With the color temperature set to Warm, the MX-32X3 had a surprisingly accurate color temperature right out of the box. It was bluish on the darker end of the grayscale, but midrange and brighter material came very close to the 6,500K reference. Thankfully, this Maxent's color-temperature performance was just as good through the component and DVI inputs. By press time, we weren't able to access the service menu to conduct a proper calibration, but given this TV's price and out-of-box performance in this area, it's doubtful anyone will splurge for a calibration anyway. The color decoder evinced only a slight red push, but the primary colors were noticeably off--more so than we've seen in a long time. Reds reproduced orangey, and greens looked limey.
Chapter 21, "Lucia di Lammermoor," from the Superbit DVD of The Fifth Element, drove home this panel's biggest flaw: its black level. Like so many budget LCDs, the MX-32X3 can't come close to producing a dark black, and it obliterates lots of details in darker portions of the picture. As the curtains part to reveal Diva Plavalaguna, most of her bizarre and delicately detailed back remains a bland expanse of dark-bluish gray until the lights come up fully. When the camera reverses angle, her face remains nondescript until she steps forward into the bright spotlight. At the same time, the white cloud cover over the planet floating in space behind her retained plenty of detail--a result of this panel's lack of white crush.
In addition, as the opening scene of Star Trek: Insurrection showed, the MX-32X3 lacks 2:3 pull-down detection. Some might try to explain this away by pointing out that almost all DVD players sold today include progressive-scan output (in other words, the burden of video processing falls on the DVD player), but the fact is that film-based TV sources--including most sitcoms--also benefit from this processing. The Maxent's nondefeatable edge enhancement doesn't help, creating faint halos around onscreen objects regardless of how low you turn the sharpness control. High-definition content looked significantly cleaner than DVDs, but we still saw some noise in our Dish Network feed of HDNet. The set couldn't resolve every detail of 720p HDTV test patterns even when set to 1:1 aspect ratio, but it looked no softer than most 32-inch LCDs and handled component sources almost as well as DVI.
Given its low price, the Maxent MX-32X3 will probably sell like hotcakes, and if you plan to watch it in a room with substantial ambient lighting or just want to replace an aging 27-inch set with something flat, it's a solid value. But sets such as Samsung's LT-P326W or LG's 32LX1D are worth the premium if you're more concerned about home-theater image quality.
| Before color temp (30/80) | 7,100/6,400K | Good |
| After color temp | N/A | |
| Before grayscale variation | +/- 356K | Good |
| After grayscale variation | N/A | |
| Overscan | 3.5% | Average |
| Color decoder error: red | +5% | Good |
| Color decoder error: green | 0% | Good |
| DC restoration | Gray pattern stable | Average |
| 2:3 pull-down, 24fps | N | Poor |
| Defeatable edge enhancement | N | Poor |
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