Cello C43227FT2 43-inch Full HD with DVD review

Independent AV reviewer Steve May has slots of fun with this TV/DVD combi

There’s more to this HD TV than first meets the eye. Literally. Hidden away on the back panel is an integrated DVD player. If you’ve ever wanted to reclaim some space beneath the TV, or bring disc playback to another room, this 43-incher has your name on it.

Disc player aside, it looks much like any other flatscreen. The minimalist design is uniformly black – just the thing for a Batcave. The bezel is gloss, the feet suitably shiny. It’s not super thin, but then it’s hardly overweight either.

There’s a comprehensive collection of inputs. Three HDMIs are joined by a SCART, PC VGA, optical digital audio output and USB port. The remote control is a standard easy to use IR clicker.

Set up and tuned in, image quality doesn’t disappoint. The TV looks fine with Freeview HD, and rewards those with high quality external HD sources, like media streaming boxes (Amazon Fire TV, Now TV box and so on), premium pay TV (Sky, Virgin) and Blu-ray.

Picture presets comprise of Standard, Dynamic, Mild and User. My go-to options for most content are Standard or Dynamic. The latter gives brightness an extra lift, but doesn’t over-colour the image.

However the User setting opens access to adjustments like contrast, brightness, saturation, and sharpness, which I think benefits from being turned down a bit. The backlight, so crucial on any LCD TV, is effective without overt light pooling, while general screen uniformity is good.

Viewing tip: Black level performance improves if there is ambient light in your viewing room. This is fairly typical of LCD TVs. If you think black areas look a little grey in a fully dark room, introduce some low level light and watch them subjectively darken.

The sound system does the job, but the provision of an optical digital output makes it relatively straightforward to add a soundbar or soundbase for bigger, more cinematic audio.

The on-board DVD player is a slot loader, just offering a disc and it’s drawn in automatically. The TV switches to the input as the disc autoplays. Given that many of us have a huge library of DVDs at home, it’s handy to be able to play them so simply. And if you do have the audio output of the TV connected to an external sound system, you can even use this integrated player to spin music CDs.

This TV isn’t just about DVD though. There’s a top notch USB media reader too. The interface is graphical and intuitive, and file support wide. It can handle MKV, WMV, MP4 and AVi video files, as well as MP3, WMA, WAV and AAC audio.

There’s good news if you’re a console gamer too. I measured input lag at just 26ms, which means gameplay is fast and responsive.

My verdict

This 43-inch Cello is an obvious crowd-pleaser. Having a built-in DVD player is surprisingly handy, particularly if you want to claim space back from under the telly, or have recently moved to mainly watching movies on Netflix or Amazon, but still have a library of discs. The design is smart and picture quality good for the price. My advice is add a soundbar and get the popcorn in.