Kodak 55UHDXSMART review: A 4K UHD Smart TV under ₹45,000

Kodak 55UHDXSMART 4K UHD Smart TV is one of the most affordable 4K TVs in the market right now.

The TV is bundled with a smart remote that has dedicated buttons for Netflix, Hotstar and YouTube. (Kodak)

Kodak, a brand name people normally relate to once popular reel cameras entered the Indian TV market in May last year. Since then, the company has launched quite a few TVs in the country, mostly featuring top-of-the-line specifications coupled with aggressive price tags. One of the recent offerings from Kodak is 55UHDXSMART 4K UHD Smart TV.

Originally priced at ₹70,990, the TV is available on Flipkart for ₹41,999, making it one of the most affordable 4K smart TVs in the market right now. We have been using the TV for approximately a month, here's our review of the device.

Design

Featuring a 55-inch panel, Kodak 55UHDXSMART feels enormous in size and takes quite a bit of real estate of your living room. But that's not negative as it leaves your guests impressed. Kodak 55UHDXSMART is pretty slick and easy to assemble, pretty much similar to most of the premium smart TVs.

Though, it has thicker bezels around the display it doesn't really hamper the overall viewing experience. All the ports are placed on the back so the front looks seamless. There's a Kodak logo at the bottom. The TV is bundled with a smart remote that has dedicated buttons to access Netflix, Hotstar and YouTube. The remote also has a wireless mouse like feature which is a bit of cumbersome to use while typing.

The remote feels bit large in size, especially if you have grown accustomed to compact remotes that Amazon bundles with Fire TV or Tata Sky's. It resembles a lot to the remotes bundled with Airtel TV. It comes with some additional functions such as playback, screenshot and miracast.

One of the odd things about the TV is the location of infrared sensor. It is placed at the right bottom corner of the TV, forcing you to direct the remote to that angle to smoothly navigate between functions. Ensure you don't keep anything in front of the corner sensor.

Performance

The big highlight of the smart TV is direct access to Netflix. After having set up and linked with your home W-Fi/Ethernet, the direct access ensures you don't have to rely on Chromecast or Amazon Fire TV for streaming on a larger screen.

The direct YouTube access also is a great feature on the TV. Considering YouTube is no longer supported on the Fire TV, the direct function came really handy. The TV runs on a custom version of Android and the user interface seems fairly simple and easy to get familiar with.

That said, the biggest draw of the smart TV is the stunning resolution, which is at 3840 x 2160 pixels. We played and streamed a range of 4K content of TV which looked outstanding with no lags whatsoever. 550 nits of brightness makes it quite bright, ensuring you don't miss out on tiny details in a content. The colour reproduction is mostly good but feel a bit saturated lot of times.

The viewing angle, however, is absolutely great.

The device supports 20W speaker output which we think is loud enough for a large room. But as is the case with most slim TVs, you should bundle the TV with good home theatre or speaker system to fetch the best of the audio. The TV loses bit of clarity when the volume is cranked up to the maximum.

Verdict

Kodak 55UHDXSMART 4K UHD Smart TV scores high on most of the aspects such as viewing angles and overall design. At ₹41,999, the TV is definitely worth considering.