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It serves up a decent amount of brightness, enough to remain watchable even in brighter rooms, but it’s disappointing to find that the backlighting isn’t very even.
There are pretty much as many inputs as you could possibly want and of course it has the digital audio outputs. Four white shortcut buttons towards the bottom give quick access to Prime Video, Netflix, Live TV and the Apps screen, so it’s easy to bounce between all the different sources. The poor motion handling and upscaling will rightfully knock it off many people’s wish lists, but for watching everyday TV and streaming services, it’s passable. It is fully functional and has been professionally refurbished, tested, inspected and cleaned to very good condition by qualified sellers.
The stand offers a stylish touch, but it does jut forward, so if you need to squeeze a soundbar onto your TV stand you may want to double-check the measurements to ensure it will fit in front of the TV. I have a 4k JVC Fire TV which I now use to watch all my media with exception to the odd movie off my NAS. In SDR mode, its default Standard picture preset puts out a maximum brightness of around 369cd/m² and achieves a very respectable contrast ratio of 5,329:1 even with all the contrast– and colour-enhancing features turned off.
Flick to terrestrial TV or standard Full HD content, and the JVC struggles to effectively upscale to the native 4K resolution. A 4K Blu-ray of Guardians of the Galaxy is packed with deep golds, blues, greens and blacks, giving it a bold and expressive feel that matches the tone of the comedic superhero movie.
TV speakers are off obviously and the digital audio format has been changed between auto and Dolby digital as I've had to use an optical cable while I try and fix it.