Acer's 27-inch LCD TV is an impressive product with a good mix of features, image and sound quality and a resonable price. With a RRP of $1,299 it is one of the cheaper TVs we have reviewed in this size bracket. That said, it still has most of the features you would expect from a TV of this size.
At a glance, the Acer looks quite plain and unassuming. It is finished in a black and silver matte plastic trim. There is a three centimetre black bezel around the screen and at the bottom of the screen, underneath the lower bezel, the five-watt speakers are mounted behind the silver plastic grill. Build quality is reasonable and does not look cheap.
Design
The unit itself is an all-in-one design with the screen, speakers and analog tuner all included. At 27 inches wide, it is a little large for a small bedroom but would suit a larger bedroom or small- to medium-sized lounge. You can purchase an optional wall mounting kit which bolts on the back cover. All the cables connect from underneath at the back which works well whether the TV is free-standing or wall-mounted. There is a clamp for keeping cables tidy, and to top it off, there is also clear illustration on the back cover outlining each input's function so you do not have to perform neck-breaking moves to read the labels next to each input on the underside.
Hidden on the right side of the TV is the control panel, which thankfully includes an input selector button so you can still select your source if you have lost your remote or end up with dead batteries. We have reviewed TVs in the past without this and it can potentially make your TV useless if you rely heavily on external sources. One thing that is missing however is an auxiliary input for temporary connections such as a game console or video camera. There is a panel on the left which looks like it can host extra inputs but only has blank plastic cover pieces.
The menu system on the Acer is quite good. The text and icons are very large, so readability is excellent. Menus are laid out in a simple, logical way and the most often used settings are placed near the top for quick access. Our only complaint is that the menu can be slow to respond at times.
The remote unfortunately looks a little on the cheap side and while most of the buttons have good tactile feedback, the navigation buttons are not very good. Press them at an angle and they get stuck and sometimes don't register a press. Quite frustrating when using the menu system. On the plus side, there are direct access buttons to different inputs, which is much better than cycling through five or six inputs.
Features
Unfortunately there is only an analog tuner included, which looks quite ordinary on the 1366 x 768 pixel high resolution screen. The screen has an impressive 176-degree viewing angle both vertically and horizontally. To get the most from this TV, you really need to get a digital SD or HD tuner connected via component, VGA or HDMI. There are a total of seven separate inputs which include HDMI, VGA, two component, two s-video/composite combos and one component/composite combo. Having three component inputs should be plenty for most people.
Picture-in-picture is an included feature but we had a lot of problems using it. It was locked in to only inserting VGA into the inset and we could not change it regardless of what was described in the manual.
Performance
Watching TV on the integrated tuner was acceptable. It was very soft and did not properly fill the screen. To get the most out of your TV, you will have to use an external HD or SD tuner which will vastly improve your TV viewing experience. We connected an HD tuner via component and the image was stunning. Colour saturation is very good and there is excellent detail in both highlight and shadow areas which we found when using the screen as a monitor playing Half Life 2. We did not see any colour casts and skin tones were generally very good when watching TV.
Sound quality was average. Generally we do not have very high expectation of built-in speakers, and with only five watts of power, you could not expect very deep bass. At normal viewing, we were quite comfortable listening at less than half of the maximum volume. At maximum volume, it was quite loud and there was absolutely no distortion in the sound. The speakers reproduce voice very well but struggle with deeper ranges.
We also connected our computer via VGA to the Acer LCD TV and used it as a monitor as well as a gaming screen. It performed very well with no issues of motion blurring as it has a 6.5ms response time and you could use the full 1366 x 768 pixel screen natively.
At $1,299, the Acer AT2720B is a bargain. While we do not approve of the analog tuner, once you hook up a digital one, free-to-air television looks great. There are also issues with picture-in-picture, but we may have received a defective unit. Sound is adequate and it has excellent colour and tonal reproduction.
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