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Review: B&O BeoVision 11

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As some of the first we have borrowed a specimen of Bang & Olufsen’s newest creations, the Beovision 11. Beovision 11 is the evolution of the Beovision 10, which we had a look at exactly 3 years ago and Beovision 11 does share most of the characteristics of the 10 including the aluminium bezel, the sleek flat look, and the large speaker on the front.

On the inside, however, Beovision 11 has undergone quite a few changes and it will be exiting to see if the virtues we found on the Beovision 10 have been refined, as well as what new features B&O has cooked up.

Beovision 11 comes in three varieties: a 40”, a 46”, and a 55” version. Vi are reviewing the 46” model, which has been supplied with an anti-reflective coating, a build in harddrive and dual tuner, a motorized stand, and a Beo4 remote. The entry price of this model with the anti-reflective coating and the Beo4 (converted from DKK) is 10,500 USD (8,100 €), an additional 1,000 USD (770 €) for the PVR unit, and about the same for the motorized stand. B&O also provides a different type of floor stand as well as swiveling wall mounts. The latter now also comes in a motorized version.

BeoVision 11 is available in 40, 46 and 55 inch variants in USA, Europa and Asia. The 55-inch variant has a more capable speaker system.

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Size:46" widescreen
Resolution:1920x1080
Response time:-
Contrast ratio:-
Brightness:-
Viewing angles (H/V):-
Panel type:LCD-TV with edge LED
Wall mounting:
Swivel stand:
Dimensions (HxWxD): 96.5cm x 109.7cm x 6.0cm (without stand)
Weight48 kg
Built-in speakers:
Inputs
VGA
DVI (but possible to convert through HDMI)
Audio (type) (Audio in/out)
S-video
Composite
Component
HDMI (6 inputs, 1 HDMI 1.4)
Outputs
Audio (type) (2x5 PowerLink)
S/PDIF (optical)
Other

Price and retailer:


Our first impressions

The design of the Beovision 11 is pretty much the same as the Beovision 10, but the 55” model the proportions becomes noticeable different as the speaker takes up less real estate (percentwise) on the front than with the smaller models.


Our 46” model has the polished native aluminium bezel, which has become the trademark of the 10 model, but this time around B&O has added the option to a black version as well (still aluminium mind you). The processing of all varieties is exemplary and all joints fit toghether as it was made from a single component. This is a pure Bang & Olufsen product and if shiny metal and glass surfaces were not so unforgiving it is tempting constantly to put your paws on the screen just to feel the quality.

The front of the TV is made from one piece of glass with cut-outs for the speaker. The speaker grille clicks right off, making a change of color a swift operation. The grille fabric comes in 6 colors.

Our model came with the characteristic motor floor stand, which is also a quite sturdy metal construction, and it offers the possibility to turn using the remote.

Beovision 11 review
Beovision 11 mounted on the motorized floor stand.


Panels on the back hide all connections, and cables can be directed to various exits along the back and bottom to make the integration with either the swiveling wall mount of floor stand as seamless as possible. This makes the backside clean and rid of cable clutter. As with the BeoPlay V1 the BV11 also offers the possibility to conceal an Apple TV or similar media device inside the cabinet.

Beovision 11 review
Aluminium bezel of the Beovision 11.


Some critisism must, however, also be passed along for the newly added HDMI 6 and USB ports that flips out on the top of the TV when you push the tray. The quality and seams of this tray does not match the rest of the TV, but luckily you won’t notice this until you actually push it.

Beovision 11 review
USB and HDMI 6 connection on the top.


The back panels hide the additional 5 HDMI connections as well as the speaker connections, the IR-blaster outputs and so on. All of these point upwards and cables can be directed either out through the back (for floor stand mounting) or guided through the interiors to the bottom (for wall mounting).

Beovision 11 review
Connections around back.



Test tools

Our TV signal is DVB-C (cable) from Yousee. We also have an analogue TV connection. Testing is done with the DVE (digital video essentials) and Peter Finzel test DVD. Testing is also done with DVD, TV, Blu-Ray and Media center/PC.

We use our own monitorTest. The software supports some of the traditional test patterns used to evaluate displays as well as some new and unique test patterns developed by the people here on FlatpanelsHD.

A Panasonic DMP-BDT120 is the Blu-Ray player used in this review.

All contrast measurements are based on the ANSI methodology.

