Insignia NS-50L240A13 LCD TV Review

Introduction

Today, we’re focusing on the Insignia NS-50L240A13 (MSRP $650), a TV that best exemplifies the house-brand strategy. It’s low-frills and inexpensive, yet manages to hit all the specs that people want (at least think they want): a big screen, 1080p resolution, and a handful of features you’ll probably never use. Nevertheless, the picture quality is pretty decent—just don’t expect top-of-the-line.

Design

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A thick and cheap-feeling TV.

The Insignia NS-50L240A13 won’t win any beauty pageants, but it will still make it to the prom. The design is basic and the TV is very light—it only took one person to move this 50-inch display around. While a lightweight TV is not necessarily a bad thing, this Insignia feels lacking in the quality department.

As far as connections go, the NS-50L240A13 has a fine array of them on the left side of the TV. There are three HDMI ports, a USB port, an antenna input, a hybrid component/composite input, a digital audio output, a headphone audio output, a VGA input, and a PC audio input.

The last three ports mentioned (headphone audio, VGA, and PC audio) were rather hard to find—they reside underneath the side arrangement of connections. I didn’t realize that they were there until reading the manual.

{{photo_gallery "Design Landing Page Photo", "Front Tour Image", "Back Tour Image", "Sides Tour Image", "Connectivity Tour Image 1", "Connectivity Tour Image 2", "Connectivity Extra Photo", "Stand Photo", "Controls Photo", "Remote Control Photo"}}

Smart TV Features

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A minimalist menu interface in need of a design overhaul.

Normally, we would say that Insignia’s menu interface is the definition of bare-bones, but that honor belongs to Dynex. What is offered here is a slight step up from bare-bones and, similar to Dynex, still gets the job done.

Like Dynex, there are still just five categories of options, although they are arranged differently: Picture, Audio, Channel, Settings, and Photos. The channel tab only works when the antenna input is used and the photos tab would not allow us to access it, no matter how many USB drives we plugged into the port.

{{photo_gallery "Software and Internet Landing Page Photo", "Internet Features 1 Photo", "Internet Features 2 Photo", "Internet Features 3 Photo", "Browser 1 Photo", "Browser 2 Photo", "Browser 3 Photo", "Apps 1 Photo", "Apps 2 Photo", "Apps 3 Photo", "Local Media Playback 1 Photo", "Local Media Playback 2 Photo", "Menu Main Photo", "Menu 2 Photo"}}

Picture Quality

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The color quality is good, but everything else is so-so.

The Insignia NS-50L240A13 is not a bad performer at all. It has a decent contrast, excellent uniformity, and the colors are acceptable. For a budget-friendly TV, this Insignia exceeded our expectations.

Motion performance was just average here. Images moving moderately fast were a bit blurry and color trailing was noticeable. When testing for choppy motion, which involves vertical lines moving horizontally across the screen, the NS-50L240A13 performed quite well. As far as motion processing features, this TV does not have any.{{/callout}}

Conclusion

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For the asking price, this Insignia isn't too bad.

Did out tests prove that the Insignia NS-50L240A13 is a TV destined for greatness? No. Did they prove that this TV is worthy of your consideration? That all depends on how much you want to spend.

This is not a bad TV by any means. The NS-50L240A13 has a good contrast ratio, decent colors, and a smooth uniformity. It is not the worst looking TV and as far as LCDs go, it has an average viewing angle.

The NS-50L240A13 stumbles in more than a few places. While I didn’t hate the TV’s design, I did think it felt cheap. The Insignia menu interface is outdated and in serious need of a revamp. The audio produced is passable, although the low-range and high-range frequencies are often times distorted. The worst offense this TV committed was having a remote that would stop working—which is extremely frustrating and unforgivable on any TV.

If your budget for buying a 50-inch TV is $650 and not a penny more, the Insignia NS-50L240A13 might be right for you. If you can shell out a couple hundred dollars more, then you might want to shop around a bit longer.

Science Introduction

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While the range of colors that the Insignia NS-50L240A13 can produce is average, the way it transitions from color to color is impressive. Most of the other performance results were unexceptional, although we noticed that this TV can get very dark.

Color

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Exceptional color curves on an unexceptional TV.

These are some pretty good color curves. The blues get off to a rough start—they are very jumpy at low input levels, meaning they do not transition smoothly. None of the colors peak early, which is great. More on how we test color performance.

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Contrast

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The Insignia NS-50L240A13 can get very dark.

The Insignia NS-50L240A13 has a good contrast. The peak black level of 0.05 cd/m² was great, although the peak brightness of 146.60 cd/m² was not impressive. More on how we test contrast.

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Other Tests

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