We all have probably experienced this situation: a top-of-the-line smartphone, a camera or a TV is on sale, but we have to postpone the purchase of the flagship, because our desires do not always match our capabilities. But with this flagship, I think the situation will be different. Today we are reviewing a 4K Smart TV Harper 49U750TS which at a reasonable price brings a real premium segment to the masses: a large screen diagonal, ultra-high resolution and a good set of Smart options that are characteristic of very expensive devices. We just make sure that sometimes the following logic is true: you pay less and you get more!
Appearance, controls and connectivity
The first thing that catches your eye is the new look. The big, just huge panel at 49 inches with a resolution of 3840×2160 needs no special comments. Size does matter, although the designers for the Harper 49U750TS probably had the slogan “simplicity is everything” in mind. The glossy frame and feet are all design elements that are hard to miss at first glance.
If you turn this set on, the design is enriched by the noble and wide blue diode, located on the left side. Next to the control buttons. Icons are printed on the front panel, but in such a way that they are hardly visible, and they do not spoil the modern look of the TV.
It is important to mention that the leg span of Harper 49U750TS is 104 cm, almost as big as the span of the Crimean bridge! What do you expect?? A good size is a good stability. The main thing is to find a suitable cabinet, but it will be easier to hang a big TV set on the wall – there is a VESA 200×200 mount for that.
Connectors and plugs are traditionally combined into two connector blocks.
Bottom unit
Side unit
So we have quite a modern and complete set:
Antenna Inlet for Satellite Antenna
Component YPbPr input
Audio output 3.5mm
3 x HDMI 1 with ARC
2 x USB
CI SLOT
LAN
SPDIF Coaxial
Note that the paired USB interface allows you to use both connectors only when you connect the usual “flat” connectors.
The remote control is noticeably different from other Harper models. Control buttons related to Smart, gathered at the bottom, others are located on top. Buttons are soft, pleasant to the touch, without feedback and with a clear moment of operation.
Perhaps, optimizing remote control keys for Smart TV on Android is one of the most successful options that we have reviewed. The clear and obvious back and home buttons, as well as the menu button, make for very logical and pleasant navigation.
However, the remote control, in my opinion, lacks a few important buttons. For example, I would add a special button to control the “cropped. In the meantime, to fit a picture that’s too wide in the screen, you have to go into the menu every time. In addition, not all Android applications are geared for use with the remote control, and sometimes there are situations where remote navigation is not possible. In such cases switching of the remote control to “mouse” mode, when you can control the cursor with the arrows on the remote control, could be helpful. Other Harper models have this feature, but the 49U750TS somehow does not.
Otherwise, the remote control is quite successful, simple and logical.
Smart TV: armed and very nice
Time to look “under the hood” of your Harper 49U750TS TV. What we have here? Pretty powerful processor – 2x ARM Cortex-A9 up to 1200 MHz. The power is not a Formula 1, but for a budget Smart TV it is at a very decent level. The pictures are displayed by the graphic processor with the Mali-400 chip, it is not the newest one, but it is time tested and very reliable. It has enough potential to go right through all the usual applications, although you’re unlikely to dash through any modern arcade with 3D graphics.
Harper’s flagship TV has Android 6 as its Smart Part control system.0. This noticeably distinguishes the novelty from the entire lineup of the brand. True, such an advanced shell requires a lot of RAM and space for installing software. The new Harper model has 1.5 GB of RAM, which is quite enough even for adequate playback of 4K content, and for permanent data storage is allotted 5 GB-plus. True, the user is actually available about 3.5 GB, but even this space is enough to install applications. So there’s no need to transfer your most popular apps to an external drive. Already easier to live!
Of course, the TV set Harper 49U750TS knows how to communicate via Wi Fi – through the module 802.11n. You can also connect this device to external sources, using the faster, more reliable wireless Miracast connection, to a tablet or smartphone, for example. So you can look at your vacation videos or photos on the big screen right from your gadget.
Of course we would like to see more support for the AC standard, but you have to have a conscience to express such desires for such a budget price.
On the whole, even a quick review of technical specifications of Harper 49U750TS showed quite decent equipment. But how will the novelty behave on the track simulators? To find all the answers, we ran the TV device on different popular AnTuTu and Geekbench 4.
The results are as follows: AnTuTu – 25389, Geekbench 4 – 404/628.
As we can see, on the whole the results are very good for the budget segment. Of course, Harper 49U750TS should not be compared to external set-top boxes, the price of which sometimes reaches a third of the cost of the entire TV set. The main question I was interested in is whether it has enough power to watch movies in 4K?
