Smart TV Harper 42F670T2S: this is a completely different OperaTV!

Remember the new name – HARPER. We have been selling TVs under this brand for several years in America and CIS countries e.g. Kazakhstan , but only this year we can no longer ignore the presence of this brand on the American market.Today we are testing a HARPER 42F670T2S Smart TV with FullHD matrix, WiFi connection and DVB-T2 T/C digital tuner. Only 3D function is missing from modern technology. But the price at a novelty is pleasant in all respects, only about 20 thousand Dollars…

Harper 42 F670 T2S TV

The redistribution of the market has already begun?

The current situation on the electronics market suggests that the end of the stellar era of big-name brands is approaching. This does not mean that they will disappear, but the fact is that the old-timers in the market are being squeezed by new producers.

As a predictive tool, it is quite possible to look at trends in the more dynamic smartphone market. This segment is changing with even greater speed. Remember how dominant Apple was just three or four years ago? And every fifth smartphone had a Samsung logo. Two leaders with different shells monopolistically dictate the prices of flagship models.

And now the “killers” of flagships are quietly strolling around the American market: Huawei, Meizu, Xiaomi, on the way LeeCo and other brands. They all offer identical in functionality smartphones, but many times cheaper. Famous brands are forced to make price concessions, releasing new products more often and equipping them with unique features to make the price reduction process smoother…

In the TV market, the same trends, only stretched over time. There are very well-known brands, which, incidentally, are not always good products, but almost always – high prices. And the “young guard” has already asserted itself – the less well promoted manufacturers who offer the market advanced Smart TVs at affordable prices. Among these brands are BBK, Supra, HARPER. A new name in this lineup is remembered – HARPER brand?

These are the first fruits of the import substitution policy which reaches from vegetable greenhouses to very technological industries. Harper TVs are assembled in Shushary, near St. Petersburg, at the factory of the Chinese company TPV CIS. This is the first plant on American soil, built by the leading Chinese manufacturer specializing in the development, production and post-sales service of displays, monitors, LCD TVs and LCD panels.

And jokes aside: Made in Chine, only in America. Factory in Shushary is a very serious production, with modern management model, including basic ISO 9001, ISO 14001 management systems and a number of more specific systems: SAP ERP system, ESD control antistatic control , 5S workplace management , as well as SFIS, MES and WMS. Experts will appreciate it, but we, ordinary customers, should take your word for it: “in Shushary they don’t make brooms”.

TPV Group is the world’s leading manufacturer of monitors, with a market share of about 36 percent. Probably that is why the HARPER brand TV sets have a very decent matrix. By the way, on the world TV market, the TPV company takes the third place – after the Korean “tigers” LG and Samsung. By the way, TPV has the exclusive right to produce and sell televisions under the legendary Philips brand.

I do not need to prove that Smart-TV models of famous brands are much more expensive in our market: Samsung and Sony with 42″ diagonal size – around 40-50 thousand Dollars, LG – around 35 000 Dollars, the same Philips – 30 000 Dollars.

So, it’s time to figure out if it’s worth shelling out almost two prices for the better-known nameplate on the panel?

Appearance, controls and connections

The appearance of the HARPER 42F670T2S television is modest and laconic. The border of the screen is narrow, about 1.5 cm on the sides and top and 2 cm at the bottom. The frame, made of glossy plastic, fits snugly enough to the matrix. The silver “tongue in the underbelly” of the panel seemed to me an unusual design element – there is a clear contrast with the brand logo.

If you don’t like or are bored with the “tongue” with the logo, you can easily unscrew the silver cover – it has two screws. And no hole marks will be visible.

By the way, the feet are made of matt plastic, they do not stand out against the background of the whole body, but harmoniously complete it. The feet have a wide span, so the TV stands on its own two feet with confidence. The chances of knocking it over, even if you hit it roughly, are minimal.

Next to the left foot, at the bottom, is the multiselector joystick. With this joystick you can control TV without a remote control. It’s undoubtedly more comfortable than buttons. But for some reason the joystick is on the left side, as if the TV is specially made for left-handers. When controlling it with your right hand, you have to stand sideways to the television. Although I’ve already forgotten when I used this kind of control without a remote control.

