Hannspree seems to be treading water. Always leaving a lot to be desired, I always ends up rolling my eyes when studying their LCD TVs. And the Hannspree ST321 31” LCD TV is no exception. The TV is cheap, so its pretty understandable that the design is that of a cheap, plasticity glossy black finish. And the best part it, Hannspree seems to have at last understood the end-user’s needs – there’s a cloth provided, just in case you leave any smudgy fingerprints. (How thoughtful, huh?!) But there are signs of attempts to give the design some charm, if possible – the LED power status light and the black speaker mesh being the reasons.
The Hannspree ST321 Full HD LCD TV quotes a contrast ratio of 10000:1 and a 6ms X-Celerate response time. Don’t expect seamless action, though, the TV is far from achieving that. It’s just that even when slow moving images suffer from motion-blurs, you tend to get a little peeved. HDMIs are 4 in number and the picture quality is average with colours bending a little towards the unnatural. It’s the skin tones that suffer most, looking dull and leaden.
Freeview quality is a breath of fresh air, and at last we get to see something worth our money. Though the brightness level quoted is 500 cd/m², the same is not translated on paper. Uneven and gaudy, brightness is an eye-sore, so is the contrast. Black levels are again a let down, and movies in which darkness is predominant are a strict no-no in the screens of the ST321. Cheap and basic, the Hannspree ST321 could have a few takers for the price, if not for anything else.
