Haier HLT71 7-Inch Handheld LCD TV Buy Now

Over all a nice portable TV with a decent picture and sound. My only complaint is that it is very poor at receiving channels. I live in a Minneapolis suburb 16 miles from the TV towers in Shoreview. Reception in my home using the attached antenna is hit and miss. All channels are broadcasting with high power and area easily receiveable. In fact I connected the included antenna to a Samsung HDTV and it received all digital stations reliably.

I also took the TV with me on a trip to Las Vegas. At one point I was in a friend's apartment building 4.7 miles from the TV towers and again had less than reliable reception inside. TV worked fine outside though.

I am looking for a truly portable TV that I can take with me on trips and see what TV stations I can pick up. I may return this as the tuner is weak. However, if you have a good TV antenna to connect this to, you should consider this TV. It works pretty well in almost every other way. The only other complaint I have is that it doesn't switch between narrow and wide mode based on the type of TV signal received and the wide-narrow setting is in a menu.

I also checked out the over priced Radio Shack version which is very similar if not identical to the Axion TV. That set is equally insentitive to signal reception however it does switch to wide mode when receiving a 720p or 1080i signal and then back to bars on the side when receiving a 480i signal.

UPDATE:
This is a decent TV with a sensitive tuner, good picture and sound. BUT, you need to get a good signal into the TV and the attached antenna that it comes with just doesn't do that. I'm 16 miles away from the TV towers and it just barely gets enough signal to work and it only picks up some of the local channels.

Many of us are buying this to use when the power is out, which may happen during a bad thunderstorm. What most people don't know is that during a thunderstorm, lightning creates interferance which makes TV reception a little bit more difficult than on a clear day. Lightning increases the noise floor and if you are not receiving enough signal to be above the noise floor, no digital TV will be able to process a signal.

The answer to this is to use a better TV antenna which will receive a stronger signal. I measured the amount of signal that the single Aerial that comes with the TV receives and it receives very little signal. This signal would be overwelmed by static during a thunderstorm. Think of how AM radio sounds when lightning is in the air.

My solution was to purchase a Terk HDTVi antenna. This sells for around $30 on Amazon.com. It does a great job of receiving UHF channels and a decent job of receiving VHF channels. Don't get the powered version, as you may not have power during a storm. Also, don't get other Terk antennas as they are not nearly as effective. In nearly all TV markets, most of the TV stations broadcast their digital signals in the UHF band. For example, in Minneapolis, two channels broadcast in the VHF band and 8 are in the UHF band.

Again, nice TV but it won't work reliably unless you get a better antenna for it. Get more detail about Haier HLT71 7-Inch Handheld LCD TV.