Gadgets
Blaupunkt 43-inch Ultra-HD LED CyberSound Android TV (43CSA7070) Review
The TV I’m reviewing here is the 43-inch model in this range, the Blaupunkt 43CSA7070 Ultra-HD LED Android TV, and it’s priced at Rs. 30,999. It checks all the boxes when it comes to basic specifications, with a 43-inch Ultra-HD LED-backlit screen, support for HDR content, and Android TV 10 powering the smart connectivity.
However, there’s also a key additional specification that gives the TV its name: the 43CSA7070 TV has a rated sound output of 50W through its built-in speaker system. Is this the loudest and best-sounding budget 4K TV you can buy right now, and can it also match up to the competition in terms of video quality? Find out in this review.
The Blaupunkt CyberSound 4K TV range is available in sizes of 43 inches, 50 inches, and 55 inches
Blaupunkt 43-inch Ultra-HD LED CyberSound Android TV design and specifications
Most affordable and reasonably priced televisions in India right now look fairly plain, with simple plastic frames and slim borders that allow for viewers’ focus to remain on the screen. The Blaupunkt CyberSound TV largely adheres to this formula, but has a thin silver-coloured strip at the bottom that helps it stand out a bit. The company logo is on this strip, with a module for the status light and IR receiver right below it.
The television isn’t very thick, and can be wall or table-mounted, with the former compatible with standard VESA mounting hooks, and the latter using the stands included in the box. A wall-mount kit is included in the box, and Blaupunkt provides free installation for this TV with your purchase. The stands, if used, need to be placed near the outer edges of the TV, so you’ll need a wide enough table to place it on.
The power socket for the cable faces to the right of the screen, while all ports face to the left. If you have the TV wall-mounted, these ports might be a bit difficult to access since they are near the centre of the TV at the back. The television isn’t very heavy, weighing about 6.5kg, which makes it easy to lift and even install yourself if you choose. I do, however, recommend that you opt for professional installation if you aren’t familiar with the process.
While I’m reviewing the 43-inch model, there are also 50-inch and 55-inch options in the same product range, priced at Rs. 36,999 and Rs. 40,999 respectively. The 43-inch, 50-inch, and 55-inch models are all Ultra-HD televisions with support for high dynamic range content up to the HDR10+ format, and are almost identical in terms of the rest of their specifications. Naturally, the size you pick would depend on the viewing distance and space in your home.
The TV has a 43-inch Ultra-HD (3840×2160-pixel) LED-backlit IPS LCD screen, with a standard refresh rate of 60Hz and a rated peak brightness of 450 nits. High dynamic range content up to the HDR10+ format is supported on the TV; the lack of support for Dolby Vision content is notable here, especially since competing products such as the Realme Smart TV 4K 43 and the upcoming Mi TV 5X do have this.
This is an Ultra-HD television with support for HDR10+ format content, but no Dolby Vision
Connectivity options include three HDMI ports, two USB ports, Ethernet, Optical (Toslink) audio out, an antenna connector, and a single composite AV input socket to be used with a three-way RCA adapter. Oddly, while the specifications do state the presence of a headphone jack for external audio connectivity, this wasn’t present on my review unit. As mentioned, the 43-inch Blaupunkt CyberSound TV has a rated sound output of 50W through a box speaker system with four speaker units.
HDMI ARC, Dolby Digital and Dolby MS12 processing, Bluetooth 5, and dual-band Wi-Fi are also supported. The TV is powered by a quad-core processor, and has 2GB of RAM and 8GB of internal storage for the Android TV 10 software and apps.
Blaupunkt 43-inch Ultra-HD LED CyberSound Android TV remote and features
Small remotes with few buttons might be in fashion for affordable televisions, but the Blaupunkt CyberSound doesn’t have one of those. The remote of this TV is big and has lots of buttons including a number pad; D-pad for navigation; hotkeys for Netflix, YouTube, and Google Play; a Google Assistant button; and playback controls. This isn’t a bad thing at all, since it means that you can do just about everything you need with just a couple of button presses.