Functionality

When you buy the BeoVision 11 a technician from B&O will take care of the setup process in your home so most users will not need to enter the advanced menus. However, the TV also has a setup menu that takes you through step by step.

The menus are quite different from what we are used to on popular TV’s from Sony, Panasonic and Samsung, and takes some getting-used-to. For example, you need to remember to press “Save” each time you change a setting option, otherwise it will not be stored in the memory.

Beovision 11 review
Main menu


With the Beo4 remote you can control everything on the TV but B&O also offers the touch-based Beo6 (optional but costs more). Our editorial team prefers remotes that can be operated without constantly having to look down, remotes that work in the dark so to say, and Beo4 is an excellent choice in this regard. The remote also feels exclusive because of the superior build quality, weight and logical button layout.

Beovision 11 review
Why change a winner? Beo4 is unchanged - and that’s a good thing!


BV11 also allows you to configure which buttons on the Beo4 that controls which functions on the TV. You can individualize the remote as you please and only include for example your most used functions and input sources.

Beovision 11 review
Menu on Beovision 11.


During setup you need to decide if you want to take advantage of the quick start feature that puts the TV in a stand-by mode (that results in slightly higher stand-by power consumption). Actually the quick start feature is better described as “normal start” because without “quick start” it takes 35 seconds to turn on the TV which might prove annoying in the long run. Luckily you can program the quick start mode to only be active at certain time intervals, for example 5 pm to 12 am on week days and 6 am to 12 am during weekends. With quick start activated it takes around 6 seconds to start the TV.

BeoVision 11 has built-in WiFi for the multimedia and Smart TV features, including smartphone remote controlling and hbbTV functionality (for select European markets).

Beovision 11 review
hbbTV.


With BeoVision 11, Bang & Olufsen also introduces a hard drive for recording and a dual tuner module. This is optional and not included in the basic package but is worth considering. It enables you to use picture-in-picture to watch two different channels at the same TV. It also enables you to record two shows at the same time or record one show and watch another. It even has two CI slots so you can input two CA modules for encoded channels that some TV broadcasters use. The dual tuner and hard drive adds a great suite of functionality and convenience and we encourage BV11 buyers to consider installing it. The money is well spent.

The picture-in-picture feature that enables two channels is desired by many users but no other manufacturer (besides Loewe) has taken the effort to include it. The major TV manufacturers could learn something from B&O here. The picture-in-picture feature is not limited to a few inputs. In fact it works with all inputs and you can combine for example a TV channel with a DVD. Audio follows the main source.

Beovision 11 review
Picture-by-picture with 2 TV channels.


Recording can be scheduled via the electronic program guide (EPG) but unfortunately you cannot adjust the starting and ending margins in the menus. However, you can edit your recordings afterwards. The recorder also supports chase play, which means that the TV starts recording as soon as you switch over to a new channel, making it possible to rewind to the point where you started. If you later decide to record a show 20 minutes in, you can enter the EPG and select record. The TV will remember the chase play period and store the entire show (or at least from where you entered).

Beovision 11 review
Timeshift.


You can even start watching a TV show scheduled for recording from the beginning if you return home early (and the show is still underway).

Another nice feature is the option to jump into recording by using the Beo4 remote. By pressing 1 2 2 you jump to 1 hour 22 minutes (when the remote is in the record mode).

Beovision 11 review
List of recordings


We heard no significant noise from BeoVision 11. The fans are audible if you move your head down and listen to the back side but it requires a 100 % silent room. Even the hard drive is very silent but is audible from a meters distance, like most hard drive today.

The EPG is great overall but it is a bit awkward that you have to press on the OK button twice to switch to a TV channel. The first push open up the description of the current TV show and the next switches to the channel. It would be more convenient if the description could be activated with a different button.

Beovision 11 review
The EPG.


You can scroll through recording via the Beo4 joystick and program information is rendered at the top. The layout is typical B&O - minimalistic and in black and white without confusing graphics or skeuomorphism. This will please some and scare others but at least it is easy.

Beovision 11 review
Teletext.






