It’s a familiar story. You’re watching an IPL match and the power fluctuates at a crucial juncture, and you’re left waiting for what feels like an age for the TV to restart. Or worse still, your seemingly new smart TV starts getting sluggish while navigating menus or buffering interminably while firing up Netflix or YouTube. Lumio, a new brand by the same set of TV industry veterans that made Xiaomi a household name, aims to combat the "slow TV epidemic" in a budget segment rife with such issues, with the new Vision 7 series.
Available in 43, 50 and 55 inch (Rs. 39,999, as reviewed) options, the promise of disruption arrives in a rather unassuming package. The design is along expected lines – an all-black, plastic body with minimal bezels on three sides and a subtle Lumio branding on the bottom bezel. The build is sturdy, and the finish high quality, and there’s no indication Lumio has scrimped to meet a price point. The design of the back panel is clean – a nice touch given how little it is seen – and I particularly like the port area, easily viewed (and labelled clearly) and accessible, even if the TV is wall mounted. Ports are a plenty – 3 USB, LAN, optical out, 3 HDMI 2.1 (including 1 eARC) and mini AV-in and legacy cable TV and audio out ports.
The core of the Lumio Vision 7 is the 4K, 60Hz QLED panel, rated at 400 nits of peak brightness. Straight out of the box, image quality is impressive, with 4K content is sharp and detailed, and colors are natural leaning towards the vibrant. What’s more impressive is how well the colours have been tuned, a fact often overlooked in budget TVs where panels are calibrated towards punchy, vibrant colors with flagrant disregard for the colors the creator intended. You get multiple presets, and I found myself switching between Movie and Standard mode based on the content I was playing, though Standard would do just fine for most standard dynamic range video.
Switching to high dynamic range content, you get Dolby Vision, HDR10 and HLG support, and the Vision 7 does well to preserve detail well across the shadows and the highlights, and unless you’re watching Game of Thrones’ notoriously dark “The Long Night” episode, the tending-to-dark-gray black levels inherent to a QLED TV with local dimming will not be evident. I didn’t game much on the Vision 7 – the 60Hz panel means no support for 120Hz gaming, although there is support for auto low latency for quicker response.
Now, I’m used to anemic TV audio in the budget segment, but Lumio has packed in a 30W quad-driver system (two tweeters and two full range) with support for Dolby Atmos, all of which come together for well-balanced audio across the mids and the highs, with a clear emphasis on dialogue clarity. Bass is a casualty here, though. As good as the TV is for the price, performance and software is where Lumio makes its biggest claims… and hits one out of the park. With the generous amount of memory (3GB) and the somewhat cockily named BOSS processor, the Google TV experience on the Vision 7 is transformed. Scrolling through the interface, opening apps, switching between apps are all super snappy, a far cry from the performance we have seen on recent TVs at twice the price. Couple that with instant wake from standby, quick boot times, and you finally have a TV that you need to keep up with, not the other way around.
Aside from access to Play Store apps, Lumio adds a custom TLDR app that surfaces interesting content in sports and music, including match data across various sports leagues. And finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the cute-as-a-button Minion remote, a stubby remote in a premium gunmetal grey finish that offers excellent hand feel and satisfyingly tactile buttons. It’s a common theme across the Vision 7 – the little things that Lumio has considered, that make it a strong contender in a super competitive market.
Rating: 9/10
Price: Rs. 39,999 (43”) onwards