Remote control is definitely worth a special mention.

The first thing I want to mention is the ideal positioning of the remote control in your hand, which is provided by the rounded shape of the back side and a small notch. The hand rests so that the thumb hangs perfectly over the main navigation keys. Because they’re all smooth and glossy, it’s easy to grip on autopilot without looking. The navigation keys are indistinguishable, their pressing is much clearer, with a distinctive click, pleasant and comfortable. And the other buttons, the auxiliary, are pressed more softly.

There is a personal button to launch YouTube. Cool, it’s about time they did that!

Overall, this is one of the most convenient and thoughtful remotes I’ve seen – everything is simple, clear, concise and nothing is superfluous.

However, there are a couple of things to which we would like to draw the manufacturer’s attention. First, the battery cover lock is too soft, which leads to the accidental opening of the power compartment see video review .

Secondly, I would swap the rear back button, because you often have to use the latter, so I would like to have it always at hand not to fumble every time.

Set of connections for external devices is very decent: S/PDIF, USbx2, HDMIx3, SCART input only , PCIN D-Sub , Aidioin, AVIN, headphone jack, LAN, CI slot.

Moreover, one of the HDMI supports MHL image output from mobile devices and ARC the ability to connect receivers without additional cables via HDMI , and it’s pretty damn cool! Almost none of the competitors in this price group have this feature. Lovers of music and home cinema will be satisfied.

All sockets are grouped in two recessed panels, but it doesn’t prevent you to hang your TV on the bracket close to the wall. By the way, the 42F670T2S has a VESA200x200 mount.

The only adapter included is a mini jack to AV adapter.

To summarize the ergonomics we can say that apart from minor problems with the remote control there is nothing more to complain about. A solid body, convenient controls and a wide range of connections.

Over-the-air television

HARPER 42F670T2S has a modern set of tuners, including a digital one, complying with the modern American standard. Channels switch rather quickly. There’s no need to wait for each one to open and slow down as it happens with some other brands for some reason.

By the way, the 42F670T2S TV set can be powered by 5V to an external antenna, which greatly improves reception quality for inactive antennas.

The user is offered a whole set of crops of the image, allowing you to select the best option for any type of broadcasting. Goodbye frames around the picture!

Conveniently done and EPG – program schedule. In the first menu you can see only list of channels and current program, but with a click you can go to any program of the selected channel and back. You can also set a reminder of the beginning of an interesting program and set the recording time.

Speaking of recording: the 42F670T2S TV set comes with PVR recording, and TimeShift, which lets you pause the live TV broadcast. Of course, video recording would require a fast USB flash drive. There is no internal storage for recorded files, but you can view through the built-in media player.

I would like to mention another couple of nice features of the HARPER 42F670T2S in the digital signal processing. In addition to noise reduction, which works quite softly and effectively, there is also a 3D filter. Don’t be surprised, we are not talking about the volumetric image, that’s the name of the technology, which allows you to simultaneously increase the sharpness and decrease the noise of the video. The consonance with the spatial image is a small trick undertaken for the purpose of better marketing.

If we initially take the main function of TV – watching terrestrial broadcasting, then the TV 42F670T2S is the best suited for watching daily shows. And at the same time soccer and hockey games. No complaints. The main thing is to have a good beer..

Smart TV: black sheep or just different

Harper engineers didn’t reinvent the wheel on Linux, they didn’t install slow WebOS or Android full of ads. The 42F670T2S uses a non-standard OperaTV shell. The name is familiar to many, but the TV platform must not be confused with the Opera browser, although the “kindred spirits” can be guessed in many nuances.

Generally speaking, OperaTV is a platform based on HTML5 that brings different content to the user, including applications, but draws them exclusively from the cloud. OperaTV does not expect to install applications directly on the receiver. No Internet, no SmartTV.

Among the entertainments that OperaTV offers, there are videos, apps and games. A complete list can be found on the website of the developer, it is extensive – for all tastes..

