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  • Introduction

  • Tour & Design

  • Blacks & Whites

  • Color Accuracy

  • Motion

  • Viewing Effects

  • Calibration

  • Remote Control

  • Connectivity

  • Audio & Menus

  • Formats & Media

  • Power Consumption

  • Vs Samsung LN32B460

  • Vs LG 32LH20

  • Vs Insignia NS L37Q 10A

  • Conclusion

  • Series Comparison

  • Introduction
  • Tour & Design
  • Blacks & Whites
  • Color Accuracy
  • Motion
  • Viewing Effects
  • Calibration
  • Remote Control
  • Connectivity
  • Audio & Menus
  • Formats & Media
  • Power Consumption
  • Vs Samsung LN32B460
  • Vs LG 32LH20
  • Vs Insignia NS L37Q 10A
  • Conclusion
  • Series Comparison

Introduction

You can find the Dynex DX-L32-10A for about $380.

Tour & Design

Front


The TV's facade doesn't have much to set it apart from other HDTVs. It has a glossy plastic base and bezel. There's a small indicator in the bottom left corner of the screen.

 

 

Back


The back of the TV has a face made out of heat vents, as well as the TV's ports. The ports are downward-facing, which means plugging anything into the TV is far more difficult than it should be.s

For information about the ports on the back of the Dynex DX-L32-10A see our Connectivity section.

 

Sides


The left side of the TV has a handful of ports and the TV's on-set controls. The right side is featureless.

For information about the ports on the back of the Dynex DX-L32-10A see our Connectivity section.

Stand/Mount


The Dynex's stand is plasticky and large for such a small TV.

 

Controls


The TV's on-set controls offer standard functionality.

 

 

Remote Control


The remote has an average size and layout.

 

In The Box*(7.5)*


Your Dynex DX-L32-10A will come with a manual, remote, batteries, and a set of component cables. The cables are a rare pack-in bonus; typically they aren't included.

Setting up the TV is pretty easy, if a bit different from what we're used to. There's some turn screws in the bottom of the base, so you just push the TV onto it and manually turn the tiny screw handles. No screwdriver required.

 

Aesthetics*(5.0)*


The DX-L32-10A is a plain-looking set with an awkward-looking base. If you're looking for the most beautiful 32-inch set out there, the DX-L32-10A isn't it.

Blacks & Whites

Black Level*(7.79)*


Our benchmark for a deep black level is 0.10 cd/m2. If a TV can display black that only gives off that much luminance, it's solidly good. The Dynex DX-L32-10A had a black level of 0.11 cd/m2, which puts it squarely on the good side of the fence. Blacks won't look washed out or oddly bright on the DX-L32-10A.

 

Peak Brightness*(7.05)*


The DX-L32-10A had a pretty decent peak brightness of 208.51 cd/m2. For most conditions, 200 cd/m2 is all you need to get by; any extra luminance is just gravy. Expect bright whites and a display that won't easily be washed out by external light. 

 

Contrast*(7.12)*


We measured the TV's contrast ratio at 1895:1, which is a decent result. Expect the DX-L32-10A to showcase a good level of differentiation. The TV shouldn't lose any details from having poor contrast.

If you're curious why, in a world where stated contrast ratios often exceed 1,000,000:1, an 1895:1 ratio is getting a good score, the answer is simple: the manufacturers fib. A common tactic is to take the black level measurement when the backlight is switched off, then change all the settings to ensure the maximum possible brightness. Since two different settings are being used, that contrast ratio isn't possible during normal viewing.

 

Tunnel Contrast*(9.91)*


For this test, we make sure the TV's black level remains consistent, regardless of how much white surrounds it. The DX-L32-10A black level didn't waver, even when only 5% of the screen was black. 

 

White Falloff*(9.81)*


Here, we're testing to make sure the set's peak brightness doesn't change based on how much white is onscreen. The DX-L32-10A's brightness stayed pretty constant throughout our series of measurements. 

