Re: Design

saf — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 12:39:19 GMT

TripEnglish:

IThe BeoVision 9 looks like it was stung by a bee. It's ridiculously large for being a "flat panel" television. Think back a decade ago when the Avant was crafted to hide its girth and appear as a picture on a wall before that was a reality. The BeoVision 9, with its rolled frame and big rear end look as though Mr. Lewis was deliberately trying to add mass. By comparison, the BeoVision 5 seems so sleek and well resolved. If you showed them to someone who had never seen either one they would certainly assume that the BeoVision 5 was a refined later version of the BeoVision 9.

Rather agree. Moreover, after I have seen the BV7 40' in flesh (again) almost side by side with BV9, I almost had an impression that the 7 kind of looked more 'thorough' design-wise and more expensive! (I know I'm changing my mind.) The picture (on the 7) with a HD source is just fantastic, no doubt about this.

TripEnglish:

The BeoVision 4 has always been complemented for its elegant frame, but has never captured a lot of hearts with its looks alone. Now it seems Mr. Lewis is applying is same puffy frame to the BeoVision 4 (bye bye compliments!) and putting the IR knob on the top (didn't they learn their lesson with the 9000's vacation switch?). And they're not stopping there! It's growing a center channel beard!

I, for one, think that the triangular speaker makes the BV4 more interesting than other speakers ... I like it and think it's visually more intriguing (how many new buyers will remember AV9000?)

TripEnglish:

The BeoVision 8, in comparison to the BeoVision MX range that it replaces, looks aggressively cheap. I'm looking across the room right now at an MX5500 and it looks so elegant perched on its stand. There's not much more to say. The picture is fabulous and the capabilities are indispensable, but it doesn't get my pulse racing.

I also saw and touched this recently: I like it (the 32' to be more specific) more then the MX (today), both on its 'leg', but maybe more so on the designated piece of furniture. It doesn't look cheap to me. I can though imagine that the couting is not so practical if you happen to live in a dusty town... It's a very cool-looking TV and I can actually imagine people buying it for their (linked) bedrooms/kids rooms. If my kids were a bit older I would probably do it. I'm not so sure though if this set can be considered an entry-level stuff for new buyers who can chose among other brands packed with more features etc....

Design

TripEnglish — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 11:50:56 GMT

I was starting this post on the BeoLab 10 high res thread, but thought that it might need its own thread as I started to go a bit off topic.

In the past few days I've viciously defended the prices and technology of our televisions, especially the BeoVision 7, but one of the things that I will not defend is the design slump on the video side.

The BeoVision 9 looks like it was stung by a bee. It's ridiculously large for being a "flat panel" television. Think back a decade ago when the Avant was crafted to hide its girth and appear as a picture on a wall before that was a reality. The BeoVision 9, with its rolled frame and big rear end look as though Mr. Lewis was deliberately trying to add mass. By comparison, the BeoVision 5 seems so sleek and well resolved. If you showed them to someone who had never seen either one they would certainly assume that the BeoVision 5 was a refined later version of the BeoVision 9.

The BeoVision 4 has always been complemented for its elegant frame, but has never captured a lot of hearts with its looks alone. Now it seems Mr. Lewis is applying is same puffy frame to the BeoVision 4 (bye bye compliments!) and putting the IR knob on the top (didn't they learn their lesson with the 9000's vacation switch?). And they're not stopping there! It's growing a center channel beard!

The BeoVision 8, in comparison to the BeoVision MX range that it replaces, looks aggressively cheap. I'm looking across the room right now at an MX5500 and it looks so elegant perched on its stand. There's not much more to say. The picture is fabulous and the capabilities are indispensable, but it doesn't get my pulse racing.

Of course this is all my opinion! If you're smitten with any of these designs, that's fantastic. I just feel like Mr. Lewis has yet to find his footing in a "flat" vernacular. The BeoVision 7 is almost an anomaly in how perfectly it's designed. It's perched on a beautiful stand, giving it visual lightness beyond many other flat panels. Its sandwiched panels of glass and aluminum communicate thinness on what is a fairly deep television set. It lifts its head as it wakes up and, like the Avant, has always made me think it could be looking back at me!

Everyone's entitled to a few duds, and David Lewis has had an absolutely remarkable run of success. I also have no intention of joining the "retire him" bandwagon. I just think that he spent so long trying to work around the depth of CRT televisions that when they actually became flat, he wasn't sure how to work with them. I don't see any reason why flat TVs need to be 2 dimensional, but there are more cunning ways to add visual depth than adding actual depth!

I'd like to hear anyone's thoughts on this!

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Re: Design

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