The remote runs on two AAA batteries (included in the box), and has dedicated buttons for all key functions such as changing the source, and accessing the picture and sound settings from any screen. An info button shows basic technical details in supported apps. Although it’s bulky and looks rather ordinary, it’s extremely functional and useful; I’d much rather have function over form when it comes to TV remotes.
It’s possible to change key picture and sound attributes plus some miscellaneous hardware settings using the remote, even from within content being played. Usefully, there is also Google Chromecast functionality built in, as well as support for Apple AirPlay. Getting AirPlay to work was a bit tricky, and needed a third-party app (AirScreen) from the Google Play Store, as the TV wasn’t able to connect with a source device from the Android TV home screen.
I was able to get it to work eventually, and it functioned normally with both a MacBook Air and iPhone once properly set up. Google casting worked pretty much as expected with both screen mirroring and direct content. There is also Google Assistant on the TV, which can be invoked using the button on the remote, and this works as expected too.
Blaupunkt 43-inch Ultra-HD LED CyberSound Android TV software and interface
The Blaupunkt CyberSound TV range runs Android TV 10, with only the stock Android TV launcher. If you’ve used Android TV devices before, this is the same familiar smart TV experience you’ll already be used to. Even if this is your first smart TV, the Android TV experience is among the easiest and best of the various available smart TV platforms.
Apps and games can be downloaded through the Google Play Store for Android TV, and certain apps are needed for you to fully use all the features of the TV, such as the AirScreen app mentioned in the previous section. Some apps come preinstalled on the Blaupunkt CyberSound TV, including Netflix, YouTube, and Google Play Movies.
The Cybersound TV runs Android TV 10, with the stock Android TV user interface
Most popular apps and streaming services are available to download, and the remote is fully optimised to control them. Usefully, the television boots up from standby in only around five seconds, and it takes around 45 seconds if you’re doing a full reboot, or turning it back on after the main power was turned off.
While the entire list of settings can be accessed through the Android TV home screen and settings menu, certain core settings for picture and sound can also be pulled up by pressing the ‘Menu’ button on the remote from anywhere within the interface, including when content is playing. This lets you tweak things on the go, and also immediately see how any changes affect the performance of the TV. There are specific picture modes for HDR, with the TV automatically detecting HDR content and choosing an appropriate one.
Blaupunkt 43-inch Ultra-HD LED CyberSound Android TV performance
As the name suggests, the Blaupunkt 43-inch Ultra-HD LED CyberSound Android TV is focused on sound performance, but this television does also match up to the competition when it comes to picture capabilities. It has an Ultra-HD screen with HDR support up to the HDR10+ format, with a standard refresh rate of 60Hz and support for Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby MS12 processing, and DTS TruSurround.
That said, the superior Dolby Vision HDR format and Dolby Atmos sound format are not supported. This is a bit disappointing given that options such as the Realme Smart TV 4K 43 offer support for these formats at around the same price.
Despite its size, the Blaupunkt 43-inch CyberSound TV delivers a reasonably detailed picture when playing high-quality content, and differences between full-HD and Ultra-HD content were visible easily enough. High dynamic range content didn’t look significantly different from standard dynamic range content. This partly has to do with the lack of support for Dolby Vision, and partly because of the somewhat low peak brightness of the TV.
While colour accuracy was decent enough and the picture remained sharp and clean with Ultra-HD HDR content, the Blaupunkt CyberSound TV fell a bit short when it came to brightness and punch. Watching various episodes of Street Food: Asia on Netflix, the vibrant colours and activity of various food markets around Asia weren’t suitably reproduced by this TV.
The remote of the Blaupunkt CyberSound TV is big and bulky, but has buttons for practically everything you need
The picture was often difficult to discern clearly if bright daylight was hitting the screen, and turning up the brightness and backlighting only worsened things by creating a grey haze. Although darkening the room a bit by drawing the curtains did help improve the picture, night scenes were still often unwatchable in regular conditions; many scenes in the Cebu episode of Street Food: Asia appeared completely grey to me, with no reasonable level of detail visible at all.