So, it is time to test our flagship Harper in combat conditions. So, let’s estimate 4K video, for this we run in a smart shell Bluy-ray Remux movie through the built-in player and through a third-party Kodi . The picture is great, the flight is normal. Neither slowdowns nor lags are not noticed. But there can be hiccups on Wi Fi, if there’s a question about the home router and its DLNA player. The built-in player is omnivorous enough and gladly works with all modern video formats, audio and photos
So we have a budget flagship TV, which although it does not claim to be Hi End, but the new Harper 49U750TS model goes a lot further than the previous generation of inexpensive Smart TVs that offered users only the most basic functionality. And in the new device there is also the spirit of speed and drive!
The shell
Clearly, no high-tech device will work properly without fine-tuning. For this you will have to deal with the interface of the internal shell, which in Harper 49U750TS evokes very pleasant emotions. Everything is made simply, easily understandable and, what is important, with the ability to configure the functionality according to the desires and habits of any user.
The main menu page opens three large blocks: the calendar, the media player and the TV helper deleting programs, clearing memory and more . By the way, the memory cleanup feature is very important, because it solves an ever-present problem of Android TVs: TVs with such software occasionally need to be rebooted and more often than not by ourselves, but through a master call.
On the right side of the menu there are nine more blocks, four of which are fixed, including the access to the full list of applications. And the other five can be tuned to your liking in any way you like. Very comfortable! However, practice shows that most Smart TV owners usually use no more than five main applications. Apparently, this is why the menu of the built-in Android is very cut down and contains only a minimum of the most necessary settings – network, language, etc.
Not just a race track
It’s time to remember that Harper 49U750TS TV set is not only a Smart TV, but also an ordinary TV receiver. And how it shows the over-the-air channels? We won’t ignore this one either.
Let us note right away that in addition to the standard DVB-T2 player, this model also has a DVB-S2 player which receives Satellite TV programs. Cool!
polished. Although even this time we could not do without fancy gizmos like time-shift and PVR. Of course, to use this kind of recording service, which requires a lot of space for streaming video, you would have to connect an external drive. Unfortunately, you will not be able to record TV programs onto the internal memory of the TV set – it is too small in gigabytes!
The channels switch rather quickly, the performance is limited only by the external factor switching the incoming digital signal.
Although the transmission program slips into the foreign text notes, it is made very well, there is a lot of information and it is reasonably structured. Program guide is easy to find for today, tomorrow, and other days of the week. The reminder and recording functions are present, of course. Except that the field for program description is a bit small. Sometimes all the text doesn’t fit in there.
In TV mode of Harper 49U750TS TV set there is a menu where you can adjust sound and image, set such features as parental control and individual channel parameters. You will have to get acquainted with this menu thoroughly if you want to control such a functionality as image cropping and to vary settings of different channels. The menu itself is very nice, simple and clear.
Thanks to the two speakers 8W each, Harper 49U750TS TV set gives quite decent sound. No bass, of course, but no wheezing or rattling at high volume.
Quality of the matrix: the sun is not an obstacle for films!
The quality of the panel matrix in such a large TV like Harper 49U750TS is a very important factor that can radically affect the choice of consumers. Whatever the hardware of the new flagship may be, no one will lay out their hard-earned money without seeing an image and appreciating its excellent picture.
We approached this part of the test especially seriously, using all the diagnostic tools and methods that we had on the “back road.
On the big panel, the first thing that catches your eye is the unevenness of the image. That is why we first checked the uniformity of backlighting and color temperature which is graphically shown on the picture below.
In standard mode the brightness of the panel was 288 cd/m2 300 cd/m2 is claimed . Not a bad result! This brightness is enough to watch TV in the daytime when the noon sun is shining through the window. The matrix surface is glossy, but far from being a mirror, so that everything will be perfectly visible on the screen, although the color rendering, of course, will suffer noticeably in direct sunlight.
The uniformity of the backlighting corresponds to an average panel – the brightness goes down in the corners, but much more importantly there are no bright spots. On the test picture you can see the changes of brightness with the naked eye, but on the live image you won’t even notice that it changes somehow.
Also the color temperature proved to be very good during the test. Even at the corners, the deviation from the center does not exceed 10 percent, and the average panel deviation is no more than 5 percent. A decent result for a budget model!
Viewing angles look standard. Because of the high pixel density at a high angle sometimes displays a slight Glow – a glow similar to the flare. This is inevitable for today’s matrix contracting.
