The common television we find everywhere is 21 inch. Big 29 inch is expensive and also you may need a big hall or room to view it. Nobody will ever bother to buy 14 inches since it’s to small and outdated for general viewing. One reason for buying it is its cost. An Akai Color Television CT- 14W3 costs only 8000 Rs and you also get finance schemes to support your budget. Most of the Features are common in 21 inch Akai and 14 inch. You have to compromise on the sound and few features like no earphone socket (so no late night viewing), surround sound, woofers, program swap etc. Well its obvious that you won’t get everything in a small television with small prize. As I mentioned in my earlier reviews we have a house in Goa. My father looks after it. Now for passing time and some entertainment he had bought it. 21 inch would have been an unnecessary investment.
Channels
110 TV channels are available. This is 10 more than 21 inch we have at our home. I wonder if it is of any use because the cable operator in Goa provides only about 30 channels of which 5-10 are regional language channels. Many people in goa have there own dishes. Anyway it is not bad to have so many channels since this availability gives the freedom of having many channels and storing them at any locations. No Child lock in this one also. I think Akai doesn’t believe in Child locks. They may say if there aren’t any objectionable channels in India why bother having it in TVs. Well I don’t agree with this (I won’t name them but watch many channels nights, I wonder how come any Social or Political group didn’t come up with protest and agitation).
Remote Control
It’s been more than 2 years to this television. The guarantee period is 3 years for the tv.
Now one common problem I have observed with many (with different brands) is that some frequently pressed buttons on remote control get dysfunctional. Especially volume control, channels browsing, on/off, mute etc. I don’t have this problem with my 21 inch remote even after 4 years but the 2-year-old 14-inch has many. Above-mentioned buttons are totally dysfunctional. The service mechanic said it couldn’t be repaired. So to change the volume we have to run all the way down to the television. Now I understand how important remote control is when you have 20 odd channels. Tragic thing with these TVs is, all functions available on remote are not available on actual television. For example color, contrast control, channels scanning and saving. So once remote is out of order nothing can be done. From that experience I take care of my remote control like a precious thing.
Sound
100 watts PMPO is the output of the system. No woofers, so no blasting bass boost effect. No audio leveler. Some channels as set by operator are loud at minimum sound. So when you change from normal sound channel to loud one, you have to change reduce the volume from time and again. LG TV has an Auto leveler. I suppose 100 watts is ok for a 14 inch.
Auto Tuning
For Auto tuning colored buttons are provided with colors assigned for saved, unsaved channels. It takes time to learn these setting and there application. This is same in all Akai models.
The set is equipped with Automatic TV channel programming. There are three ways to tune in the TV stations:
Auto Program: Automatically tunes in all available TV stations in your area or provided by your cable operator.
Auto Search: Gives the flexibility of skipping unwanted programme and only save programme that you want. By this you can Automatically search for TV stations.
Manual Tune: As the name reads you can manually tune all channels or programme you want.
Earphone Socket
Biggest of all features for me is the Earphone Socket. Right from my hostels life during M.Sc. I have developed a habit of working late night. I can’t sleep before 3 in the night. When I get bored I watch TV at night. That’s the only time I get to watch the TV. You can’t watch it with loud sound since everyone is sleeping. Thus the socket comes handy.
It’s almost a negligible feature; still this model doesn’t have that.
Others
Apart from that 2 AV inputs, one at back and one at front, then 1 AV output is provided. Four selectable picture modes and sound model are provided. This model was introduced after the old 21-inch model, so it had tuning lock also. Both on and off timer for provided. The Sleep timer is for 1hour (60 minutes) with an interval of 10 minutes. That’s quite a big number of features you can get in a portable TV. What do you say?