As I'm sure is the case for many others, the changeover to digital broadcast rendered the small battery operated TV I keep on hand for emergencies obsolete, so I had to go looking for a suitable HD replacement. I purchased one of these because of price, its similarity in size to my old set, and favorable reviews comparing it to the competition.
Out of the box you need to install the battery for it to work, a minor inconvenience. It's use is intuitive, a good thing since I don't tend to read instructions until I get in trouble. I was able to immediately get the set to scan in multiple local HD broadcasts, and most importantly it found all of the stations that are best at staying on air in emergency situations. I did not have the issue some others reported of needing to rescan, confirmed by a quick check after more than a month in storage. The picture is excellent given the small size of the set, and incredibly better than my old one. The supplied antenna is adequate for my needs, although if you want to use the set for regular viewing you probably should invest in one with better gain.
I'm downgrading the set slightly because L-ion batteries do not have great shelf life and the one included is non-standard. The set does need to have the battery installed to work, incidentally. My concern is that when I do pull it out for emergency use the battery will be too weak to be useful, although even then the set should still work OK off an either the AC or car adapter (one is included). It is true the set won't charge off of the car adapter, but if you really are concerned about that, I suggest you simply get a DC to AC adapter for your car to plug the unit's AC adapter into, which of course will then charge the set's battery. It's a good idea to have one of these anyway ... lots of other AC only stuff can then be used. Just be sure you get one that can produce enough Watts; really good ones are available for about $20. The set's normal draw is 10 Watts, but the draw is more when in rapid charge mode for a low battery ... my Watt meter shows as high as 18 Watts, but good DC to AC adapters comfortably produce 75 Watts on up (steer clear of the 5 Watt el cheapo models). Get more detail about Haier HLT71 7-Inch Handheld LCD TV.
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