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The 37RL853 is a solid middle-of-the-range Freeview HD screen with few frills and not many thrills either. What it lacks in built-in picture enhancements it makes up for with a surprising degree of user adjustment features. It dabbles its toes in the Smart TV waters with a trio of online services and is prepared to have a go at home networking, albeit with mixed results.
We liked
Greater than average panel noise can't hide the fact that the 37RL853's pictures are generally very good, especially with HD sources.
The pre-set picture modes are easily tweakable to find the optimum setting and Resolution+ is one of the finest built-in upscalers around. Access to iPlayer is certainly welcome as is the ability to show multimedia files from a flash drive or computer.
We disliked
The 37RL853's sound is just about acceptable for daytime TV watching but is seriously underpowered for more involving soundtracks.
The graphics and font used for the onscreen menus are rather uninspiring, the Smart TV offering is teasingly small and the networking is rather hit and miss.
Final verdict
The remote control, user interface, networking features and even the ability to make so many picture adjustments give you the feeling that the 37RL853 feels more like an engineering sample rather than the polished article.
Overall though, such versatility should be welcomed in a TV that is capable of delivering good-quality pictures, and for the money looks like a fairly solid proposition.
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