A review of the Sylvox 55-Inch Pool Series Full Sun Outdoor TV

In a bit of a pickle, the Sylvox Pool Series Full Sun Outdoor TV. On the one hand, it becomes really bright, and the 55-inch model we tested costs only $2,299.99, which is incredibly low for an outdoor TV. It emits twice as much light as the 55-inch SunBriteTV Veranda Series 3 ($2,898.95) and is comparable in brightness to the 65-inch Samsung Terrace Full Sun ($9,999.99). However, the smart TV platform feels dated and the colors aren’t really true. This TV isn’t ideal, but it’s a good value if you’re looking for a reasonably priced TV that you can put outside and enjoy in the sun.

WEATHERPROOF AND CHUNKY There won’t be a lot of variety in outdoor TV designs. Because a TV needs to have a blocky shape to be waterproof, every one we evaluated had one. A matte black metal chassis with a slightly bumpy texture covers the Sylvox. The bezels are 0.6 inches wide on the sides, top, and bottom, and 1 inch wide in the lower right corner, where the infrared remote sensor is located.

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This TV has a wide extension behind the screen that is styled like an upside-down Y, making it relatively thick (by contemporary standards) at 3.5 inches. This expansion houses the TV’s connections, which are hidden behind a screw-on metal door with a foam rubber gasket and facing downward in a recess on the bottom edge. A set of RCA component video inputs, an optical audio output, a 3.5mm headphone jack, an Ethernet port, three HDMI ports (one eARC), two USB ports, an antenna/cable connector, and two USB ports are among the connections. For an outdoor TV, it’s interesting that the PC-like power cable connects here as well because the majority have wires that are permanently attached. On the back is a typical VESA mount as well.

(Image credit: Will Greenwald) One visibly waterproof remote and one normal remote are both supplied. The membrane-covered buttons on the waterproof remote are on a flat, black gadget. The number pad, navigation pad, playback controls, volume and channel buttons, and special Netflix and YouTube service buttons are all present, but they are all the same round shape and placed in a grid, making it incredibly challenging to use without looking at the remote. The other remote is a typical button-filled wand that looks like it came with an old HDTV. It has a circular navigation pad, a number pad above it, and volume, channel, and playback buttons below. Although not as much as more streamlined modern remotes, the non-weatherproof remote is more easier to use by feel but is also more susceptible to drops and splashes.

COMPARED PRODUCTS (Opens in a new window)
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$2,898.95

Because the TV and the weatherproof remote both have IP55 ratings, they can withstand rain and dirt with no problems. The Veranda 3 and The Terrace both have the same IP rating.

APPS FROM A PRIOR ERA (Image credit: Will Greenwald) Another throwback is the smart TV interface. Sylvox runs Netrange rather than one of the six main smart TV systems (even the subpar Furrion outdoor TV uses an odd, out-of-date version of LG’s webOS). It doesn’t appear that Netrange, a linked systems developer that creates Android and Linux-based smart TV systems, has a substantial foothold in North America.

This isn’t an Android TV or Google TV-based system; rather, it’s a streamlined portal that offers access to a small number of services and apps—perhaps a dozen in total—and that’s about it. The user interface menu design gives the impression that it’s Android, but the distinction is at best academic. There are a few minor apps like Midnight Pulp and an in-TV game where you play Breakout with a Berlin Wall as a pixelated Ronald Reagan watches you, as well as Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, YouTube, and a Plex client. Right down to the Facebook and Twitter apps that are provided with the presumption that users want to use those services on their TV, it has the feel of a smart TV from ten years ago.

Basically, if you want to use the majority of the major streaming services, you should get a media streamer like an Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K, Chromecast With Google TV 4K, or Roku Streaming Stick 4K that can plug into the back of the TV behind the door.

BLUE IMAGES, IMPECCABLE COLORS Having a 60Hz refresh rate, the Sylvox Weatherproof Full Sun Outdoor TV is a 4K TV. High dynamic range (HDR) content in HDR10 is supported. Dolby Vision is not supported by it. Despite not being ATSC 3.0, the TV has an ATSC tuner.