 

Uniformity*(9.0)*


The Dynex DX-L32-10A had pretty good screen uniformity. We didn't see any of the issues typical of an entry-level set. The only minor uniformity issue we saw was some dimming around the edges and corners of an all-white screen, and some very minor flashlighting at the corners of an all-black screen. The DX-L32-10A has a very uniform display.

 

Greyscale Gamma*(7.70)*


We measured the DX-L32-10A's greyscale gamma at 2.58. That means there's slightly less differentiation between darker colors and slightly more differentiation between brighter ones than there should be. Even so, the DX-L32-10A had a decent performance on this test. Expect your greyscale to progress from black, to grey, to white, smoothly. 

 

Resolution Scaling*(4.78)*


The DX-L32-10A has a native resolution of 720p. That means it's most comfortable playing back DVDs or streaming internet HD content. If it plays standard definition, broadcast HD, or full HD content, it'll have to do some fancy processing. Unfortunately, the DX-L32-10A has some issues with this processing. We'll break down these issues, by format, below.

480p

This format had a slightly uneven overscan, but it was just by one pixel or so. There were some odd moire patterns, but nothing terrible. Text was readable, even at small sizes, but the processing rendered some parts of the letters thinner than they should have been. Also, the letters looked a bit soft. Some patterns didn't have a great deal of differentiation between the individual elements. 

1080i

This format was where the DX-L32-10A had the most issues. There was an incredible amount of moire interference present. Fine patterns either had a checkerboard, vertical gradient, or vertically striped macro-patterns.  Text was very soft. We tried boosting the sharpness to see if that made a difference, but we ran into the same issue we did in our calibration: there was no middle ground between blurry and sharpness artifacting. Even with sharpness turned the whole way up, it didn't make the text any clearer. 

1080p

There was some minor vertical banding in fine patterns and the same sort of softness described above, but not nearly as extreme. 

Color Accuracy

Color Temperature*(2.59)*


The Dynex DX-L32-10A's color temperature was pretty erratic. When we calibrate our sets, we use an all-white screen. In the DX-L32-10A's case, the white screen was considerably cooler than the rest of the spectrum. The jagged lines indicate significant fluctuations between adjacent colors.

 

RGB Curves*(5.68)*


The DX-L32-10A also had some significant issues with its color representation. The curves illustrated below show how the red, green, and blue channels progress from their least to most intense. The curves are supposed to be even, regular curves. Not only can you see a good deal of peaking, where the TV displays the same color for much of the high intensities, but the middle parts of the curves are very jagged. That means colors don't increment the way they should, leading to some significant lost detail.

 

 

 

 

Color Gamut*(4.05)*


Every television's color gamut is dictated by an international standard, known as rec. 709. Below we've shown the rec. 709 standard, along with the gamut we measured. As you can see, the red point is near perfect, but the green point is a bit off. The blue point is also slightly oversaturated, but the white point is the furthest off.

Below is a table of the rec 709 standard, compared to our measurements of the DX-L32-10A's performance.

Motion

**

Motion Smoothness***(5.50)*


The Dynex DX-L32-10A has some issues with motion blur. A lot of detail is lost when objects move around the screen. Eyes are blurred into dark spots and mouths look like red smears. Solid blocks of color trail a shadow behind them as they pan across grey, and fine patterns blur into blobs. 

 

Motion Artifacting*(6.25)*


The TV also had some artifacting issues. The main problem we saw was with blocks of color or fine patterns. The solid colors had both leading and trailing shadows as they moved around the screen, which increased their size considerably. Fine patterns tended to block up into blocks of solid color as they moved.

 

3:2 Pulldown & 24fps*(6.50)*


The DX-L32-10A didn't do the best on our 3:2 pulldown test. We saw random flashing and patterns. A slow pan over an empty stadium revealed jagged movement and a strong crawling effect over the backs of the empty seats.

Viewing Effects

Viewing Angle*(3.40)*


We measured the DX-L32-10A's viewing angle at 28°. That means once at an angle greater than 28°, you'll see less than 50% of the contrast ratio you'd see if you were sitting front and center. LCDs typically have a more shallow viewing angle than their plasma counterparts, but the DX-L32-10A is bad, even for an LCD. 