This brings me to the black levels of the Blaupunkt CyberSound TV. The odd brightness management and the effect the backlighting has on the picture together made for blacks that didn’t look black at all. Instead, most nighttime and dark scenes appeared to have a grey wash over them that made viewing them quite difficult. I also found that HDR performance was a bit inconsistent, while standard dynamic range content tended to look a bit more visually exciting and harmonious.
I did notice that these flaws seemed to show more prominently in content with low production value, with the TV doing virtually nothing to enhance fast-moving video or anything shot in settings that weren’t necessarily photogenic. On the other hand, watching TV shows and movies shot on carefully constructed sets, such as Comedy Premium League on Netflix and some episodes of Loki on Disney+ Hotstar, was considerably better. Despite these issues with colour and brightness, the Blaupunkt TV did enough to ensure a sharp picture with clean motion, and I had no serious complaints with that.
I found that full-HD content on the Blaupunkt 43-inch CyberSound TV was nearly as good as Ultra-HD content; the TV did a good job of upscaling, particularly episodes of The Good Place and Parks and Recreation, as well as Fast and Furious: Hobbs and Shaw. Interestingly enough, sharp, in-studio shooting techniques and bright sets and colours seemed to bring out the best in this TV. Lower-resolution content, particularly kids’ videos on YouTube, looked decent enough, with reasonably good upscaling. The issues with brightness and colours did persist, but content that is colourful and bright enough on its own didn’t hassle the TV too much.
Sound quality is pitched as a key feature of the Blaupunkt CyberSound TV series, with the 43-inch model having a rated output of 50W through a quad box speaker system. The speakers fire downwards, and are indeed as loud as the number suggests. Even at low to medium volume levels, the Blaupunkt CyberSound TV was very loud. Reasonably good tuning for voices made it easy to listen to the dialogue in movies and TV shows.
Turning the volume all the way up made for very loud sound, but did lead to some quirks in the sound quality which you wouldn’t typically face from a good soundbar with front-firing speakers. Volume levels were consistent, and there weren’t too many spikes in loud scenes or with music. Keeping the volume at medium to slightly high levels made for a pleasant and enjoyable sound. This Blaupunkt TV is quite easily the loudest and best-sounding television you can buy for around Rs. 30,000, and you won’t really need a soundbar or speaker system to go with it.
Verdict
The idea of a television that is focused on sound isn’t new, but such offerings are still quite uncommon in the budget segment. The Blaupunkt 43-inch CyberSound TV stands out because of its focus on sound quality, and indeed, the 50W speaker system makes for loud, clean sound that is superior to what most options in this price segment offer. However, this TV doesn’t quite match up to the competition when it comes to picture quality.
Although performance is decent with bright content across resolutions, the sub-par brightness and black levels are let-downs, especially when playing dark content. Although sharp thanks to the Ultra-HD resolution, a lack of support for Dolby Vision and very ordinary performance with HDR10+ content meant that picture quality was inconsistent, and some content was hard for me to watch.
If you’re likely to stick to full-HD or lower-resolution content with only the occasional viewing of 4K HDR movies and TV shows, this Blaupunkt TV should suit you fine. Buy this for sound quality – if that’s a key factor in your decision-making process – but options such as the Mi TV 5X are newer and far better equipped when it comes to picture and other capabilities.
“At Xbox, we believe that with better tools, creators can make even more extraordinary games,” Haiyan Zhang, GM, Xbox Gaming AI, said in a blog post. “This partnership will bring together: Inworld’s expertise in working with generative AI models for character development, Microsoft’s cutting-edge cloud-based AI solutions including Azure OpenAI Service, Microsoft Research’s technical insights into the future of play, and Team Xbox’s strengths in revolutionizing accessible and responsible creator tools for all developers.”
The aforementioned AI design copilot is a toolset that will help game designers turn prompts into scripts and dialogue trees. In contrast, the character runtime will enable dynamically generated plot beats and quests. We’ve already seen heavy AI integration in games by way of procedural generation — a more recent example being the 1000+ planets in Starfield. Not to mention, enemy AI has been around for way longer.