We evaluate TVs with an Klein K-80 colorimeter (Opens in a new window) , Murideo SIX-G signal generator (Opens in a new window) , and Portrait Displays’ Calman software (Opens in a new window) rating. We encountered a strange snag while evaluating the contrast of the TV. The Sylvox, like many TVs, features an ambient light sensor that can change the brightness of the screen depending on its surroundings. Contrary to most TVs, the sensor cannot be turned off (which we recommend for almost all cases). In order to force the TV to increase its brightness, we had to shine a bright light directly at the sensor in order to obtain the most accurate contrast findings in our tests. Without this direct light, we only recorded a very low peak brightness of about 250 nits in a well-lit room. If you want to watch TV in the evening, it’s crucial to keep this in mind.

The Sylvox TV displayed a peak brightness of 1,121 nits with the light sensor stimulated, with minimal distinction between a full-screen white field and an 18% white field. Neither an SDR signal nor an HDR signal showed much difference in this. Anything over 1,000 nits is pretty bright, so it’s likely that the screen might be boosted closer to the advertised levels with the light sensor. Sylvox claims the TV can reach up to 1,500 nits, which is reasonably close. As expected for outdoor TVs, the black levels are strong; we measured 0.362cd/m2 for a contrast ratio of 3,097:1. Due to its lower 0.199cd/m2 black level, the SunBriteTV Veranda 3 (3,631:1 at 722 nits) is roughly comparable to this. With a contrast ratio of 7,606:1, the far more expensive Terrace Full Sun TV is both brighter (1,404 nits) and darker (0.17cd/m2).

(Source: PCMag) The aforementioned charts compare the color saturation in Movie mode using an SDR signal to Rec. 709 broadcast standards and using an HDR source to DCI-P3 digital cinema standards. White levels appear too chilly even at the warmest color temperature setting. In HDR, whites and cyans are a little bit more realistic, but strangely, the basic colors are essentially the same in both signals.

The light sensor in BBC’s Planet Earth II reads bright and vividly with our simulated daytime. Greens and green-yellows from plants, as well as the blues and teals of water and sky, are vivid and naturally occurring colors, and fine textures like fur typically stand out. However, shadowed objects sometimes have a murky appearance.

We were unable to observe how the TV’s screen manages glare from direct sunshine, but it does fairly well with overhead interior lights. There is some glare visible, but it is significantly muted by the screen’s finish, so the image doesn’t appear smeared or fuzzy. Strong viewing from an off-angle with little contrast shift or color desaturation.

(Image credit: Will Greenwald) The red of Deadpool’s suit appears vibrant, almost to the point of being a little oversaturated, in the film’s opening, cloudy sequences. Later, during the battle in the blazing lab, the flames appear brilliant but relatively uniform, with the yellows and oranges mixing together rather than exhibiting a spectrum of tones. This scene’s shadow details appear a little washed-out.

The Great Gatsby’s party scenes have more murky shadow details. Lights, balloons, and shirts that are white appear bright, but black jackets that are black tend to have shapes and cuts that just vanish. No one appears haggard, but the color balance is still a little off. Skin tones look somewhat chilly and also appear a little oversaturated.

NOT INTENDED FOR GAMING We determined the Sylvox’s input lag in Movie mode to be 43.9 milliseconds using an HDFury Diva HDMI matrix (Opens in a new window) . The good news is that this is incredibly low when compared to the non-gaming modes on most TVs. The bad news is that there is absolutely no gaming option on the TV, which makes it completely unsuitable for gaming.

The SunBriteTV Veranda 3 includes a game mode with only 8.6ms of latency if you want an outdoor TV that you can dependably play games on with little lag on.

THE FLEXIBILITY OF OUTDOOR TV A cost-effective TV you can put on your deck or by your pool is the Sylvox Pool Series Full Sun Outdoor TV. Although expensive in comparison to indoor TVs, the SunBriteTV Veranda 3 and the Samsung Terrace are dirt inexpensive. It suffers from an inexcusably outdated smart TV platform and occasionally cartoonish color, but it is weatherproof, bright enough to see outside, and considerably less expensive than those other options. Our only request is that the light sensor could be turned off.

Outdoor TV Sylvox 55-Inch Pool Series Full Sun 3.5

Pros Very bright picture, good viewing from an angle reasonably affordable Cons Light sensor cannot be turned off. outmoded smart TV technology Not entirely realistic colors dark, smudged details erratic input and no game mode Read More the conclusion One of the most reasonably priced full-sun outdoor TVs available is the Sylvox Pool Series Full Sun Outdoor TV, despite its many flaws.

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