First day impression, April 23, 2011

By 

M. R. Reynolds (Tulsa, OK United States) – See all my reviews

  

See my uploaded pictures. I selected this TV based on size and the good picture I saw on this model at Sears. Purchased from Amazon after price shopping. UPS delivered a slightly scuffed up shipping box. The shipping box said it had the AUSYLJR panel. I compared the LG web site contrast ratio to the two different Amazon stated contrast ratio and none agree. Installing the base with eight screws was easy. After my DW assisted me in carefully lifting the TV to the top of my dresser I was ready for the smoke test. But first I noticed a small factory nick on the frame under the protective sticky tape. One star deduction for this blemish. On power up the set went into a simple set up mode but I was stopped cold when it first wanted to scan OTA channels. I hooked up some powered rabbit ears and let it automatically do it’s thing. Once that was done I switched the input to an HDMI cable from my cable box and all looked good. It was quite easy getting a WiFi connection. All I had to do was enter my Linky password. Then I clicked on Netflix and got an authorization message. Meanwhile the TV started updating its software which took maybe 10 minutes. After it rebooted I discovered that it erased my Linky password so I entered that again. Now for the Netflix test.

I selected the documentary Restrepo, hooked in my headphones and began the Netflix test. Immediately I was blown away by the video and audio quality I was watching. Trust me. It was outstanding ! !

Second day impression:

The few free LG apps are a joke.

The Facebook app is not very good compared to the Facebook PC web site.

The TV broadcast image seemed a lot darker than I liked so I turned off the energy saving mode which solved the problem.

I noticed that when my cable DVR, in pause mode, went to a black screen with a small moving screen saver image there was a less black area around the moving image.

The Amazon price just dropped on this model. Amazon then agreed to match their new lower price – one time only.

First week impression:

The LED lighting slightly leaks through the air vent holes on the back of the set.

This LG TV is still displaying an outstanding picture but I’m not much a fan of LED TVs. I prefer my older Samy 650 LCD only model in my TV room.

This TV was assembled in March 2011 and sold to me by Amazon in April 2011.

Amazon seems to change the price up and down on this TV nearly everyday.

The LG shipping box goes to trashman today because I’m keeping my baby.

Second week impression:

Discovered that you don’t need to install any LG supplied software to easily play mp3′s or see jpg’s that are located on any of your local network’s computers.

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Life is Good, May 27, 2011

By 

E. J Tastad “ejt” (Marion, IA United States) – See all my reviews

  

  

  

Update 7/6/11: Firmware update 4.0.11 adds hulu plus. This will be of interest to some users.

Pros:

Nice large crisp picture

Huge number of picture adjustments

Low Power consumption

Includes Wireless Network Adapter that can act as a router

Viewing angle

Cons:

Not many apps

Had to configure for best image quality for movies

Auto back light becomes annoying (disable it)

Some light bleeding is noticeable on black backgrounds with white text.

Bottom Line:

Nice TV. Remote is easy to use, controls are intuitive. It offers a huge number of picture adjustments for calibration purposes. Lots of inputs, and nice slim design.

The image is nice and sharp (and not overly sharp). Browse the internet review sites to find some values for setting image parameters up for best image quality (or at least a starting point). The “Cinema” mode isn’t bad if you turn off the auto back light (this feature turns the back light off for dark scenes, but it is noticeable on this TV model as it is a global back light. The more expensive models have a localized back lights that might be less noticeable.

Power consumption with the back light at max is about 115 watts (nominal) and about 30 watts with the back light off (measured with my Kill-A-Watt). So even though this is a 46.9″ TV, the power consumption is less than my older 32″ LCD TV that used a fluorescent back light instead of an LED light. Plus it is a lot slimmer because of it.

Wireless network was really easy to setup. I plugged it in, entered my network settings, and was connected immediately. The software/apps are a little slow running, but the Internet stream seems fine (I only have a slow 1.5 mbps connection).