One of the strengths of B&O is the complete link system that can link almost any electronic device to the B&O system, including TVs, sound systems, electronic curtains, light bulb and much more. We have no intention to go through everything but we want to talk a bit about how the Beo4 remote can control basically device with infrared. In the past B&O’s PUCs (the codes for each device) were manually stored on the TV, but following the BeoPlay V1 launch the PUCs moved to the internet so you no longer need a B&O technician to setup new devices. The new system works very well and the TV even asks you if you want to control a device via the B&O link system after you connect it the first time. The infrared codes are then automatically stored in the TV. The functions are automatically assigned to physical buttons on the remote and you cannot switch things around yourself from here but this was not a big deals as all the important buttons were stored in a logical way. You can also choose to let the external device turn on and turn off with the TV.

There is a short delay when controlling external devices via the BeoVision 11. You can connect and control up to 6 external devices via the 3 IR inputs on the back, and two IR transmitters are included.

B&O has implemented a Smart TV platform that is also avaiable for the BeoPlay V1. However, we are not exactly fans of today’s Smart TVs that are clunky, slow, and not user friendly in any way. B&O has decided to join the Smart TV alliance with TV manufacturers such as Philips and LG. In other words; they share the same platform with multi-platform apps.

Beovision 11 review
Smart TV on BeoVision 11


We have often said that the Smart TV manufacturers are competing not to create the best Smart TV platform but to create the platform that sucks the least - at least that is how we experience it. And just like any other Smart TV, BeoVision 11’s Smart TV features are bad and irrelevant. It has a few apps but besides the YouTube app none of them are any good. The navigation speed does not impress either. One of the few gimmicks that makes sense is the function to push YouTube videos to the TV screen from an iPad just like AirPlay. However, it is very limited and only works with YouTube.

Beovision 11 review
Youtube


The smart features also allow you to control the TV with our smartphone or tablet. Unfortunately, it is just an app where the remote buttons are moved to the touch screen interface + some swipe gesture controls. Why this should be useful is not clear to us. Some of the menu options from the List menu on the Beo4 display are available but why use a touch screen tablet when you have one of the world’s best remotes, the Beo4, right next to you? Especially if the touch screen app offers no additional functionality or even a user friendly interface?


We allow ourselves to come with a suggestion for a smartphone remote app. Instead of moving all the buttons to the touch screen you need to be able to navigate in the TV menus directly on the touch screen. And when you are done the TV automatically saves or acts. It is not a good idea to have an app when you constantly need to look down at the touch screen and then up at the TV screen. The app should be interactive, it needs to extend the functionality by for example moving the entire EPG guide onto the touch screen and letting users schedule recording here, browse recording shows and change settings.

Besides the Smart TV features, BeoVision 11 also supports media sharing via DLNA. We recently examined the DLNA implementation in the BeoPlay V1 review. Nothing has changed on BeoVision 11. It plays the most typical formats, including MKV and M4V but not ISO formats. Blu-ray rips in MKV were passed through correctly with the option to change the audio track but subtitles were not supported. If you want a full-blown network streaming solution you should still look for an external box. The upside is that you can probably hide it in the Apple TV slot on the backside and control it via the Beo-remote.

We experienced one issue during the review period where a remote button repeated itself infinitely until the TV was restarted. B&O has acknowledged the issue and is working on a fix in one of the coming firmwares that will be available over the internet.

We also noticed that picture and audio were out of sync a few times after turning on the TV but the problem vanished after the first channel selection.

Energy consumption

Compare power consumption measurements on different TVs and monitors with our interactive power consumption applet here.


Standby 42 W (sleep) / 2,5 W (standby) 42 W (sleep) / 2,5 W (standby)
SD+HD 150 W 150 W
3D 150 W 150 W


The light sensor wants to control the backlight so power consumptions depends on your viewing environment. You should be aware that the quick start function consumes 42 W so refrain from activating it all the time. The stand-by consumption is 2.5 W which is acceptable but not impressive. During use the power consumption is pretty constant in 3D, HD and SD use.

Calibration of BeoVision 11

Up until now B&O have had their very own oppinion on how the color profile on a TV should look. At the launch of the BeoPlay V1 this had changed a little as the user now had two color profiles to choose from (besides the “Game” profile). On the BV11 you can now choose between the regular “Adapted” color profile and the new “Movie” profile. The “Adapted” profile is still the B&O style one, whereas the “Movie” profile is new. In addition a new 360 degree light sensor has been added, which constantly meters the room to adjust the TV’s light intensity to fit the ambient lighting - just as you already know it from smartphones or a few other TV’s.

