The smart TV market is crowded, and it is dominated by Japanese and Korean television set makers. Now, a Taiwanese firm is vying for attention. Desktop PC and gaming laptop maker Acer has partnered with Bengaluru-based Indkal Technologies to make, sell and provide after-sales support for Acer-branded smart TV units in India.

The license deal began about a year ago, and Indkal has been selling Acer TV units through ecommerce sites. Recently, it has started selling its large appliances through retail stores. Indkal has entered the premium television segment with Acer’s W-Series. It has launched 55-inch and 65-inch QLED television sets. I received one of their smaller QLED smart TVs for review. And the unit exceeded most of my expectations, but fell short on a few others.

In the box

The unit is 37.9mm thick and was neatly packed in a cardboard box. The box had two additional packets containing the power cord, auxiliary cables, remote control, and two metal stands. Another small rectangular box contained components to wall-mount the unit.

Installation and set up

Two technicians from Acer helped unpack the unit. They did a fine job of removing the TV panel and attaching the power cord. There were two options for setting up the unit: wall-mount or table-top.

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Wall mounting looked interesting as this unit came with a magnet-based wall-hugging option. That means, I had to attach four magnets to the rear side of the panel, each in one corner of the rectangular unit. Then, four complementary metal units had to be drilled into the wall. Once this is done, all one has to is move the TV close to the wall for it to attach to the complementary units. Or that’s what I thought one should do.

While the wall-mounting option seemed interesting, I was sceptical whether the magnet would hold the unit for a long period of time. Also, Acer’s manual pointed out that there has to be a 10cm gap between the TV and the wall. And more importantly, the technicians were also a bit confused about the wall-mount option as this was the first such TV they were installing.

So, I switched to the table-top option, which was far easier. The technicians fixed two solid metal stands on either side of the unit and placed it on a side table by the wall.

Design

The front panel looked simple and minimal. Acer has taken a minimalist approach to this TV by building a simple, yet functional shell. The sockets for HDMI, power cord and other cables were neatly placed inside the sheet. And a canal-style pathway gives the cables space to flow down. This ensures that the cables do not jut out.

Setting up the TV took less than five minutes. Once the power cord is plugged it, I switched on the TV. I paired the remote control with the TV, and then went through the set-up process after inputting the Wi-Fi password. The remote control comes with hotkeys for Amazon Prime, Netflix, YouTube and Hotstar.

Display, processor, and sound

Acer’s 55-inch TV comes with a QLED display. While the jury is still out on whether OLED is better than QLED, I found this unit to be doing a fine job of highlighting a range of colours with a good level of brightness, thanks to HDR compatibility, Wider Colour Gamut, and Dolby Vision features. The local dimming feature reduces the afterglow, making the TV give an OLED-level output. But there is one catch here. The HDR compatibility feature works best when the room is dimly lit or dark as this TV comes with a peak brightness of 480 nits.

Acer’s W-Series is powered by Arm’s Cortex – A55 for computing, and Mali G31 for graphics processing. It comes with a 2GB RAM and 16 GB storage. The company gives the users an option to use the TV for videoconferencing as it supports Google Duo. But it does not come with an in-built camera.

At 60 Hz refresh rate, playing video games may not give the same output as one gets in a gaming PC. But it comes with an auto low latency mode (ALLM) feature, which could work well when a gaming device is connected to the TV via a HDMI cable. I did not try this feature while reviewing the unit.

I expected a rich sound experience from this TV, but was disappointed with its 30W speakers. Even after tuning the device’s speaker setting, the output was not top quality. So, I ended up connecting my soundbar to the TV to watch a few movies.

In conclusion

Acer has made a bold move into the premium smart TV segment with its W-Series. The company has packed the unit with a range of features that will make this device a worthy contender in the crowded smart TV market. Acer 55UHD QLED and 65UHD QLED are available at ₹69,999, and ₹89,999 on both Amazon and Flipkart.