This TV also has a great viewing angle, better than many LCD TVs and nice in a room where you need a wide range of viewing angles.

Hopefully the selection of Apps improves soon. At least it does have Netflix and a couple others, but the number of total Apps I saw measured only a couple dozen.

I felt the default image quality mode wasn’t really suitable (but it was in part due to the poor Harry Potter transfer). I still felt I had to make a few adjustments to it though. What I do like is that each input has its own configuration (i.e. you can have different configurations for HDMI and the TV, etc).

Since this isn’t an edge lit LCD it doesn’t have too many bright spots around the edge, but I still notice some white that will show through sometimes when there is a black background with white text.

Since it is running an operating system you get issues of things with operating systems. Apps aren’t available immediately after startup (but the picture from the tuner is available immediately), it might take 30 seconds or so before you can launch the Apps. I also had a random reboot (just once). On the plus side is you can get firmware updates with new functionality, bug fixes, etc.

Overall it is a good TV with very nice image quality. The box that it comes packed in is relatively small (nice if you have to transport it by smaller car), and everything seems well thought out.

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Good as regular HDTV, but Smart TV features mostly bad, May 5, 2011

Picture quality is great. This is a matt screen and that’s a big plus for me. Speakers/audio is acceptable. That’s where it stops. The Smart TV and other features which were the main draw for me, are unsatisfactory and poorly executed.

The “Intelligent Sensor” to adjust pic brightness is a bit of a joke – it merely reduces it to the lowest level possible; nothing intelligent about that.

The Netflix streaming app works fine, and is pretty much the only one that works as expected; although it would be nice if LG had streamlined and standardized the menu choices for adjusting picture aspect ratio and video brightness presets (not available from within the app).

The YouTube app is complete garbage.

Hulu: I saw “Hulu” in a lot of the advertising materials but there is no app for it. You can access it via the Plex media server app, (which requires you to have the server running on your connected computer), but the menu steps you have to go thru to get to the show you want are so tedious I gave up, and continue to watch Hulu shows on my laptop. Much simpler. Which brings me to:

The BIG negative! The built in browser is useless without Flash. The LG brochure clearly indicates it does not support Flash Player 10 which is fine. That suggests it comes with an older version of Flash. It appears to come with Flash 9.x according to multiple version-check sites, but I haven’t been able to get it to work, Even on LG or Adobe’s site.

The menus for setting favorite channels are also tedious and not intuitive at all. There is an Add/Delete button on the Quick Menu – I haven’t been able to figure out what it is supposed to do. There are LG “apps” (horoscopes was the latest addition) but their purpose seems mainly to allow LG to brag it has this and that feature without being called out for false advertising.

Overall, I think I paid a premium for nothing special. Since the bells and whistles don’t work, or are so poorly designed as to be useless, the proper comparison is with a regular 42″ plus the cost of a Rokio or other Netflix device. If you can get this TV for a price that is comparable to that combo, this model is worth it, but not otherwise.

LG’s Answers forum (questions answered by LG) – four/five days since I asked how to fix the browser Flash issue, and my question hasn’t gone live, much less answered. Which is what promoted me to post this review here on Amazon.

Update Sep 26,2011: Lot’s of other issues that have made this “Smart TV” frustrating to use except as a basic TV. I will just mention the most important ones: What’s so difficult to understand about QWERTY keyboard layout? It’s standard, universal and even a child knows where one letter is in relation to another. Relocating letters arbitrarily and making it harder to find and use is incompetent design. The latest software update – version 04.01.30 – not sure what it fixed but now I get a “Software update available and updated” message on turning it on but the premium panel on the Home screen says “software downloading” and I have to go to the full premium screen to pick the service I want.

I’m now wondering if I should pay 0 for the LG 5 yr service plan or just chalk this up to a bad decision and sell it for whatever I can get and move on. I could stick it in another room down the road to drive guests crazy.

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