Why You Can Trust CNET Pangoo S700 (LE-32S700D) review: Pangoo S700 (LE-32S700D)
The 32-inch, 1080p LE-32S700D LCD TV looks like a cool customer. Its LED edge lights mean it's slim and lightweight, so it could be a good choice if you're short on space. Its lack of picture controls will rule it out for videophiles, but it's an option worth considering for casual users
Pangoo sees itself as the Chinese Samsung, offering decent value for money, stylish equipment and good performance. The company's virtually unknown in the UK, but we like the cut of its jib, and we've been keen to see if its TVs live up to its claims.
Pangoo S700 (LE-32S700D)
The Good
The Bad
The Bottom Line
The LE-32S700D is a 32-inch, 1080p LCD TV with LED edge lights. That means it's slim and light, so it could be ideal if you're short of space. It costs around £580.
Cool customer
The LE-32S700D looks pretty cool. It's thin and has a shiny black finish, which is standard issue on modern TVs. It may not have an especially famous name attached to it, but it looks just as impressive as any other 32-inch TV we've seen.
The remote control is another matter altogether. It's totally generic, and ugly to boot. It works perfectly well, though, and the controls are reasonably logical. Using it to navigate through the menu system is simple enough, and the limited menus are clear and easy to understand.
Out of control
Our main complaint with the LE-32S700D is that it doesn't offer very much in the way of picture-customisation options. That means you're pretty much stuck with the picture that you get out of the box, which is bad news if you don't like it. For example, there are no options to switch off any of the TV's picture-processing modes. The most you're allowed to do is reduce the amount of noise reduction.
As we watched various content, it became apparent that this lack of control was going to be a problem. While we were able to adjust both the contrast and the brightness, we couldn't reduce the backlight level. Also, although the brightness level is configurable, reducing it means the image becomes very hard to see. Normally, a TV will allow you to adjust the backlight and brightness settings separately.
Uneven backlight
When the TV is displaying a black screen, it's quite apparent that the LED illumination isn't as even as it could be. This isn't especially rare with LED TVs, but it's still disappointing. During normal viewing, however, it isn't too apparent that the backlight is fairly uneven.
Freeview image quality
We found that the LE-32S700D offers average Freeview picture quality via its built-in tuner. Images are slightly too bright and colourful. We didn't get the impression that the TV was really showing us the colours committed to tape by the broadcaster. Very casual TV viewers will probably be able to live with this picture quality, but we can't.
Blu-ray quality
The LE-32S700D does a passable job with Blu-rays, but its picture doesn't look as sharp or impressive as it should. Casino Royale was something of a mess frankly -- we could see plenty of noise in the picture that shouldn't have been as prominent as the TV made it.
We also have a suspicion that there's some motion compensation going on within this set. We aren't big fans of processing Blu-rays in this way, and the LE-32S700D won't let the user switch the processing off, which means we were stuck with an image that wasn't to our taste. This is hugely frustrating, and would put us off buying this TV.
Sound's strange
There are two things we noticed about the LE-32S700D's audio. Firstly, it's pretty thin and brash. Speech is clear enough, but it's wispy and there's too much treble. There's no low-end response whatsoever, and anything besides normal broadcast TV will be a bitter disappointment for your ears.
Secondly, the audio is based on the most ridiculous scale we've ever heard on a TV. The scale starts at '1', which is quiet. '2' isn't so quiet, and '3' is the level you'd use in a normal room. The rest of the graduations are deafeningly loud. It's bizarre.
Conclusion
When you extract it from its box, the Pangoo LE-32S700D looks the part. When you plug it in, it disappoints. We love its styling, and it's well put together, but the poor-quality audio system and lack of picture controls are lamentable.
Edited by Charles Kloet