Beovision 11 review
The light sensor.


Compared to the plots and graphs we usually show in our reviews, the following will look slightly different as we had to use some of our other measuring equipment and software during this review. The interpretation is, however, the same and we are still measuring RGB-values, color temperatures, and gamma values. Our plots show measurements for 10 points along the greyscale from black (0% white) to white (100% white). Remember that shades of grey consist of both red, green, and blue, so you can measure all three components using such a scale.

Beovision 11 review
RGB and deltaE before.


As usual the “Adapted” profile from B&O is not something that strikes you as accurate even by eye. There is a clear preference for cool color temperatures (i.e. high Kelvin), which has been the philisophy of B&O for many years. The cool colors mean an excess of blue and a shortage of red color. The deltaE measure, which is used to give an overall evaluation of how off colors are, hits a whopping 40, which very visible to the naked eye. Remember that deltaE tells you how much difference is measured in the primary colors overall, and values below 2 or so is considered OK, whereas values above 5 yield noticeable differences compared to the standard.

Looking at the color temperature it is also evident that things are indeed on the cool side as we measure 10,000 K where the actual target is 6,500 K. Remember that high Kelvin (high temperature) means cool colors, which means too much blue - just as the RGB plot showed.

Beovision 11 review
Color temperature before calibration


Looking at the gamma curve, we here see how the intensity of the grey scale acts up (opposed to the RGB curve where we looked at the composition of red, green, and blue), and here we spot a gamma that is too high. High gamma values mean darker images, which means black crush.

Beovision 11 review
Gamma curve before calibration


At the standard settings (“Adapted”) a whole bunch of sharpness is also added which hurts the detail level. On the BV11 you have the option to adjust this though, which you did not have on the Beoplay V1. In addition you will also find an option to turn down the noise reduction, which is a welcome addition. On the V1 both of these handles were concealed within the distance lever, but the less tech-minded will still find this option on the BV11 if they prefer not to mess with the advanced settings.

The calibration of the Beovision 11 is mainly done by simply switching the color profile to “Movie” as no options for manipulating gamma or RGB values separately exists. We did also tamper a little with the contrast (which is called “Brightness”) and the contrast enhancement, which was turned all the way down.

Looking at the RGB values in the movie profile things now look much better. The deltaE values are now below 10 and beyond 20% white we actually approach a level that could be considered “correct”. Compared to the THX profiles that other manufacturors have implemented B&O are not quite there yet. Comparing to the previous generation of Beovision (Beovision 10.), the movie profile is a giant leap forward however.

Beovision 11 review
RGB and deltaE after calibration.


Gone is also the blue tint, which again lowers the color temperature, which now now approaches the 6,500 K reference level. In the black regions we still se some deviations, but the TV does not allow for a complete suppression of the dynamic contrast, so we have a hard time controlling things when the image goes dark.

Beovision 11 review
Color temperature after calibration.


The gamma curve is greatly influenced by the “Contrast enhancer” and “Brightness” levers, but both influence the entire gamma curve at once. We strongly recommend turning the “Contrast enhancer” all the way down to flatten out the gamma curve.

As the plot below shows the overall gamma is still a little high (2.32) in the darker regions and a little too low (2.18) in the lighter regions, but the lack of adjustment levers makes it impossible to straighten the curve completely. Overall you are left with an image that is a little too dark. You could give the “Brightness” lever a notch upwards (to 34 in the menu), which will push the picture to the other side making it overall too bright. The color accuracy does not change by doing so, so you can choose whatever suits you the best.

Beovision 11 review
Gamma curve after calibration.


The calibrated settings are shown below:

Profile: Movie
Picture adjustments:
Viewing distance 0,5 m
Advanced settings:
Judder cancel Off
Room adaption On/Off
Power saving On/Off
Adjust TV
Contrast 32
Brightness 33
Colour 32
Noise reduction 0
Sharpness 0
Colour temperature 32
Contrast enhance 0
Cropping/overscan Source dependent


Picture quality on the BeoVision 11

In this section the picture quality of the TV is reviewed with the calibrated settings

By default the Beovision 11 is supplied with an anti reflective coating, which should help reduce the worst glares and reflections, but you should keep in mind that the front is still glass. Reflections are broken into three hues, which can be seen as seperate contours on the screen. The picture below shows a lamp reflected in the turned off screen. You will be able to notice reflection during normal use, so if you have panoramic windows behind your coutch, you might want to reconsider the placement of the Beovision 11. Luckily the light sensor will boost the light intensity of the screen accordingly, but no matter what this wont kill the reflections - just drown them a bit. Also keep in mind that the entire front is made of glass, so the frame will be reflecting as well.

