The JVC LT-32P679 is a 32-inch LCD HDTV that’s available for about  $600. This entry-level television sports a lower 720p resolution than more expensive 1080p HDTVs, but it does have some interesting features, including an integrated iPod/iPhone dock.

Sitting on the front of the HDTV just below the display, this dock flips down to accommodate your iPod or iPhone. Once connected you can play music, video and photos from the device on the screen, but we found the playback interface on the TV to be relatively limited. For example you can only play all of your music, photos or video. You cannot select artists, playlists or albums from the on-screen interface. You can control such things from the iPod/iPhone itself, but this defeats some of the convenience of docking it to a television.

All of the JVC LT-32P679’s connections are found on the back on the right side, which combined with the relatively small size makes for easy access. It sports 3 HDMI ports and a good selection of additional analog and digital inputs and outputs, including optical audio out and a USB port for connecting a digital camera or camcorder.

The JVC LT-32P679’s remote is rather large and doesn’t feel very comfortable in the hand. The menu system is simple to use, without a lot of confusing sub-menus. The small font size makes some options a little difficult to read, however, and we do recommend turning off the translucent effect as this makes it difficult to read the menus,.

Audio on the JVC LT-32P679 is provided by stereo speakers and the quality is above average for built-in speakers. The simulated surround sound, however, is not very impressive; it does not provide anything near the surround sound feel that you get with a proper 5.1 channel speaker system. We recommend you invest in a real surround sound system if that is important to you.

Performance (Read the full lab performance results at televisioninfo.com)

The JVC LT-32P679 does an above average job of producing deep blacks, but the brightness of its whites leaves a bit to be desired. We calibrate TVs for testing to produce the best color accuracy, but doing so meant that the whites were not very bright.. You can crank them up, but then you loose a lot of detail. We also saw some impact of this in the color temperature test, which tells us how stable whites are at different intensities. The darker whites in particular had a significant bluish tint.

Color accuracy on the JVC LT-32P679 was reasonable, but did struggle when dealing with higher intensities. What this means in practice is that objects with very bright colors will lose a significant amount of detail; things like brightly colored uniforms or fruit will look flat and will lack surface detail. More sedate colors should look just fine, however.

We noticed some poor handling of motion on the JVC LT-32P679, in particular we noticed striping and jaggedness in whites and blacks on moving objects as well as a cartoonish effect on complex patterns, like faces when they moved about the screen quickly. We were also unimpressed by the viewing angle of the JVC LT-32P679. We noted that you lost half of your contrast at an angle of 22.5 degrees from center, so if you’re the one stuck on the end of the sofa when watching this TV in a group, you’ll see a much less attractive image than the lucky ones in the center.

Conclusion

The JVC LT-32P679 is an entry-level television, available for as little as $600 and with a lower 720p resolution than higher-end 1080p televisions like the JVC JVC LT-47X899. As such we expect to see some compromises in quality. Unfortunately we feel that there are just too many compromises, even at this reduced price point. In particular the issues we saw with handling of blacks and whites could have a significant impact on the quality of the picture on this HDTV.