LG 42LH50Our “not too old” Sony TV decided not to come on one day so we decided it was time to upgrade to something better. Were we in for a treat.
The previous reviewers have pretty much covered the basics of this TV, so I will relate my experience with it so far. I’ve had the TV for a couple weeks. I do not subscribe to any paid TV service (Cable, Satellite or FIOS) and have been relying strictly on digital OTA (Over The Air) for my TV channels. This TV displays OTA HDTV signals with unbelievable clarity. Also, it does a very good job with SDTV (480i) digital signals as well. I’ve watched 480i on other HDTV sets and was never as happy with the picture as I am with this one. Another surprise on this TV was how well it pulled in some analog stations from Canada.
I have a second HDTV tuner hooked up to the new TV via HDMI in order to utilize the guide and for scheduling recordings fro my VCR. Yes, my VCR! As I stated above, this TV handles 480i so well it makes VCR tapes bearable, even enjoyable! So, my VCR still has some use.
I have the TV hooked online via an Ethernet cable. I subscribe to Netflix and only have a 1 mps speed for my internet. Netflix does not look all that good at this speed, but is watchable, especially for animated kids shows. Having Netfix on your TV is awesome. The interface is so easy to use that our 6 year old had it down in no time. I also tried VUDU and found that the picture quality was much better than Netflix and was usable at my 1 mps speed. You-Tube was about the same as it is online – some videos looked OK, some don’t.
I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to access and view files on my computer. You can view pictures, play background music while viewing slideshows, and view videos stored on shared folders on your networked computer or any type of memory device attached to the USB port, such as a thumb drive or external hard drive. I was a little disappointed that it would not play AVI files from my wife’s digital camera, but I’m sure there’s a solution. It will play WMV, other AVIs, and some DVD files I’d copied (VOB, I think).
Picture control is very good. I like the energy saving feature, but sometimes it seems the auto adjust feature leaves the screen a bit dark. I usually set it to medium or minimum, depending on the amount of light in the room.
The sound is OK. While it sounds good, there could be more control when watching online content. Sometimes the sound can be too loud for one video, then too low for another. Or even vary during a video. Hard to blame the TV though. The quality of the sound is good, not awesome but acceptable. If you want more, get a sound system.
The remote is a weak spot on this TV. I find myself hunting for buttons all the time. There is no natural flow to the buttons. The remote is very long and narrow, I cannot reach all most commonly used buttons with my thumb and I have big hands.
The inputs in back face the back so plan accordingly when mounting it to the wall.
The manual is on a CD, a printed one would have been better. There is an onscreen manual which isn’t too bad though for most things.
Reviewed by : James Rose, Nov 16, 2009