Beovision 11 review
Reflections from a lamp.


The dynamic contrast that you will also find activated on most other TV by default, cannot be shut off completely. You will on occations be able to see the dimming when scenes change from bright ones to dark ones. It is not as agressive as on some TV’s out there though. The dimming is controlled on the individual LED’s along the side and can be adjusted for each side seperately. The LED’s seem to fit the black bars of a 2.35:1 movie perfectly. The movie below shows how the dymanic contrast behaves on a black screen when moving the cursor around.




Beovision 11 review
Dynamic contrast (over exsposed).


During the calibration of the TV we spotted some weird posterization on the 20% white backdrop, which looked like blocks moving around. In spite that the backdrop was in fact completely uniform this was very reproducible on this test pattern. We never saw it during real life testing, but it was kinda odd to look at.

On multiple occations we found that the TV lost cadence when looking at PAL signals (50 Hz interlaced SD). This happens if the TV does not recognize the movie material and puts toghether the picture stream in the wrong way. In the real world this can be seen on e.g. sutitles or rolling news streamers, which gets the characteristic comb effect. This kind of problem should have been eliminated long ago and does not belong on a modern TV. We did not perceive this as a constant source of nuisance, but it will be visible on occations. Whether the issue remains on 60 Hz interlaced signals our readers abroad might help to clear up - please comment in our forum.

Posterization (or banding) was an issue on the Beoplay V1 and on perfect gradients formed in Photoshop we could also provoke the BV11 to produce similar issues, but in everyday use the issue is rather hard to spot. HD material did not seem to show any problems, but on the Beovplay V1 we found that SD sources worsened the issue - this was not the case for the BV11.

Beovision 11 review
Banding provoked by Photoshop.


Beovision 11 review
Banding attempted provokerd by the DVE test pattern - without any luck.



The HD picture qiality on the Beovision 11 is exemplary and both HDTV and Blu-Ray is crisp and clear. Fast movements are also handled nicely and only on very rare occations was it possible to spot some overdrive trailing. The issue is most visible when light objects move across a dark backdrop, but you really need to do a stress test to see it clearly. It was never an issue on anything but these tests.

Color reproductin is good, but as our graphs showed it wasn’t possible to hit a gamma level of 2.2 for all shades of grey, which results in some black crush. SD-TV was also handled quite nicely. Higly compressed signals could, however, put the videoprocessor to work and JPEG artifacts popped out, but we only mention this to make it clear that even a decent signal processor can’t fix Youtube quality. In general we were quite pleased with the performance on both TV-signals and HDMI sources.

Beovision 11 review
HD picture quality



The motion system of the Beovision 11 runs at 200 Hz and helps to smoothen movements, and so far B&O have been pretty good at making these algorithms. The Beovision 11 is no exception and the system doesn’t introduce too much noise if “judder cancel” is turned on, but you do still introduce the soap opera effect. Generally we always prefer to disable any motion systems, but we will leave it to the individual to choose their own preference. The system can be graduated on two levels.

Below you will find the black level and contrast ratio. As the dynamic contrast can’t be turned off we can’t do an on/off contrast measurement as black simply gives us a 0 reading on our measuring equipment, so we will be using an ANSI pattern consisting of a chess pattern of black and white to prevent the TV from turning down the intensity of the backlight.

Black depth 0.15 cd/m2 0.02 cd/m2
Brightness 203 cd/m2 172 cd/m2
Contrast ratio 1383:1 8600:1
Black depth +/- 0,005 cd/m2


The black level was measured at 0.02 cd/m2 which is impressive for an LCD-TV and a small improvement over the Beovision 10. It is our lowest recording yet on an Edge LED-TV, with the reservation that a different piece of hardware has been used to measure this TV compared to our other tests. In practice black was percieved as very satisfactory, but it is possible to spot the difference between regions where the dynamic contrast is active and regions where it is not.

