Sylvox 15.6-inch Smart Under Cabinet TV Review

Introduction

A small kitchen, or even a caravan or camper van, limits your TV options. The Sylvox 15.6-inch Smart Under Cabinet TV is designed to fix that issue, as it fits under a cabinet, popping out when you want to watch TV.

It’s neatly designed and doesn’t take up much space, but the installation process could be easier, and the lack of a Bluetooth remote for voice interaction, along with the high price, takes the shine off slightly.

Design and Features

• Slightly fiddly to fit
• Robust and well-made
• Basic remote control (and no battery)

Sylvox is perhaps best known for its outdoor TVs, such as the 43-inch Deck Pro Outdoor, which are built to withstand rain, snow, and big temperature variations. While the Sylvox 15.6-inch Smart Under Cabinet TV doesn’t have the same weatherproof credentials, it is more robustly built than your average TV.

Fitting inside a tough metal enclosure, this TV feels more resilient than your average smart TV.

The idea with this TV is that you mount it underneath a kitchen cabinet, with the screen held up out of the way; when you’re ready to watch, a quick push at the back gets the screen to gently swing down into viewing position.

It’s a generally neat design, as the Sylvox 15.6-inch Smart Under Cabinet TV doesn’t take up much space when you’re not watching.

The TV is also designed to rotate on its bracket. It generally works, but you do need to account for how big the TV is. I found that with my wall cupboards, there wasn’t enough space for the TV to fully rotate before it hit the wall, limiting the rotation available.

If you have kitchen cabinets with pelmets, you’ll have to screw some wood into the bottom of the cabinet first, so that you can get the front of the TV flush with the front of the pelmet.

To aid installation, the mounting bracket has a sticky pad pre-attached. That’s not strong enough to hold the TV, but it doesn’t hold the mounting bracket while you fit the screws in place. Make sure that you get the screws in straight: the screws provided can slip through the holes in the mounting bracket, if they’re not correctly aligned.

Once installed, there’s a small clock on the front, which can be set using the buttons underneath. The Time Minus and Time Plus buttons can be used independently to set a timer between one and 99 minutes, which is handy.

Around the back of the TV are the inputs and outputs, which include two HDMI, power, aerial and satellite. Coaxial video and audio outputs are provided, along with an Ethernet port (Wi-Fi is also built-in).

Just be careful how you connect any cables, as you need enough give if you want to be able to rotate the TV without disconnecting HDMI leads. USB ports are also available on the side.

Once powered on, the TV boots into its Android TV operating system. It’s a shame that this isn’t the newer Google Home OS: there’s not much difference between them in terms of features, but Android TV only supports fast set-up via an Android phone (iOS users have to manually enter their Google account details), whereas Google TV supports iOS and Android.

When I first turned on the TV, I reached for the rather cheap-feeling IR remote and found that it didn’t have a CR2025 battery pre-installed or in the box. As that’s not a particularly common size, I had to order one online, so I could get the remote working and the TV set-up and connected to Wi-Fi.

The set-up routine took me through configuring scanning for TV channels, via either satellite or traditional aerial.

Once ready, the IR remote does let the side down, as it doesn’t have a microphone for voice control. Android TV defaults to selecting the voice input option for search, which is no good here.

Sylvox does provide a remote holder, which can be stuck or screwed to a wall or cabinet. It’s a neat way to store the remote and prevent it from getting lost.

Most streaming apps are available, including Netflix, Disney+, Apple TV+, NOW, Paramount+ and Amazon Prime Video, but I couldn’t find any UK catch-up apps, such as BBC iPlayer.

To get these, I suggest using a Fire TV stick plugged into an HDMI port, using the USB ports on the TV’s side for power. In that regard, the new Amazon Echo Show 15 (2024) or Echo Show 21 are both better, as they have full Fire TV, and a proper voice assistant.

Performance

• Weak audio
• Decent image quality

Sylvox has put the stereo speakers at the front of the top bracket, which makes sense, as they’re forward-firing that way. They’re just about loud enough for a small kitchen but not particularly loud.

The main issue with the speakers is that they’re very tinny, and not particularly detailed. At high volumes there’s a harshness to them, and there’s barely any semblance of bass. Action films sound messy, but film and TV that are more about dialogue are better.

The 15.6-inch screen has a Full HD resolution (1920 x 1080). The specs don’t say that the screen supports HDR, although the HDR flag appears in streaming apps, such as Netflix and Disney+, so it would appear that HDR10 is supported.

Not that this is a TV that can particularly make the most of HDR content. It’s not bright enough to deliver the searing highlights that you might perhaps expect from a high-end TV.

The picture quality isn’t bad. Black levels are pretty good, and the TV is evenly lit from corner to corner. Black level detail falls behind the best TVs, but the Sylvox 15.6-inch Smart Under Cabinet TV still does a good job with most content: it’s easy to see, for example, what’s going on in the funeral scene at the start of Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes.

Brighter footage tends to be better. The Sylvox 15.6-inch Smart Under Cabinet TV produces natural colours that are, perhaps, a touch muted if anything. For a budget TV, though, this one does a good enough job with most content.

Should you buy it?