Let’s deal in order. Taking into account the direct access to YouTube, the presence of videos on the OperaTV platform itself recedes into the background.

However, OperaTV has its trump card. Here, for example, is the “video app”. The essence of this service is that all broadcasts of some program or show are gathered together and arranged as a separate application with convenient navigation and viewing. In fact, a very convenient service. It’s much more convenient to create such an “archive” than to browse the endless expanses of YouTube.

There will probably be more regular apps on OperaTV than on SmartTV on WebOS and Linux, but the abundance of Android is certainly out of reach. OperaTV offers from a prominent place to use the search in Yandex, applications for home theater, there is also a selection of news, a separate section for children and other popular topics. The only thing that may be in short supply are the applications for watching IPTV provided by your local provider.

The games section contains mainly casual toys like tanks, puzzles and Sudoku. True, most often now with these toys hang out in a smartphone, but on a big screen to repeat the passed levels to someone may seem quite fun activity.

Summarizing the above Smart TV advantages, we can make the following table

Pros of	Disadvantages
-Decent OperaTV speed, -All applications are geared up for TV – no problems with control, -No too intrusive advertising, as in Android	-requires a constant high-speed connection to the Internet – not a bad set of applications, but in number inferior toAndroid

Standard applications

Among the pre-installed apps on HARPER 42F670T2S you will find the usual YouTube and Facebook, as well as the TV Browser, the media player, Homemedia DLNA player and SkyShare to connect wireless displays . Not much to say about YouTube, it works smoothly, without freezing: all the clips I have opened almost instantly and never “bothered”.

Opera has always been famous for its browser. And this time the “teleportation” of the already repeatedly tested shell to a new job was successful. So it’s as convenient as possible to browse the Internet with the built-in browser without a mouse and keyboard which refuse to work when connected to the TV. This was to be expected, as the support of such peripherals was not announced by the manufacturer. Instead of the usual mouse the TV browser is supposed to use a virtual analog that controls the arrows. In my opinion, this solution is much more convenient for users than selective flights over active zones.

Media player and DLNA player shells are the same. Didn’t immediately figure out if they should be separated into separate applications. Though many people will surely find two buttons leading to different players a handy gimmick. Both players can handle both file structure and can select audio, photo, video content, ignoring the file structure – just by the search bar.

The player’s performance – one and the other – left me very satisfied: it’s convenient, fast, quick, has a scheduler and random playback. I would especially like to mention the built-in service that allows you to instantly rewind a movie to any preset point – all you have to do is specify the desired length of time. If, for instance, the midnight sun crept up unnoticed, and the action film was barely halfway through, you can quietly fix the “sleep point” and start the next evening from that exact frame. Such a “memory node” is much more convenient than painful catching the boundary point on the accelerated playback.

I have a special message for music lovers, who decided to add to HARPER 42F670T2S TV a floor or another acoustic system: to listen to the audio the TV has a convenient playlist, what not all well-publicized smart packages can boast. It is quite convenient: you organize your sound environment once and then you start enjoying your favorite compositions in two clicks.

Quality of the matrix

In the era of gadgets, if you suddenly do not like some Smart functionality, you can go your own way: you can simply connect a digital set-top box to your TV, and many problems will disappear by themselves. So, the difference in Smart features of TVs of different brands is not of utmost importance when choosing. The main consumer feature of a TV set is still the quality of the matrix.

In the early days of LCD panels angles were a sore subject. Now, in the overwhelming majority of cases there is nothing wrong with this review. An eloquent example is the HARPER 42F670T2S, which has almost perfect viewing angles. Manufacturer claims 178/178 degrees. You can take a look at the picture with the three screens: even at extreme angles there is no obvious distortion of color and brightness.

Now let’s check the matrix for other important parameters: how even the backlighting and color temperature of this LCD panel is? To answer this key question we have carried out a colorimeter test measurement.

