The Grundig Vision 9 42-9870 T TV is a 42-inch, Full HD, LCD TV, released in autumn 2008. Availability and pricing are not known for the U.K. market, but the TV sells in mainland Europe for around 1,300 Euros (1,200 GBP).

Florian Friedrich, tested on December 7, 2009

Low power-consumption.
Excellent operation.
Great surround-sound effect and powerful bass.
Automated calibration with the supplied microphone.

Low contrast.
Multimedia? No chance.
HDTV signals show reduced color-resolution.
Faulty movie de-interlacing.
Imperfect 24p playback.

In this Grundig we found an excellent everyday TV; it impressed with easy operation, great colors, low power-consumption, and rich bass. But in the dark home-theater the 42-9870 T cuts a less impressive figure: 24p playback stumbles, and the low contrast slims down the HDTV wow-factor.

Most important connections:

4x 2x 1x

Multimedia

Multimedia is like double Dutch to Grundig’s developers. The Vision 9 42-9870 T has a USB input, but it’s of the dreaded ‘service only’ type — so it won’t play back multimedia files. A total lack of such features is a bit disappointing by today’s standards.

Other Features

The rear panel hosts two HDMI inputs, and two further HDMI occupy the side panel for quick access.

Apart from the eye-catching, sound-bar-esque speaker unit mounted below the screen (more on this in the sound quality section), the user is also struck by the number of audio connections — they even include a subwoofer output with an adjustable crossover frequency (80 to 400 hertz). To go with these connections, the TV offers flexible allocation of audio inputs to video sources. With four HDMI inputs, the TV also comfortably accommodates modern source devices. The hybrid tuner receives analog cable TV and digital terrestrial TV (DVB-T).

Operation

The Grundig’s remote control is partially illuminated, allowing easy operation in the dark.

The well thought-out operation earns special praise: On first glance, the menu pages might look a touch too simple for the era of Full HD, but the sensible, practical construction and its concentration on the essentials make for highly intuitive operation. The menu covers relatively little of the screen, and the navigation is pleasingly speedy.

The partial illumination of the remote control’s buttons makes for easy channel hopping or home-theater in the dark. Plus-points also go to the automatic sorting of the channel list and the back button for jumping between the current and previous channel. One real highlight of the TV’s operation is the help function: Pressing the question-mark button on the remote brings up clearly presented explanations of all of the handset’s buttons. Now that’s what we call service!

Picture Quality of TV and Standard Signals

The Grundig’s “Soft” preset offers the best results for TV material, providing natural colors and a crisp-looking picture. But, as is the case with TVs from many manufacturers, the picture only becomes excellent once you’ve done a bit of fine-tuning (see “Ideal settings” below). You should, for example, crank up the TV’s contrast and switch off all of the options in the “Picture Improvement” menu — except for “Perfect Clear”. With the backlight turned down, even fast motion looks accurate. Analog signals via Scart deliver a picture with average fine-detail, but the de-interlacer has its flaws, often showing edge-flicker in movies.

Contrast and Grayscale Reproduction

The Vision 9 stands out with high color-fidelity. The color space, grayscale linearity, and color temperature are all close to ideal values.

To check the Grundig’s contrast, we sampled the Blu-ray “Kill Bill: Volume 1”. One scene (at 1:38:46) shows small, bright spots from street lamps against a pitch-black night sky — this kind of picture is an excellent opportunity to check the black-representation and to uncover poor differentiation of dark areas of the picture. Our test candidate achieves barely adequate results: Blacks appear dark blue instead of genuinely black, and side-on viewing makes the picture look even brighter.

We then tested the grayscale representation using the sequel “Kill Bill: Volume 2” (at 01:10): The black-and-white opening sequence shows many different grayscales, which — ideally — should display without a color-tint. Here, the Vision 9 does a great job. Although we did notice a slight blue tint, this is less pronounced that on many LCD competitors. The color temperature in the “Warm” color-temperature setting measures 7,000 Kelvin, and is therefore slightly higher that the ideal value of 6,500 Kelvin.

Picture Quality of HDTV Signals

The Grundig shows a few smaller weaknesses with HDTV signals. In the computer-animated opening to the spectacular Bond movie “Casino Royale”, for example, we noticed reduced color resolution, meaning the TV cannot display the red hearts with the maximum fine-detail resolution. The TV’s fundamental sharpness is faultless, as we see in the razor-sharp text of various Blu-ray-disc menus. This isn’t much use in the long run, however, because the TV’s reproduction of authentic 24p signals is faulty; the picture judders just like in a 60-hertz signal, with the 3:2-pulldown rhythm.

If you activate the function for improved motion-depiction (“MEMC”), the judder disappears, but the typical movie-look is lost because the motion looks too smooth. The technology also introduces picture errors, in the form of fringing on moving objects in particularly complex scenes. With TV material, on the other hand, the MEMC does a far-better job: The motion clarity increases visibly, and the technology introduces no negative side effects.

The Grundig also displays convincing colors with high-definition signals — even skin tones reproduce faithfully. But black-and-white movies reveal a slightly bluish coloration due to the LCD’s residual illumination, and — in general — dark scenes lack depth because of the low contrast.

Sound Quality

With its sixteen separate speakers, the speaker bar produces a far-more-enveloping backdrop of sound than do competing models with ‘surround’ settings — especially with multichannel audio (TV or DVD). The bass comes across with force, and the treble sounds clear. Unfortunately, despite all this, the sound lacks dynamics, so music in particular sounds slightly compressed. Nevertheless, we thought the overall sound was impressive.

Picture Setting: User

Colour: 50

Contrast: 90

Sharpness: 54

Colour Temp.: Warm

Noise Reduction: Off

Picture Improvements Menu: Set all to “Off” except for “Perfect Clear”, which should be set to “Low”.

* These settings apply to realistic playback of HDTV/Blu-ray material through the HDMI interface in a darkened environment. Manufacturing and HDMI playback device deviations may necessitate slight adjustment.