Axion AXN-8701 7-Inch Widescreen Handheld LCD TV with Built-In Tuner, Black
From the Manufacturer (April 20, 2009)Compact and sleek, the Axion 7-inch Portable TV provides digital TV in the palm of your hand. The hi-brightness and contrast LCD panel displays crisp pictures. You’ll be surprised that this is only a 7-inch screen. This TV is great for use both indoors and outdoors. The built-in rechargeable battery provides approximately 100 minutes (when fully charged) of movie or TV series watching. Key Features: 7-inch widescreen LCD mobile TV with hi-resolution and hi-brightness Built in NTSC/ATSC tuner for both analog & digital channels Brightness adjustable Built-in antenna allows easy repositioning for reception A/V Input for external audio/video sources Built-in speaker Built-in rechargeable Lithium-Polymer battery Card style remote control Headphone jack and volume control Free portable external antenna provided for stronger reception Specifications: Signal system: NTSC/ATSC Panel size: 7 inches Power source: DC 9V Operating temperat … >>> Special Offers and Product Promotions
If, like me, you live in a medium-fringe TV area, and you are going to be using the supplied (or other external) antenna, one of the first things to do when you receive this cute little TV is to connect it to the best antenna available to do your auto-scan. That’s easy because it has a standard antenna connector, and necessary because this TV will_not_tune to any channel not previously found by auto-scan. Manual tuning just selects a channel previously auto-scanned. At my location, the attached rabbit-ear antenna is virtually useless. But with my large, amplified home antenna connected, I easily picked up all the digital stations I usually get, plus one more, and with no problems from the many big trees around my home. So the tuner is very sensitive and not very subject to multipath interference. With the supplied external antenna connected, I eventually managed to get all the stations received using the big antenna, which was a nice surprise, although it took some fiddling with antenna position (Two inches can make all the difference). The digital TV picture provided is very good, with very nice color, resolution and contrast.
I didn’t expect great sound, since the speakers are tiny (about 1 inch diameter, on the front). It’s certainly not high fidelity, but it is intelligible at least. The sound from earphones is somewhat better.
Other surprises include no volume and no power on/off switch on the credit-card sized remote (No big deal. Gotta be almost within reach to see the picture details anyway). And the internal battery cannot be charged on the car adapter — It’s charged only when the TV is connected to AC power.
The Axion web site is listed in the manual as [...]
Follow-up 2/4/09: Still like this TV, but I’m now on the second one — The first stopped responding to the remote control after about two weeks, and was quickly replaced for free by Amazon. The second one performs at least as well as the first. Further thoughts: This TV is intended to be placed on a table top, like a picture frame, but if you must mount it elsewhere, well, there is a threaded hole like a tripod socket on the bottom. It doesn’t look very strong, and appears to be just molded into the plastic. The manual says nothing about it. Also, the AC adapter does generate some electrical noise (so does the TV), so AM radio reception may be affected, especially if the radio is close by.
I had a 5″ black and white in my kitchen and knew with the digital conversion, I would need something else. I ordered this based on the 2 reviews out there at the time and I am so pleased with this TV. I live in Houston so there are almost 40 channels available between the digital and the analog, I get channels on this that I don’t even get on my standard cable! initially I had trouble with some of the digital stations, I kept moving the TV around trying to pick up the signal (my problem was that I want the TV to sit under my cabinets and I guess that was interfering with the antenna picking up clear signals). I was getting frustrated and then remembered the other antenna it comes with. I unplugged the internal connection and plugged this extra antenna in and placed it on my window sill and all the channels came in perfectly without having to adjust anything. The cord on the extra stand up antenna is long enough to put it rather far from the TV which is very convenient because you can move it around to find the best reception. The picture is clear as a whistle and the sound is very good, not muffled or fuzzy at all. The wide screen is another bonus, most of the digital HD channels are in wide screen mode so it works out well. This is a no brainer to set up and I am so glad I took the plunge and bought it!
Update: I have not had to use this yet in a power outage but have occasionally unplugged it and brought it to the table to watch during dinner when I wanted to see a show I was in the middle of. The 1 1/2 hr. battery now barely works for 1/2 hr. and I have not used it often. I really bought this to use in my kitchen but also just as importantly, to work during another hurricane after having a small black and white that took batteries and worked beautifully last time I needed it. With the new digital change, I had to find something else to have on hand and apparently, this won’t be it. There is a new one coming out in August that does take regular alkaline batteries, I would suggest you go for that one if you want something to work in emergencies. Will still use this in my kitchen but now I will probably have to buy the other one just for emergency use since I live in a hurricane prone area. Very disappointed.
Axion AXN-8701 7-Inch Widescreen Portable Handheld TV with Built-In Tuner (Black)
This hand held television has clear reception. For what it is, it is very good. The only draw back is that the battery is rechargeable for 100 minutes. A hundred minutes will not go far enough after you lose power from a storm.
This will not be a good choice during hurricane season when you really need a television that takes replaceable batteries that can be changed when they become weak.