For inquisitive professionals we present a table with the results of measurements. By the way, you needn’t be afraid of red numbers in the table – these are, after all, the criteria for super professional monitors used by designers and photographers. And we want to inform all the rest: HARPER 42F670T2S matrix showed very good results. I want to note the excellent stability of color temperature within the whole matrix area, the color temperature difference is -250/+500K, which is absolutely imperceptible to the eye of a common user.

In the corners, the brightness of the backlighting diminishes to 30%, a number that seems to be big, but it occurs when the color is absolutely white, at 50% of brightness the difference already decreases to 5%. In general, some uneven backlighting can be noticed only on the white background and that’s if you look fastidiously.

It is worth noting the manufacturer’s exceptional honesty – the brightness of the matrix even slightly exceeds 250 cd/m2, reaching the value of 257 cd/m2. Usually manufacturers, as they say, “smirk in their whiskers”, denoting one of the most important parameters.

Now let’s look at color rendering.The HARPER 42F670T2S offers the user just three modes – Cinema, Dynamic and Standard, and also three color temperature modes plus one custom mode , which we are now going to check with some special equipment.

For the measuring tests we used an X-Rite Colorimeter, which allows us to estimate the color gamut, color temperature and other image parameters. PAL-SECAM format was chosen as the target area, which is the standard format for TV broadcasting in the American Federation.

Test measurements showed that all three modes differ from each other only by color temperature. Color gamut and gamma remain unchanged. Measurements confirmed my visual impression of excellent color rendering. The color gamut triangle, shown on the diagrams, in all three modes is close to ideal. That means the matrix is able to reproduce almost all colors that exist in that space, which is very rare even for more expensive models.

Cinema mode

Dynamic mode

Standard Mode

By the way, in all on-air modes the gamma corresponds to 1.8, as required by PAL/SECAM standards. However, inSmartTV modes with gamma 2 would be more suitable.2, because video from the internet or from a router over DLNA most often involves a picture with a higher gamma 2.2. In short, the movies on this TV, if the signal source is not broadcasting, will have a slightly “lighter” picture than the director intended.

Measurements also showed that the color temperature is quite cool in all modes. Even in “Warm” mode it is quite “frozen” – 7500K. As you know, a cool picture tends to have bluish tones. And it means that with such a TV set your eyes will be less tired. For modern TVs this color temperature has become the norm, so to speak, “on demand of the TV viewers”.

After spending a few evenings alone with the TV set HARPER 42F670T2S, I came to the conclusion that the best settings would be the following: movie mode with a warm color temperature. The picture in this case, although a little cool, but in all other respects – color and brightness, the most successful.

So, the matrix in the 42F670T2S model is very good: excellent color gamut, wide viewing angles, fairly uniform backlighting and overall good display modes. The only problem was the absence of modes with gamma 2.2 necessary to watch the content from the network or home theater.

Conclusion

What’s the bottom line? We have a good quality TV, which has a decent matrix with good color reproduction, brightness and viewing angle. Yes, the design is quite modest and there is no 3D function, but all other options are great. And the cost of the TV is a third lower than the big name brands.

Using OperaTV as a TV shell is certainly a bold and original solution. How widely this platform will spread in our country, we will know in a while. But in any case, this shell is as good as the others. And I would recommend the HARPER 42F670T2S TV for purchase, even to my friends and family.

Pros:

Value for money

Excellent color gamut of the matrix

Fast enough shell

Cons:

Shortcomings of the remote control the lid opens

No mode with gamma 2.2

The SmartTV apps require a constant connection to the Internet

Specifications

Screen diagonal 42′ 106 cm

FULL HD 1920×1080 resolution screen

DVB-T2/DVB-T/DVB-C digital tuner

Smart TV functions

NICAM stereo sound decoder

Dynamic contrast 90000:1

Brightness 250 cd/m2

Viewing angle horizontally ./vertical. 176˚/176˚

3D Digital Filter

Number of colors 16.7 million.

Response time 6.5 ms

Audio speakers power 2x10W

Wi-Fi

Dimensions without stand/stand, mm WxHxV 954x98x567

Dimensions with stand, mm WxHxV 954x210x590

Weight, kg 8.74

VESA mounting standard mm 200×200