Review: Kogan 24″ LED Smart Google 12V TV – R98T

^{None of the companies or products mentioned in this review are sponsored – the opinions of the author are his own.}

I have been thinking for some time about buying a 12V TV for our caravan. As you do. Our new caravan (Swift 580 Finesse) came with an aerial and powered signal booster, with ports in the living room and bed room. Swift also provide an AC outlet and 12V outlet at each location. So far so good.

After some research, I found that there are limited choices for 12V TVs down here in NZ – I did not want one with an inbuilt DVD player – that is like, soooo noughties, but I digress. What I did want, was one that had Google Chromecast built in so I could watch all the usual online content like YouTube, Netflix, Spotify, etc. I also wanted something that was cost effective, not paying the stupid money that some of the specialist RV suppliers seem to want. Satellite TV? :: faints dramatically ::

I kept landing on the Kogan 24″ LED Smart Google 12V TV.

As we are located at the ass-end of the South Pacific we don’t have things like Amazon next day delivery, and ordering from Australia works but it takes more time – and Dick Smith (owned by Kogan) have recently been warned by the Commerce Commission for adding on sneaky subscription charges to orders. That is very naughty indeed. What we do have down here is Mighty Ape, our very own local online ordering company – (Also owned by… Kogan). They are very good – just sayin’ – not sponsored. I ordered on Saturday, and the TV and 12V adaptor (sold separately) arrived Monday. Very reasonably priced at $229, plus $20 for the adaptor. That works for me. No sneaky charges – yet.

The TV comes with an AC power supply, but the 12V adaptor plug and cable must be bought separately – slightly irritating, as that is kinda the point of buying a 12V TV; its highly likely you’ll want to power it from a 12V power source. But I digress.

I set the TV up in the caravan, using the 12V power supply and a hotspot from my phone for wi-fi access. Basically this is how I will use the TV when travelling off grid. The set up was very straight forward. I set up the broadcast TV first using the caravan aerial for the first time. Scanning and finding all the digital free to air channels was easy. After carefully raising the caravan aerial and pointing it vaguely in the direction of the Auckland TV transmitter, I later discovered that in Auckland at least, that the digital channels work just fine with the aerial down – we will see what happens once we get out of the main centres. Next I set up the Google TV features which again was easy, by simply following the prompts on the screen. Netflix was a little fussy, sending emails “is this really, really you”… but in the end it decided that I was bona fide.

Overall the TV pretty much does what it is supposed to, it plays both broadcast and streamed content. The one thing that is not good is the sound quality – the speaker is very very tinny. I was however expecting this, as the online reviews said as much. This issue was easily overcome by connecting the TV to a Boom3 speaker via Bluetooth – easy to do in settings.

Pros:

• Ideal size for caravan, motorhome, boat etc.
• Lightweight
• Easy set-up for both broadcast and streaming content
• Cost effective
• Built in Chromecast – Google TV
• Wi-Fi, Ethernet & HDMI inputs
• Blue-tooth available for external speakers or earbuds
• AC or 12V compatibility

Cons:

• In-built speaker is very tinny – recommend an external speaker
• 12V adaptor cable not included