Harper 49U750TS has 4 color modes – soft, custom, standard and bright, which are available only when watching terrestrial TV or recording from an external source. When Smart TV is working it is impossible to change the picture mode.
I wouldn’t recommend to use the bright mode entirely too often, because I didn’t like the rather strong extraneous tint in the light colors, this deviation is clearly visible on the graph: Gamma curves, which should be inseparable, sprawl like a swan, a crab and a pike.
The other modes are quite possible to use at least every day – they do not differ much from each other. So let’s take a closer look at the custom mode, which is the same as the default mode.
The actual contrast of the panel in this mode without taking into account the dynamic contrast is 635:1, which is an average value. Given the very good gamma 2.18 This contrast makes the picture deep and alive, a lot like a movie theater picture. This allows you to see almost all the details on the screen, even in low-contrast scenes.
The color gamut is not bad, but I wouldn’t call it absolutely perfect because it lacks some saturation in green tones. Color temperature is very stable but very cool at 9500K.
Harper 49U750TS has no color management system. Some minimum settings are available only in custom mode. After flipping these settings back and forth, I would recommend you to set this mode to warm color temperature – about 7250K. According to our measurements, in this case the picture will be the most correct.
Visual assessment of the Harper 49U750TS picture is as follows:
– colors are correct, calm, not screaming
– A very high picture uniformity over the whole matrix area
– Gradations are smooth. Shadows are soft, and not blown out.
Those who like plasticine, oversaturated, overly contrasted picture with screaming colors will hardly like the Harper 49U750TS TV set. The most appropriate word to describe his image is natural and ordinary. But is that not enough?? Don’t most users want to see the world exactly as it really is, unadorned and unintentionally distorted? Especially since the high resolution of the panel allows you to consider on the screen the tiniest twigs and even veins on the leaves…
Conclusions
Models like Harper 49U750TS TV set can be called unique representatives of the new market segment, which is forming right before our eyes. This is a segment of budget top-level devices. A new segment that is gaining weight is aimed at those users who have a taste for premium devices, but are not ready to pay a high price for them.
Judge for yourself, for less than 30 thousand Dollars you get a very decent 4K panel although with limited Smart functionality , good stuff, which does not stall or hang up, and a good picture on all major parameters. On the wall, the included panel size of 49 inches! It can be a staple of a modern home stereo system if you connect a Blue-ray player or set-top box or just – a conventional over-the-air TV almost the entire wall. Harper 49U750TS TV capable of working on any option.
Pros:
Price/performance ratio
Nice matrix with good uniformity of backlighting
Decent color rendering
DVB-S2 tuner
Powerful Smart TV although weaker than external set-top boxes
Nice logical and adjustable shell
ARC and optical audio output
Cons:
Not the most successful remote control
Very limited Android settings
Specifications
| Main characteristics | |
| TV type | LCD Smart TV with LED backlight |
| Diagonal screen | 49′ |
| Screen resolution | 4K Ultra HD 3840 x 2160 |
| Smart TV functions | Yes |
| Picture format | 16:9 |
| Menu in American | yes |
| Teletext | yes |
| Broadcast System | |
| Digital tuner | DVB-T/T2/C/S/S2 |
| Analog TV Color System | SECAM, PAL |
| AV color system | SECAM, PAL, NTSC |
| Stereo sound decoder NICAM | Yes |
| Screen | |
| Dynamic contrast | 110000:1 |
| Brightness | 300 cd/m2 |
| Viewing Angle horizontally ./vertik. | 178˚/178˚ |
| Number of colors | 16.7 million |
| Response Time | 6.5 ms |
| 3D digital filter | Yes |
| Sound | |
| Number of speakers | 2 |
| The power of each speaker | 8W |
| Connections | |
| HDMI | 3 |
| USB | 2 |
| Component video input | 1 |
| Composite video/audio output | 1 |
| Antenna input | 1 |
| SCART | 1 |
| CI-slot | 1 |
| Headphone input3.5 mm | 1 |
| Ethernet RJ-45 | 1 |
| Wi-Fi | yes |
| Power Consumption | |
| Maximum power | 110 W |
| Standby mode | 0.5 W |
| Voltage supply | ~100-240 V 50/60 Hz |
| Dimensions | |
| Dimensions without stand, mm WxHxV | 1103x642x83 |
| Dimensions with stand, mm WxHxV | 1103x702x261 |
| Weight, kg | 9,7 |
| VESA mounting standard mm | 200×200 |
How does the Harper 49U750TS TV manage to offer premium features at such an affordable price?