CloudWalker 65-inch 4K UHD Smart Screen Review

Design- Nothing Fascinating But Build Quality Is Decent

The budget smart TVs are built on a standard LED-TV design format and the 65-inches CloudWalker smart screen is no different. The big display is surrounded by black bezels with a glossy finish. The bezels on all four sides are relatively slim; however, the panel has a noticeable thickness. The back of the smart TV is constructed out of decent quality plastic.

Unlike the plastic-made TV, the table mount stand is made out of good quality metal. It is quite sturdy and firmly holds the massive 65-inch panel on a flat surface. You can also mount the 65-inch TV on a wall. Overall, Mumbai-based tech startup has done a good job in designing the 65-inch smart TV. The built quality is decent and is at par with global players like TCL, Xiaomi, Panasonic, etc.

Connectivity- HDMI, USB, And Other Important Ports

There are abundant connectivity ports at the back panel; however, the big smart TV lacks the basic Bluetooth connectivity. You can only connect external speakers via wired connections, which is quite disappointing. The 65-inch smart screen offers 3x HDMI ports, 2 X USB ports, LAN port, Optical-out port, headphone out port, Component/AV and Component-IN ports. If you have installed the TV in a wall-mount format, you will face some issues in accessing the connectivity ports. Unlike the HDMIs and USB ports, the other connectivity ports are placed at the bottom in a face-down setup. Make sure you connect all devices before wall-mounting the big screen.

Display-65-inch 4K UHD Display

The elephant in the room is undoubtedly the mammoth 65-inches display. The 4K UHD screen has a resolution of 3840 x 2160 pixels and comes with HDR 10 support. This means the company has used a 10-bit VA panel as the HDR content is stored within 10-bit color depth. However, going by the picture quality, it seems the 65-inch screen has an 8-bit VA panel that uses dithering to create the smooth 10-bit HDR appearance.

Nevertheless, the 4K LED panel on the 65-inch smart screen can natively stream 2160p videos on YouTube. We also played some 4K files via USB and did not experience any performance issues. While the picture quality is good, it isn't the best-in-class. The contrast level, color vibrancy is decent for a 65-inch smart TV priced less than 50K; however, the Mi TV 4X 65-inch offers better overall viewing experience as the company has used an actual 10-bit VA panel.

How’s The Picture Quality?

We played some content in pitch dark room to evaluate the level of blacks the panel can produce. While streaming Daredevil, iconic Batman vs Superman fight sequence and other high contrast visuals that have to show extra details in the dark environment, the 65-inch 4K UHD screen falls short of expectations. The colors lose vibrancy and blacks start losing depth. Opposite to this, the 65-inches 4K UHD panel can beautifully display well-lit scenes. The colors pop out well and the 60-bit frame rate, which isn't class-leading, ensured decent content playback.

You have to keep in mind that this 65-inch 4K TV is priced at just Rs. 49,990. If you keep the price-point in mind, it won't disappoint you. However, I must inform you that the slightly expensive Mi TV 4X 65-inch is still a better buy if you don't want to compromise on the viewing experience.

User Interface And Content Support

The CloudWalker 65-inch smart screen runs on Android 7.0 AOSP out-of-the-box, which means that the TV runs mobile versions of the Android applications. You also won't find Google Play Store but can download apps from Aptoide TV, a third-party app store to download applications. The market place has very limited apps but we found the most used applications on the store. As the TV runs mobile versions of the apps, the user-experience is half-baked.

For instance, you cannot sign-in to YouTube. The moment you try to sign in, the app crashes. The bundled remote isn't optimized for the mobile version of Netflix and Prime video and you will face a hard time navigating throughout the UI of these apps. Moreover, the voice-commands support is also not offered with the CloudWalker smart TV.

Easy-To-Use UI, Good Content Library

The TV's native UI is very well coded. You can use the bundled remote to easily navigate throughout the layered user interface which displays everything in tiles format. The first layer shows some trailers and the tile to PC mode. Then comes the Trending, Live news, Hotstar, Music, Series, apps section, movies and the list goes on. The CloudWalker's CDE has also created dedicated sections by the names- Marvel Heroes and Disney Delight, where you will find all the movies from the Marvel's franchise and animated Disney movies respectively. Scroll down all the way to bottom to access Movie Box, app store, web browser, USB media section and the applications section.

Dated Remote Controller

The big bulky remote is not at par with what you get with Android smart TVs but it is still a good attempt. It allows you to comfortably navigate throughout the UI, though the Air mouse feature is a pain. The ‘Picture mode' offers five modes- Standard, Dynamic, Soft, Vivid and User. We got the best output with dynamic mode.

PC Mode And Child Mode

CloudWalker has added a PC mode in the smart screen that allows you to create and edit documents on the big 65-inch panel. The company ships the TV with a pair of wireless keypad and mouse in the box. Connect the USB adaptor, activate the PC mode and you can create or edit Word, PowerPoint and Excel sheets with the office suite. You can also access e-mails and remotely access files from PC. It's a neat trick to let you access everything on the big screen. The PC mode is just a click away and can be enabled in a jiffy through the multitasking screen.

Besides, the 65-inch smart screen also comes with a Child Safe Mode. You can create a pattern with the direction keys to enable/disable the child mode. When enabled, the mode safeguards children being exposed to uncensored content. Children only get access to curated content across cartoons, animated movies, learning and exploration videos, education videos and more.

Hardware And Performance

The Cloudwalker 65-inch smart screen is powered by a dual-Core Cortex A73 processor paired with 1 GB RAM and 8 GB internal memory. The smart screen has a quad-Core Mali-450 GPU to handle graphics. Despite a very basic hardware setup, the smart TV works without any performance issues. Whatever bugs we had experienced on this big smart TV are due to poor Android AOSP software optimization.

The smart TV comes equipped with 20W box speakers that get quite loud for a small room but feels slightly inadequate for a big living room. You can choose between Standard, Music, Theater, News and User. Enable news mode for clear vocals and theatre mode for an immersive cinematic audio experience. The built-in speakers lack bass and produce shrill audio at the maximum volume level. I had to connect a pair of external speakers for effective audio delivery.

Should You Buy CloudWalker 65-inch Smart Screen?

There are very limited budget 65-inch smart TVs in the Indian market at present, which makes the Cloudwalker 65-inch Smart Screen a decent option. The 4K UHD TV is feature-packed and covers the basics to deliver big-screen viewing experience in your living room. However, the lack of a refined operating system, good-sounding speakers and Bluetooth connectivity are deal-breakers.

If you are ready to spend Rs. 5,000 more, you can check out the 65-inch Mi TV 4x. The Mi smart TV offers a full-fledged and refined Android operating system (with Google Play Store and voice support), 10-bit VA panel and the basic Bluetooth connectivity support. TCL also sells a 65-inch 4K UHD TV with Android 9 at Rs. 53,799, which makes it another worthy option in the budget big-screen smart TV market.