HDTV Power Consumption

There's an old saying that "money buys power". Originally this was something most people associated with political power or power of influence. Yet thanks to inflation and poor resource management we all must now live in a world where development outpaces resource sustenance. So as our planet struggles to meet the demands we place on it, power companies have made this saying a much more literal one than before. Now, more than ever, money really does buy power. The only problem is that everything we use consumes it faster than it can be produced.

I promised myself not to make this section into a platform for world conservation (even though it would be the right thing to do), so that I could remain on-topic and express how important it is that we demand excellence from the manufacturers who produce our popular consumer electronics. During the past year, I have tested many products which set themselves apart from the pack by offering the same performance with the added benefit of efficiency. Why not then have this same expectation put on all products which consume natural resources?

Throughout my testing, I wanted to keep everything as relative and even as possible. So for power consumption testing I compared the Honeywell Altura MLX-series HDTV to the Sharp AQUOS LC-52D62U 52" LCD 1080P HDTV and SOYO 47-Inch LCD 1080p HDTV MT-SYXRT4791AB. I will agree that comparing a smaller LCD to a slightly larger one isn't completely fair, but I think you might be surprised by the results. To measure power consumption I used the Kill-A-Watt EZ (model P4460) made by P3 International and tested each unit under three conditions.

The tests began with a "standby" reading, in which power was connected but the unit was not on. In the "cold" tests I powered on the HDTV and displayed a black screen for less than one minute before taking power measurements. After the "cold" test is complete, I diplay a white screen for ten minutes before "warm" reading is taken. The results are displayed below:

In standby mode, all of the HDTV's consume very little or no power at all. Ideally, you want a device that sips a little electricity as possible when it's turned off (into standby mode). High-power draw from dormant electronics is one of the leading reasons for high energy bills.

The idea behind a cold- and warm-panel test is that you can determine the mean power consumption of the unit. Based on these findings, its apparent that SOYO's own MT-SYXRT4791AB was a not what you would consider a 'Green' product by any stretch. On the other hand, the Honeywell Altura MLX does fit nicely below the Sharp AQUOS once they both reached normal operating temperature. After all of the power consumption tests were complete, I began recording results for the next section: thermal management.

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