It should be noted that the measuring software rounds our readings to 2 decimals, which is a bit unfortunate for contrast measurements as a rounding error will have a tremendous impact on contrast ratio. So instead of attributing too much attention to this number one should instead simply note that the black level is quite good and the true values should be in the range between <0.01 cd/m2 and 0.03 cd/m2 in a darkened room.

The picture below shows the uniformity of the light in a darkened room. Usually we perform this test on a black color on-screen, but the dynamic contrast simply turns off the backlight and this then fails to reveal any misbehaviours. Instead we have used a dark grey color and exposed it for 15 seconds, which is what you see below.

Beovision 11 review
Uniformity of the backlight of the Beovision 11.



As the picture shows the uniformity of the backlight is close to perfect. Most edge lit LED screens suffer from clouding (spots of light) or bleeding (light “bleeding” in from the edges) in some way or the other, men the Beovision 11 really excel in this regard. On our 15 second exposure you can vaguely see that the top and bottom is slightly darker than the rest of the screen, but this is not visible during operation.

There is little doubt that B&O are using panels coming from a more tightly controlled quality inspection, but of course this also helps to drive the price upwards. We saw this excellent backlight uniformity on the BeoPlay V1 and seeing it on the Beovision 11 is really a positive thing. By now we are so used to having to settle with some form of backlight “defect” that it comes as a very pleasent surprise that it is indeed possible to buy LED-TV with this kind uniformity without using direct lit panels.

Measuring the input latency things take a turn for the worse. We measured 200-230 ms in the movie preset and 80-100 ms in the game preset, which is far too much if you are using the TV for playing console games - and forget working with anything that requires mouse movement. The latency was also a problem on the BeoPlay V1 and we really feel that you must be extremely tolerant to settle with this kind of latency in your videogames.

3D picture quality on BeoVision 11

We used the PlayStation 3 and a 3D Blu-ray player to test 3D movies and 3D games. In this test I want to examine 3D depth, 3D picture quality, 3D crosstalk and finally include a small comparison to some of the other 3DTVs on the market.


As many of the other manufacturers of LED-TV, B&O uses an active 3D system, which requires glasses with active shutters. This makes the glasses heavy as you need to accomodate a battery and a receiver for syncing the shutters.

B&O has chosen to go for a version using button cell batteries, which are not rechargeble like the ones e.g. Samsung uses. The advantage would be that button cell batteries have higher energy density, which mean they can pack more juice and hence last longer that rechargeble ones, but unfortunately this also means that you will need to keep some spares lying around.

The glasses themselves are not living up to the high standards of design coming from Struer and the heavy look isn’t just a look - they feel pretty heavy too. Especially on your nose. This is, however, not the worst part. The glasses are so wide that you can actually see reflections of whatever is behind you, which totally ruins the 3D experience as you constantly find yourself gazing at the periphery to figure out what the distraction is, just to realize that it is the texture of the wall behind you reflecting in the glasses... A good advice is to keep the room completely darkened to avoid too much distress from these reflections.

Beovision 11 review
3D glasses from B&O



The 3D experience itself is fairly good and crosstalk is not an issue you should be concerned about, but it will be visible from time to time. The 3D depth is good even though we still prefer plasma television when it comes to the active shutter glass technology. Where LED-TV’s do have the edge, though, is in terms of brightness and the Beovision 11 can deliver much more intensity in 3D than any of its plasma competitors, which is an advantage as the shutter glasses eat up a lot of light. You still have access to the color profiles in 3D mode, which we have also seen on most other recent 3D televisions.

Usually we mention crosstalk as a problem when using a 3D-TV for gaming, but for the Beovision 11 crosstalk is nothing compared to the annoying latency, so in any case gaming won’t be the best experience.

PC and mediacenter

1:1 pixelmapping is handled with ease through HDMI and you don’t need to change picture settings anywhere. If you prefer you can crop the picture in the advanced settings menu.

As mentioned the high latency makes the TV unusable as a PC monitor, as you will constantly miss your intended target when dragging your mouse around.

Viewing angles

The viewing angles on the Beovision 11 are not perfect and color do have a tendency to deteriorate noticeable already at 45 degree angles. The motorized stand or wall mount does come in handy if you have changing seating positions, so consider these options if purchasing the TV.

This also means that B&O are not as far ahead as e.g. the latest Samsung models in this respect.