Inworld made headlines in August when it launched a modded story mode for Grand Theft Auto V, Sentient Streets, in which players had to investigate the rise of a bizarre AI-worshipping cult — a segment loaded with characters that spoke in AI-generated dialogue, on the fly. The mod was later taken down by publisher Take-Two, leaving a permanent strike on the creator Bloc’s YouTube channel. As per The Verge, Inworld’s AI technology can also be used for narration in top-down RPGs to warn players about any events awaiting off-screen and respond to questions like we’ve seen in the past year with AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Bing Chat. Microsoft has also been heavily banking on artificial intelligence, having made a $10 billion (about Rs. 83,254 crore) investment in OpenAI. The company has also integrated AI tools into its popular suite of services and also added an AI copilot to Windows.
Despite being a Microsoft-affiliated AI toolset, it would be interesting to see whether titles using them will be allowed to thrive on other platforms. In July, Valve claimed that it would be cracking down on games that included AI-generated assets if the developer didn’t own the copyright to the piece of art. For the uninitiated, when you insert a prompt to create something in AI, the software simply repurposes existing assets found online and mushes them together — basically stealing from other artists and writers without appropriate commercial licenses. Infringing them would lead to the game not being distributed on Steam, forcing the developers to seek proper licenses for the asset by reaching out to the AI companies involved. It’s unclear how Microsoft’s partnership will play out — as long as AI content is being used as a catalyst to innovate and create something new, it should be fine.
In a post on X shared by BSNL’s Andhra Pradesh (@bsnl_ap_circle) unit, the company confirmed that BSNL users can upgrade their older 2G or 3G SIMs to a 4G SIM for free. Not only will the upgrade be free, but a promotional image shared with the post suggests that users who opt for the upgrade will also receive 4GB of free data that will be valid for three months. It is speculated that BSNL is aiming to boost its upcoming 4G services with this offer. The announcement was first spotted by Telecom Talk.
To access the free data offer and the free upgrade, BSNL users are requested to get in touch with executives at BSNL’s Customer Service Centre, franchisee or retailer stores, or contact one of their Direct Selling Agents (DSA). The promo image also adds in a finer print that the offer is available with certain terms and conditions, but hasn’t detailed any, so far.
Reliance’s Jio recently launched the 4G-supported Bharat B1 feature phone in India. The handset is priced at Rs. 1,299 in India. Alongside 4G connectivity, the phone comes with JioCinema and JioSaavn applications pre-installed.
The Jio Bharat B1 is equipped with the JioPay application, which is said to allow users to make UPI payments. Aiming to increase accessibility, the phone supports 23 languages overall, including multiple regional languages.
Realme, via Weibo, announced the arrival of the Realme GT 5 Pro in China. The display of the handset is confirmed to offer 3000 nits peak brightness. It has also been teased to offer heat dissipation with a surface area of around 10,000mm2. It is confirmed to ship with Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC. The post doesn’t specify the exact launch date of the smartphone, however, given the release of the teasers, the launch could be just around the corner.
The Realme GT 5 Pro has been in the news a lot lately. It is expected to feature a 6.78-inch (1,264×2,780 pixels) AMOLED display and is tipped to come in 8GB, 12GB, and 16GB RAM options along with 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB inbuilt storage options.
For optics, the Realme GT 5 Pro is said to have a triple rear camera unit comprising two 50-megapixel sensors and an 8-megapixel shooter at the rear. The camera setup might include a Sony LYTIA LYT808 sensor, an OmniVision OV08D10 secondary sensor, and a Sony IMX890 telephoto sensor. For selfies, there could be a 32-megapixel sensor at the front. It is said to carry a 5,400mAh battery with support for 100W wired charging and 50W wireless charging.
The Realme GT 5 Pro is expected to come with upgrades over Realme GT 5. The latter was launched in China in August with a price tag of CNY 2,999 for the base model with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage.
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