 

Reflectance*(7.0)*


For this section, we shine an array of LEDs at the TV's screen, to see how it reacts to external light sources. The light cast a large, diffuse glow on the DX-L32-10A's screen, but we were still able to count all the LEDs in the reflection. During use, the glow wasn't particularly distracting; most of it was obfuscated by the onscreen image. While you probably wouldn't want the DX-L32-10A near a window, it should be fine elsewhere.

 

Video Processing*(1.0)*


The TV only has two processing features: noise reduction and adaptive contrast. Noise reduction does, in fact, reduce noise when activated. Adaptive contrast will dynamically adjust contrast based on what's being displayed at any given time. This will blow out the brightest and darkest areas, creating more contrast at the expense of details.

Calibration

Calibration


[

](http://www.displaymate.com/)Since TVs don't come out of the box perfectly set up for our labs, we employ a CS-200 ChromaMeter and Display Mate to calibrate them. This ensures we're testing TVs at their peak performance levels. Below, we've listed all the stettings we changed. If you use these settings, your TV will be pretty well off, but if you want perfection, you'll have to pay a professional to specifically calibrate the TV for your viewing environment.

There were a few issues we ran into with calibration. The first was with the overscan setting. Typically we like to turn overscan off, so you're privy to 100% of the picture. On a few TVs, the Dynex DX-L32-10A included, turning off overscan will reset a few options and lock you out of them. If you're using the TV as a computer display, for example, and you can't have any portion being cut off, you'll get locked out of the following settings: noise reduction (weak), adaptive contrast (off), auto zoom (off), color (50), tint (0), and sharpness (50).

The other issue we ran into was with sharpness. Typically there's a smooth curve from blurry to overly sharp, when the TV inserts artifacts around the edges of certain colors to create a higher degree of contrast. On the Dynex DX-L32-10A, the artifacts appeared while the lines were still blurry. In fact, maximizing sharpness didn't do much to reduce blurry edges past a certain point; it just created tons of artifacting. 

 

Video Modes


The TV has all the basic video modes, but doesn't offer much of a description for them. You can choose from vivid, standard, sports, theater, energy saving, or make your own customized settings.

 

Remote Control

Ergonomics & Durability*(6.50)*


The remote that comes with the DX-L32-10A fits nicely in hand, thanks to its curved edges. The remote does feel really plasticky, which typically indicates cheap construction, but appears to be manufactured well.

 

Button Layout & Use*(7.25)*


The remote has a pretty simple button layout. The d-pad is large and easy to find by touch. The buttons surrounding the d-pad are a bit small, but still easy enough to find. The volume and channel keys are right near the d-pad, so there won't be a lot of grip-shifting to access the primary controls. The eight buttons at the bottom of the remote are slightly annoying, since they're small and identically shaped, but chances are you won't use them anyway.

 

Programming & Flexibility*(0.0)*


There's no universal functionality on the remote.

Connectivity

  • 3 HDMI
  • 2 Composite video
  • 1 S-Video
  • 1 VGA
  • 2 Component video
  • 4 Analog Audio
  • 2 3.5mm Audio

 

Output Ports*(1.0)*


There is just one output port: an analog audio out.

 

Other Connections*(0.0)*


The TV doesn't feature any other connections.

 

Media*(0.0)*


The TV has no additional media features.

 

Placement*(2.0)*


The DX-L32-10A's ports have terrible placement. They're located on the back of the TV, under a lip, facing down. To make matters worse, there's two rows of ports there, so it's easy to plug things into the wrong row if you're not looking. A 180° swiveling stand would help here, but the stand doesn't budge. Thankfully the TV itself is small, so most people should be able to just pick it up and rotate it without trouble.

Audio & Menus

Audio Quality*(2.0)*


The Dynex DX-L32-10A didn't have a good set of speakers. We thought they were far too aggressive on the high end, had no bass, and just sounded very muffled overall. They had the kind of audio quality you'd expect from a set of $5 speakers. In movie mode it's slightly better, but the sound is still very, very tinny. There's no punch at all in the bass.

