Black Friday is approaching and people often ask us about affordable and quality products. One of the segments is that of TVs, and one of the brands that operates in our country is Horizon. The brand has been showing up with various TVs locally lately, and in August they launched their new range for the year 2020. We requested and received for review the model 50HL7590U / B with a diagonal of 126 cm and Android TV on board.
He was left with watching national team matches, playing FIFA 21 on the console and consuming maybe a lot of Netflix and HBO Go lately. All impressions of the product are listed below.
Who is Horizon?
Horizon is a local TV brand, launched in 2000. It has TV production in Turkey, Poland, Hungary and China. In 2011 it entered the Consumer Electronics market: televisions, tablets, HiFi and audio. It now has over 100 products in its portfolio. In 2015, it launched its first curved 4K LED TV with a 55-inch diagonal. The ACUSTICO Hi-Fi line arrived in 2018, and in 2019 came the DIAMANT line, a series of Romanian TV sets appreciated in the past and brought back to life. In the period 2018-2019, over 280,000 Horizon TV units were sold.
Horizon announced in August 2020 its new range of TVs with Android TV 9.0 on board. It signed a partnership agreement with Google LLC in early 2020 and diversified its TV offering. It has Android TV on its models, Google Assistant and integrated Chromecast.
Unboxing and design
Once out of the box, the TV is easy to assemble, all you need is a Phillips screwdriver. which you must own because it does not come bundled with the TV. We receive in the box and the remote control in addition to the TV stand, but also the batteries, so that we don't have any problems in the first moment as we mounted it. Interestingly, we can fix the battery cover for the remote control with a screw, in case we have small children who could unscrew the accessory.
Switching to Horizon 50HL7590U / B, the TV has fairly thin edges, somewhere around 1.5 cm. It has a single "sole", centrally located. It can also be placed on a very small or narrow TV table. We find the speaker in the back, but Horizon also comes with an audio line under its own brand called Acustico, with accessible soundbars that you can find at eMAG. Horizon does not hesitate to introduce the technologies: Dolby Digital Plus (DD +), DTS TruSurround HD, Dolby AC4, all with certifications on this Smart TV.
Screen / image quality:
Once the TV is on, we will discover the very good quality LED screen, which in turn has HDR certification for quality viewing. The pictures are really vibrant, I found this by watching 4K movies on Netflix and videos on YouTube. The image quality is definitely impressive. As I write this review, I'm watching a 4K HDR video from YouTube. It is what is needed and will satisfy even the most demanding users. Viewing angles are wide, black is deep and the screen is not very reflective. HDR is real and we have a wide range of colors.
As for gaming, with PS5 and the new Xbox coming soon, find out that we have settings for image mode, which includes Gaming mode. Before we play on the Assassin's Creed Valhalla console, find out that we can also install games like Asphalt 9 from the Play Store, which move really well. I also tried our famous Riptide GP Renegade test game and I am satisfied.
Setup
The initial setup has two directions. One for Android TV and the other for channel scanning. The one for Android TV can be made easy way, if you have an Android phone, or the hard way, which is not so complex either, only you have to type quite a lot with the remote control. Fortunately, this is only done once.
The TV can obviously connect to the internet via both WiFi and cable LAN. Once Android TV is set up, we can start scanning channels, which happens relatively quickly, in about 10 minutes. After scanning, we insert the card in the CI + slogan (yes, it has something like that) and we are ready to watch our favorite shows.
Smart / interface functions
Apart from them, being an Android TV, we also have access to a wide range of multimedia applications, such as Netflix, HBO GO, Amazon Prime, YouTube, Plex, Spotify and I could continue another 2-3 paragraphs with the applications compatible. What to remember is that on the remote control we also have dedicated buttons for Netflix and YouTube.
The TV interface is a simple one, standard Android TV, which by the way, is version 9. I was talking about connectivity, here are the ports that the TV brings:
It should be noted that in addition to the CI + card slot, we can also record our favorite shows, the Smart TV offering this function. We can also use Google Voice Assistant or Amazon to interact with your TV. A very useful function anyway. Also note the low power consumption: class A +, 71W, power consumption in standby of 0.5W. We also have WiFi on 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz.
conclusions
Horizon 50HL7590U / B is a TV that is worth mentioning on the Wishlist, on the eve of Black Friday. It has a diagonal of 126 cm, narrow edges and generous connectivity. The image is impeccable, whether you're playing or watching movies and series. I appreciated its chromatics, evolved compared to the generations of the past years and it also knows wirelessly on 5 GHz, not only on 2.4 GHz.
It is easy to set up and has a loud and clear sound. We also appreciate the large number of USB and HDMI ports and their location in two different directions. As for the price and availability, you can find it on eMAG, where it currently costs around 1500 lei.