep, which helped deliver a relatively punchy picture, although the Insignia tended to crush shadow detail near black. The LG and Samsung were inkier and contrast levels more natural when replaying the murky "Prison Solitary" scene at the beginning of the "Batman Begins". That said, the Insignia is a lot cheaper and was respectable in this category given its price level.

Color accuracy: As you can see in the chart below the TV de-emphasised green compared to red and blue, which left which left some scenes looking unnatural. Either this resulted in too-pink faces as if the actors had the beginning stages of hypothermia, or "electric" blues (not to be confused with the 80's anthem). Blacks were also shot through with a higher than usual amount of blue.

Video processing: While the Connected TV has a specific 24p mode, switching it on had no effect and our tests of 1080p/24 Blu-rays looked identically too-choppy whether the mode was turned on or off.

The Insignia also did something strange we hadn't seen before: the TV took one of our test scenes of a sky and made it look like an Etch a Sketch by crushing the blue into white and then suddenly erasing it back to blue.

The TV was able to resolve tricky moire tests relatively unscathed and showed full support for deinterlacing 1080i content.

Uniformity: The Insignia is afflicted by one of the most common LCD problems--backlight clouding--with our review sample featuring a brighter, discolored area in the bottom right-hand corner. After calibrating, the spot was still visible in a dark room and it went on to inform poor results in color uniformity, particularly on screen-filling primary colors.

Bright lighting: The TV has a matte finish, and based on our viewing in normal lighting conditions, it didn't pose any problems with distracting reflections.

Power consumption: We did not test the power consumption of the 32-inch member of the Insignia Connected TV series, but we did test the 42-inch model. For more information, refer to the review of the Insignia Connected TV NS-42E859A11.

Insignia Connected TV NS-42E859A11 CNET review calibration results

(Read more about how we test TVs.)