Recently, French consumer electronics brand Thomson launched a new series of affordable licensed Android TVs, called the OATH series, in India. Following the ‘Make in India’ initiative, the entire range, which comprises 43-inch, 49-inch, 55-inch and 65-inch TVs, is manufactured in India. The OATH series runs on the latest Android Oreo OS and come with a well-designed remote with dedicated keys for launching Google Assistant, Netflix and Google Play. Here, we’ll look at the 49-inch TV called the 49 OATH 9000.
Design and features
The 49 OATH 9000 has a minimalistic design, with thin bezels around the screen but thick at the bottom, for it features an integrated soundbar. The TV doesn't look cheap in any sense of the term. The corners are well rounded on the top, which adds to the sophisticated look of the TV. The stand on which the TV sits is splayed outwards and is black like the rest of the body. The stand is also skid-proof, which helps hold the TV firmly in place.
The 49 OATH comes with an Ultra HD (4K) panel with a resolution of 3,840 x 2,160 pixels and is HDR10 compliant. It has an 8-bit LG IPS panel with Direct LED backlighting. The stereo soundbar delivers 30 watts RMS audio output.
An HDMI port, a USB port and a LAN port are located at the right side of the TV, while all other ports are at the back, which can be difficult to access if the TV is mounted on the wall. TV HDMI and USB ports are also placed very close to each other, which means that if you plug in something like Amazon Fire TV Stick, a part of the USB port gets covered, making it unusable.
Remote
The remote control that comes with the TV has a great build quality and keys with brilliant tactile feedback. The remote houses all the necessary keys including a dedicated key to activate voice commands for Google Voice Search feature. There are also dedicated buttons to start Netflix and Google Play Store.
Performance
The TV is powered by a quad-core CPU and the Mali T860 GPU and comes with 2.5GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage. The TV runs on the latest Android Oreo OS. During our test, which included navigating through menus, launching apps and streaming Netflix and Amazon Prime, the Thomson TV was fast, especially while loading its home page.
Additionally, it has built-in Chromecast, which allows you to cast videos from supported apps like YouTube, Hotstar and Sony LIV. The TV has Netflix app pre-installed, and there is a hotkey on the remote for its quick launch.
The TV delivers great picture quality, thanks to the quad-core CPU and Mali T860 GPU. To test the black level, we watched Gravity on it, and in extremely dark scenes, it exhibited a very good black level. Overall, the TV has a good contrast to brightness ratio, especially considering its price. The audio output is great too – the 30W soundbar delivers decent bass, but it’s in no way thumping bass. Thus, if you want more sound and bass, you should get an external audio system.
Conclusion
If your living room still has an outdated analogue or HD TV, and you want to replace it with a digital one, then the 49 OATH can be a good option – it offers good picture and sound quality at a very reasonable price.
Price Rs 33,999
Pros
User interface, audio
Cons
Slow start
