Blaupunkt 50QD7010 QLED TV review: Not bad; could've been better

Stylish design; common connectivity options are covered barring a couple

For starters, the TV design doesn't look generic and has more than a hint of style. Like most newer TVs, this Blaupunkt TV goes near bezel-less on three sides. To break the black monotony, you have a metallic gray strip running across the bottom bezel, which adds a bit of character. You get a trapezoid chin below it that hosts a handful of LEDs including the power LED and receivers for far-field mics and IR. The design has shades of the OnePlus U1S TV. No issues at all with the aesthetics of this TV, but the placement of connectivity ports is not ideal again. Just like the Thomson TV, they are placed closer to the center of the TV than the edge, making them hard to reach once you wall-mount it. On that topic, a mount is bundled to hang this TV on a wall or you can simply place it on a desk using the supplied metal stands that match with the bottom bezel. A voice enabled remote is present in the package along with a pair of AAA batteries to power it. The connectivity department is quite similar to that of the Thomson. You get three HDMI ports, one of which supports ARC. You do not get the newer HDMI 2.1 ports here either, which should have been standard by now. Two USB 2.0 ports, Optical audio out, A/V input and a LAN port complete the wired connectivity options. Analogue audio output like a 3.5mm headphone jack or a coaxial A/V out is missing. For wireless connectivity, you get Bluetooth 5.0 and dual-band Wi-Fi with support for 2.4GHz and 5GHz networks.

Good feature set for a budget TV, cluttered remote control

This QLED TV has a 50-inch panel with a 4K resolution of 3840x2160 pixels and a 60Hz refresh rate. The panel type and peak brightness aren't specified. The HDR format support is quite good; the list includes HLG, HDR10/10+ and Dolby Vision. The panel has a 10-bit color depth and can display over a billion color shades. Sound output is rated at 60W with support for multiple surround sound standards. The Blaupunkt 50QD7010 is powered by a MediaTek MT9602 processor with four Cortex A53 cores clocked up to 1.5GHz and a Mali G52 GPU. There is 2GB RAM and 16GB internal storage, a chunk of which is taken up by the Google TV OS and preinstalled apps. You get close to 10GB for your data and to install more apps. As with all Android and Google TVs, it has Chromecast built-in to cast content to the TV from compatible apps on your phone or tablet. The wireless remote control bundled with this TV operates over IR as well as Bluetooth. The design is completely different from that of the Thomson. While the build quality is better here, there are quite a few keys, some of which are redundant in this age. But thankfully most of those keys are placed in the lower half of the remote and can be ignored. The good part being it doesn't miss out on any of the important functions. Hotkeys for Netflix, Prime Video and YouTube are also present.

Latest Google TV platform, simple UI, but laggy at times

This TV runs the latest Google TV platform based on Android TV 11. The user interface is exactly like on the Thomson TV. However, it felt a touch sluggish here. It often takes a couple of seconds to respond after pressing a particular button. Don't think this has anything to do with the hardware as it is powerful enough; it needs better optimization. Hope the company releases a software update soon to take care of it. The UI is fairly easy to comprehend. If you have used an Android TV in the past, you wouldn't have a problem finding your way around this TV interface. Most features are similar to Android TV but with a slightly different presentation that assigns a higher weightage to content discovery than installed apps. It shows suggested content from various OTT platforms which the AI believes would interest you. You need to subscribe for those services separately. The suggestions feel random at the start, but are expected to get smarter over time as you watch more content on it. Google Play Store is also available to grant access to a lot more apps. Bloatware has been kept to a minimum on this TV, which is good. A dedicated settings button on the remote gives you access to picture and other TV settings on the fly from any app or input source, which is useful.

Good picture quality but odd contrast issues in HDR content

The color reproduction of this TV is generally good. The red shades are boosted here too but not as much as on the Thomson QLED TV. You need to tweak a few picture settings to tone them down. If that's too much for you, you can try changing the color temperature or use a different picture preset available here. Once you take care of it, the picture is quite enjoyable on this TV. The panel is bright, black levels are decent and the skin tones look quite natural. Dolby Vision content on Netflix looks good, and the same can be said about most 1080p and 4K content on YouTube. The TV upscales lower resolution content pretty well, and several 1080p videos look almost as good as 4K. 720p content is watchable too, but anything in lower resolution looks flat. The viewing angles are acceptable with a small color shift from sharp angles. While SDR content on Prime Video looks good, I noticed a few contrast issues in certain HDR10 content on the platform, with details in dark areas of certain scenes not clearly visible. A considerable amount of flickering in high contrast scenes was also observed. Such issues were not visible in SDR or Dolby Vision content on other platforms. 1080p and higher resolution content looks sharp on this TV, and the overall picture quality is pleasant. The picture presets display Dolby Vision or HDR prefixes when viewing content in the corresponding formats. You get a few presets here of which Standard seemed most usable. It is best to create your own User preset to get the best out of this TV. You get a handful of options to tweak the picture. In addition to the usual brightness, contrast, sharpness options, you get to play around with gamma, white balance and more. It's worth a try.

Good sound quality, certain exotic features don't work as expected

As expected from the brand, the audio performance of this Blaupunkt TV is quite good. The 60W speakers are compliant with Dolby Atmos, Dolby Digital and DTS TruSurround standards. The output is crisp and clear even at 25% loudness. The default tuning is a little low on bass but has good vocal clarity. The sliders for Bass and Treble adjustments are disabled by default, and get enabled when you turn off Dolby Atmos. Post that, taking the bass slider above 75% produces best results with a good amount of warmth in the sound. There are a few audio presets to play around with too. For further improvement in sound quality, you can connect a soundbar or external speakers with Bluetooth, optical or HDMI input. The TV takes about 45 seconds to boot up when switched on from the mains, which is not very fast. But the TV comes back on in a couple of seconds from standby mode, which is good. If you leave it in standby for a couple of hours, some elements like the voice assistant do not wake up fully. The assistant is generally prompt to respond after pressing the corresponding button on the remote, but after a long standby, the assistant takes a bit more time to react. After resuming from a long standby, the far-field mics simply stop working and you need to restart the TV to get them going. Another bug to address in the next firmware update. Post a restart, the far-field mics respond well to your voice commands, but you need to be louder than usual when seated over 8 feet away. Four white LEDs light up when you summon the assistant. If there are privacy concerns about the presence of dedicated mics, there is a physical switch under the bottom bezel to turn them off.

Decent budget QLED TV that can improve with firmware updates

The Blaupunkt 50QD7010 QLED TV can be purchased for Rs. 35,999 with a one year warranty, which is not a bad price for what you get. The TV gets the basics right with a sharp picture, good colors, broad HDR format support, punch sound, a reliable Google TV platform and good connectivity options barring a couple. Ironically, features like far-field mics that set it apart from a chunk of the competition can be a hit or a miss. Most of its shortcomings are minor and can be fixed with a software update. If the company opts to fix them in the near future, this Blaupunkt QLED TV will be a very good option under Rs. 40,000. But if you do not care about far-field mics or more powerful TV speakers, you should consider the 50-inch variant of the Thomson QLED TV instead, and save a couple of thousand Rupees as well. There are also a few non-QLED options from Toshiba and Hisense to consider in this budget with comparable picture quality and newer HDMI 2.1 ports. Choose wisely.