Beovision 11 review
Horizontal viewing angles


Beovision 11 review
Vertical viwing angles



Sound

Sound is one of the places where B&O have really set the bar high and separated themselves from the competition. On the BV11 you have the option of connecting an additional 12 speakers besides the built-in one, which can be used in a wide range of configurations depending on e.g. your choice of input on the TV.

The possibilities for adjustment of these speakers are - without any competition - the most advanced you will find on any TV out there today. Sadly the BV11 didn’t come with 12 speakers, so we will have to leave you hanging on how this system actually work.

Beovision 11 review
The built-in speaker


If we instead focus on the built-in sound we find a 3-way speaker system based on B&O own ICEpower amplifiers (a 32 Watt amp is used for each of the units). The sound profiles count 9 presets and a user defined one, where you can mess around with some pretty advanced adjustments. The sound presets can be chosen separately for each input and the TV is also capable of analyzing the sound content and choose a preset best suited for the purpose. This also makes the sound quite different in some cases as e.g. the “Talk” preset is very different from the “Movie” preset.

Bypassing the selfadjusting algorithms for a second you will find that the Beoviosion 11 is a very potent sound source. There is an excellent depth to the bass and the high frequencies are clear and precise. We had no problems using the TV as a radio through our DVB-C connection (which works quite well by the way) and the sound quality easily matches up to competitors in the soundbar industry. It goes without saying that the low frequencies are not as low as with a dedicated subwoofer, but compared to every other (non-B&O) TV out there, there is no competition at all.

Compared to the Beovision 10 it is also very audible that the sound is a lot more potent in the low frequencies and for movie watching the Beovision 11 can easily stand on its own now. With the possiblity to add an army of speakers we would still recommend that you at least consider expanding the setup along the way if you enjoy movies on occations. If nothing else then just add two front speakers to widen the stereo perspective.

The TV comes with a built-in surround decoder, which enable 7.1 HD audio. We passed both DTS-MA and DD HD to the TV and both were recognized as 7.1 streams in the audio menu - regardless if they were sent as PCM or bitstream.

Conslusion

Beovision 11 is the first TV from the Bang & Olufsen brand that offer Smart-TV functionality, DLNA, and wireless connectivity to the internet. As with the Beoplay V1 you have a access to PUC codes online, which all makes the BV11 a more versatile TV than previous models. Smart-TV’s are, however, still not as smart as most marketing devisions would like them to be, but all things considered a connection to the outside world does make a TV more ready for the future.

Beovision 11 offers a lot of features you won’t find on other TV’s, which is to be expected considering the price tag. You will get a dual tuner, built-in HDD recorder, picture-by-picture, 7.1 channel surround sound decoding, a buit-in speaker system that leaves the competition sitting on the side of the road, IR-control of 3rd party hardware, a superior finish and built quality, and the best remote out there. On top of this you naturally get the Beonet (new version of Masterlink) connectivity that is the signature feature of Bang & Olufsen products.

The picture quality of the Beovision 11 is convincing and places the TV up front in the LCD-TV field, where the older brother BeoVision 7 also sits. The Movie preset that has been added since the Beovision 10 gives the TV a boost in color accuracy and combined with the great black level and uniform backlight, the overall depth of the picture is very good. Among Edge LED-TV’s the Beovision 11 currently has the lead.

On the downside we found - like on the Beoplay V1 - that input latency is a noticeable problem if you plan on connecting a game console. Also, even though some additional menu tweaks have been added we are still missing the last handles that would allow us to smoothen out the gamma curve, take better control of the RGB values, and turn the dynamic contrast completely off. We do appreciate the sharpness and noise correction handles though.

Tue Mantoni said that he felt the Beovision 11 was the best TV Bang & Olufsen have made yet - and we are inclined to agree. Looking at the Beovision 11 from a bird view perspective, incorporating impressions from picture quality, sound quality and sound possibilities, design and materials, and genereal look and feel we have to award the Beovision 11 our “highly recommended award”.


Press the award logo to learn more.


Price and retailer:







HD picture quality Settings in the "Adapted" profile Living room
Deep black levelInput latency Home theatre
Uniformity of backlightSmart TV still not very "Smart"
Great sound No possibilities for adjusting RGB values
Built-in surround decoder for 7.1 audio Standby consumption
Superior built quality Reflections
Control of 3rd party equipment Viewing angles
Dual-tuner with HDD recorder (option)
Excellent remote


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BeoVision 11 debate

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