 

Menu Interface*(6.0)*


The DX-L32-10A is an entry-level set, so it has a very, very simple menu. There's no backlight control and only a handful of advanced options.

 

Manual*(6.0)*


The DX-L32-10A's menu isn't particularly helpful. It helps with very basic troubleshooting and setup, but won't get you much further than that.

 You can find the Dynex DX-L32-10A's manual online here.

Formats & Media

Formats*(6.0)*


The DX-L32-10A is a 720p set. That means it needs to downscale 1080i and 1080p content. If you want a true HD experience, you'll have to sprint for a 1080p HDTV. 

 

Photo Playback*(0.0)*


No photo playback.

 

Music & Video Playback*(0.0)*


No music or video playback.

 

Streaming Playback*(0.0)*


No streaming playback.

 

Other Media*(0.0)*


No other media.

Power Consumption

Power Consumption*(9.05)*


On this test, we measure the TV's average wattage draw, then calculate how much it'll cost you per year, assuming average usage.

As a moderate-sized LCD, the DX-L32-10A doesn't have the size or technology to run a big bill. During normal use, you'll spend about $20 per year on the TV. It doesn't have any backlight controls, so your only option from cutting down it's already moderate cost is to activate Energy Saver Mode. This will save you about $5 a year.

 

Vs Samsung LN32B460

Value Comparison Summary


The main advantage the Dynex has here is its price. The Samsung out-performed it on all of our tests.

Blacks & Whites


The Samsung out-performed the Dynex on all counts here, with a deeper black, brighter white, and higher overall contrast ratio.

 

Color Accuracy


The Samsung's color gamut was about as far off and the Dynex's. In terms of color representation and color temperature, the Samsung was far more accurate.

 

 

 

Motion


The two TVs had eerily similar performances on this test.

 

Viewing Effects


The Samsung's viewing angle was slightly larger than the Dynex's. Neither was great, however.

 

Connectivity


The one difference between these two sets is the Samsung uses one of its ports for both a composite and component input.

Vs LG 32LH20

Value Comparison Summary


The Dynex puts up more of a fight with the LG than it did with the Samsung. The only area the LG really captures is color performance, which the Dynex really had trouble with.

Blacks & Whites


The Dynex has a deeper black than the LG, but isn't as bright. The LG has a higher overall contrast ratio.

 

Color Accuracy


The LG had significantly better scores on all our color tests.

 

 

 

Motion


The Dynex's and LG's motion and artifacting performances were about the same. Both had blurring and artifacting issues, and those issues were of about the same severity.

Viewing Effects


The LG and Dynex had nearly the same viewing angle. The LG's colors held up slightly better to wider angles, while the colors on the Dynex faded more rapidly.

Connectivity


The Dynex has far more ports than the LG.

Vs Insignia NS L37Q 10A

Value Comparison Summary


In this battle of budget HDTVs, the end determining factors are basically size and price. The Insignia is 5 inches bigger than the Dynex, costs a bit more money, and has better color performance. The Dynex is smaller, cheaper, and has a much deeper black level.

Blacks & Whites


The Dynex had a significantly deeper black level and a higher overall contrast ratio.

 

Color Accuracy


The Insignia had much better results on our color tests.

 

 

 

Motion


Both sets were a bit blurry, and prone to artifacting.

 

Viewing Effects


The Insignia's viewing angle was slightly larger than the DX-L32-10A's, but neither one was particularly good.

 

Connectivity


The Insignia has an extra HDMI and S-Video port, while the Dynex has a spare composite input.

Conclusion

 

Series Comparison

DX-Lxx-10A Series


This series is full of entry-level TVs. The only real difference between them is their ports: the smaller sets have fewer connectivity options.

Meet the tester

Mark Brezinski

Mark Brezinski

Senior Writer

@markbrezinski

Mark Brezinski works on the Home Team, reviewing refrigerators, minifridges, dishwashers, washing machines, dryers, air conditioners, air purifiers, and fans.

See all of Mark Brezinski's reviews

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