Akai 27 inch, DVD or not; LCT2721 or LCT2785, Sams or Costco

[bigmutt]

Costco & Sams are selling lots of these 27" HDTV units (at Costco with DVD, at Sams without). They are essentially Samsung sets with Akai branding.
Anyone have experience with these? Yes, they are rather small compared to 32 or 37 inch models for not much more money but sometimes you need this size, especially to double as a computer monitor.

If you have one of these Akai TVs, post your thoughts and experiences here.

Thanks.

[Voget]

So far so good. Bought an LCT2721AD from Costco yesterday. Have only used it on 1 DVD - I won't have cable service until the first of the year (travelling). Picture is great. I have a limited space, and this fit in just fine.
However, the maximum sound level seems low - I'd like to have the ability to really crank it up (had to turn off our quiet ASKO dishwasher). Will probably get an amplifier and extra speakers. Also, there is no headphone jack to permit listening with audio off. Plus, the remote is very poorly designed and unlit. Too many similar buttons and the Instruction Manual is pretty unhelpful.
On the other hand, if I really don't like it, Costco will take it back NQA.
Check back for another post.

[MikeA]

My father bought one of these a few months ago - nice HD picture.

No problems so far - he rarely uses the built-in DVD player.

[bigmutt]

I took mine to my house in Mexico City and of course the DVD player won't play the DVDs that are made for this region (#4). So the only thing I can play is U.S./Canadian DVDs. But I guess it won't matter so much once I get an HD DVD (at least one that up-converts to 1080i). They cost under $80 here and are "region-free". I'd love to buy one in the U.S., with a HDD, but then I'd have that same problem of not being able to play DVDs from this region.
That whole region thing really sucks.

[jporrata]

I am having trouble seting the stereo sound. Every time I change the channel I have to change the TV to stereo. This is a pain because some of the channels sounf realy bad with out stereo enabled. Do you have this problem? Is there a wey so stereo stays on all the time? I dont have the TV conected to any cable or satellite box, the cable is conected directly to the TV.

[kevinw]

BigMutt,
Are you sure Akai is re-badged Samsung? Akai has been around for years and they are from Japan. Samsung is Korean. Rarely would those 2 countries work together.

[ahough]

So far so good. Bought an LCT2721AD from Costco yesterday. Have only used it on 1 DVD - I won't have cable service until the first of the year (travelling). Picture is great. I have a limited space, and this fit in just fine.
However, the maximum sound level seems low - I'd like to have the ability to really crank it up (had to turn off our quiet ASKO dishwasher). Will probably get an amplifier and extra speakers. Also, there is no headphone jack to permit listening with audio off. Plus, the remote is very poorly designed and unlit. Too many similar buttons and the Instruction Manual is pretty unhelpful.
On the other hand, if I really don't like it, Costco will take it back NQA.
Check back for another post.

I bought one from COSTCO and noted the same problems with the DVD playback sound level and the design of the Remote. When playing a DVD the sound level needs to be set over 80%; however when using standard TV tuner, the sound level is quite loud beyond 15%. The Remote is cheap looking and poorly laid out. Other than that, the unit seems to be OK.