Relisys RLT32AB20: Silent but deadly

By Guy Cocker on 08 November 2005, 11:51am

Relisys? Who are they then? Unless you keep a close eye on the LCD monitor market (which you might not want to admit in public), you'd be forgiven for shrugging your shoulders. But the company has had massive success with its LCD monitors, and it's following up with some cheap-and-cheerful TVs. We've already seen one of them in 4:3 form, but no one in their right minds would buy one of them anymore. Will the 16:9, 32-inch model improve the company's reputation?

Well, when we freed the beast from its plastic wrapping, we noticed something very different from every other 32-incher we've seen -- it has detachable speakers. It's not an unwelcome feature -- after all, there's a good chance that you've got a home cinema system and if so, you keep the 20W speakers in the box.

Read off the rest of the stats and things aren't so good -- a 600:1 contrast ratio doesn't match the stats of Samsung's LE32R51BD. The Relisys RLT32AB20 still has a few things going for it though -- it looks slinky, has DVI and component connections but the kicker is that it's not 'HD Ready'. Oh dear.

As well as omitting a feature that's about as important as the ability to display video, Relisys has dumped composite video inputs completely. We hardly ever use them because of their low quality, but just this morning we received an iPod accessory, or 'podcessory' as we call them. It uses composite video to output photos, so it looks like our iPod and Relisys won't be getting on too well, at least not without the help of a Scart adaptor.

We'll see if the Relisys has enough charm to tackle the big boys when we post our full review later in the week. -GC

Update: this review is now live here.