LeEco Super3 X55 smart TV review: It’s the best in its range, but where is the content?

LeEco is giving everything that it’s got to pull consumers. Solid hardware, free content subscriptions and most of all, low pricing are some of the reasons why the company is said to be booming.

It has only been a year or so since the company entered the Indian market and in a short while from smartphones, it has started selling its LED TV range. While Xiaomi is still struggling to bring its popular Mi TV to India, LeEco is already one step ahead.

So is the new 55-inch 4K TV priced at Rs 60,000 from LeEco worth the money? Let’s find out.

Build and Design: 8/10

The company has done quite well in terms of design as the TV has striking looks, especially the unique yoga stand at the bottom. The bezel and the frame holding the panel is very minimal, something which you usually see on high-end LG or Samsung LED TVs. It feels quite solid and honestly it took some effort for me to move the whole unit all by myself.

The stand is of course optional since a lot of people prefer mounting the TV on a wall. Nonetheless it is an excellent addition and gives the TV a premium look. While the stand and the main frame of the panel offer a brushed aluminum finish, the back is all plastic.

The panel itself is quite thin which sounds good, but it probably left no choice for the company but to mount the speakers on the bottom, which I personally didn’t like. More on audio later.

The ports are placed at the back and on the right side. There is an extra USB port on the top for the webcam (sold separately) but it can be used for any other operation as well.

Display: 7/10

The company hasn’t confirmed what display panel it uses, but it looks pretty good. Colours look great although the black levels are not as good as a Samsung or an LG. Brightness is also somewhat low but compared to any TV in this price range, it is justified.

It’s quite commendable as to how LeEco has managed to squeeze in a 4K panel at this price range. However, there is a catch. The TV mostly runs on 1080p, so when you are scrolling through the UI and menu, it isn’t UHD resolution. The actual resolution kicks in only when you play or stream a 4K video. On paper anyway. While I could play back 4K video via USB, there are currently no apps that support 4K on this TV. Le Vidi, LeEco’s own video streaming app is expected to get the capability “soon.”

I like the fact that I’m getting a 4K-capable TV at this price, but when my only real source of 4K content is so restricted, one has to wonder why it’s there in the first place. Hopefully, the fix is just a software update away.

Another issue with the panel is the refresh rate. The TV has the capability to push 4K content at 30Hz, which is a bummer and will be a serious detriment to gaming at that resolution.

Only 1080p videos were available on YouTube

Audio: 7/10

The company spoke about how the TV offers great sound thanks to Dolby Audio at the time of launch. However, the claims were a bit misleading. The X55 features two 10W speakers which sound good on paper, but the audio is quite flat; there’s almost zero bass or depth.

Having said that, the speakers are loud and can easily be used in large rooms without compromising on the volume. I suggest you use external speakers or a good home theater audio system to get a better experience.

UI: 7.5/10

Since it’s a smart TV, it runs on Android 5.0.1 Lollipop with the company’s eUI layer on top. The interface is nice and peppy looking. The transitions and animations are smooth and everything seems to works great. This is probably one of the best things about the TV, it is responsive and fast, thanks to the quad-core processor and 2GB of RAM.

Now there are a bunch of LED TVs in India that run on Android, some run on a full fledged version of Android, making it feel like a large tablet. On the other hand, Sony is the only brand in India that offers Google’s own Android TV platform. The good thing about these is the access to the Google Play Store. The UI on the LeEco TV lacks Google services, which means limited app support. This was quite disappointing considering the hardware capability of the TV.

There is an LeTV app store onboard, but the number of apps is quite limited. Apart from YouTube I couldn’t find any useful video streaming app, not even Netflix.

Features: 8.5/10

The company has really packed the X55 to its limits. The TV runs on a Cortex A17 quad-core processor with a quad-core Mali-T760 MP4 GPU for support. There is 8GB of internal storage and 2GB of RAM. In the connectivity department you get a variety of ports including 2x USB 3.0, 1x USB 2.0, 3x HDMI 2.0 ports, an SD Card slot, a Component Input (YPbPr), AV input, VGA input, PC Audio Line-in, RF input, Ethernet 10/100M, Audio out (earphone & coaxial combined), SPDIF(Optical) Audio Output, Bluetooth as well as Wi-Fi 2.4GHz and 5GHz support.

System info app Aida64 shows the screen resolution as 1080p

Free services

For those who don’t know, LeEco is originally a content company. Sure it sells phones and TVs now, but it started off as one of China’s biggest content providers. Even their business model revolves around content. When the company entered India it provided free content, including streaming and live content, on its smartphones. The same content package is made available on the new Super3 TV range.

Sadly the content is disappointing. There are a handful of live TV channels that can be streamed via Le Live, but require a fast connection. Even so, the channels itself are in SD resolution. Then there is Le Vidi that offers a large library of movies courtesy Eros Now. If you are a Bollywood buff you’ll love the library. However, there is no Hollywood content here. I was expecting a lot of 4K content, but I didn’t find a single movie.

If you are selling a 4K television with a promise of large content subscription package to set yourself apart, then you need good content which includes 4K movies. But it seems LeEco was in a hurry to launch the TV and didn’t focus on what the actual package consists of. Probably the only attractive offering here is the 4-year warranty on the panel, and the two-year warranty on the entire TV set.

Conclusion

As a stand alone UHD TV, the LeEco Super3 X55 is a marvel. I mean, who sells a quality 4K TV at Rs 60,000, right? The panel is not a benchmark setter, but at this price point it is probably the best that you can get. What really impressed me was the build quality and how fast the interface works. Of course there aren’t a lot of apps, but it can be worked on. The biggest disappointment was the content as the company was quite vocal about providing the best package available on the market. LeEco really needs to pull up its socks and improve on its content if it really wants to sell its TV range by riding on the content horse.

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