HDTV Reviews Blog

Posts Tagged ‘Smart Energy’

LG 55LH40 55 Inch 1080p 120Hz LCD HDTV Gloss Black

The LH40 Series is a full 1080p LCD HDTV series featuring a TruMotion 120Hz panel and Intelligent Sensor technology along with LG’s Core technologies. The LH40 series also features LG’s Smart Energy Saving technology for higher energy conservation. Full HD performance, a robust feature set and energy savings make this series a standout.

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars Should be a Bestseller
I nearly pulled the trigger on a Samsung 55″ model but while chasing the cheapest price, ran across this LG at Best Buy for $1799. Detailed info is hard to find, but it was available for store pickup so I took a chance without seeing it first since I could return it easily. I am glad I did. I cannot imagine a better picture. Observations:

Container is 56-1/2″ x 40″ x 21″ with 2 hand holds on each end. Two adult males handled it without much difficulty. Comes with stand attached. Clip the bands, lift the bottomless box up and put it where you want it. I did not, but plan on 3 people to wall mount it.

You are not going to get home theater audio out of any unit without a subwoofer. It is simple physics. This one sounds pretty good for what it is. You can easily connect it to a home theater system with the Digital Audio Out or RCA ports. It has no separate Subwoofer Out port.

I read an article that expounded on the limitations of the human eye to distinguish contrast at any one light level. Think of waiting for your eyes to adjust to bright or dark conditions. The point made is that contrast specs are BS. Test eqpt might measure another TV as having more range than this one, but I don’t think your eyes would detect a difference. This TV has good black levels and maintains them as you crank up the brightness. I still think plasma has the best picture but can’t live with its shortcomings. I question the benefit of LCD LED backlight beyond reduced energy consumption and a skinnier unit. Maybe it improves black levels?

If you have digital cable as a primary source, don’t blame muddy dark areas on a TV. It is just excessive compression they use to save bandwidth. Sat TV is generally better. OTA broadcast is beautiful. Everything falls short of 1080P DVD. A gamma adjustment can help tweak this problem. This TV has some “expert adjustments” including gamma and black level. I haven’t played with them, yet.

One of the imaging engineers I work with gave me a chart that shows the limitations of the human eye with respect to HD. Per the chart, you have to get a lot closer than normal viewing distances to see the difference between 480, 720, or 1080 resolution. This TV is big enough that it might matter to some folks and it looks great up close. I start to see the screen door effect at about a 24″ viewing distance. Even with eagle eyes you would not see it at a comfortable viewing distance.

SD content looks very good but you can’t make it HD. The interpolation algorithms work well. NTSC (the old analog standard, what you get from a VCR) is 320 x 240. Standard DVD is 480P. This is an area where you could see big differences between products.

TV’s are moving toward becoming personal computers. I can see future units having a PDA for a remote and full capabilities. That will be cool. I can’t wait. This one doesn’t have any of that except a USB port for displaying pictures and playing music. It appears that computer capability is what makes a big difference in price. In my opinion, the most capable units are still pretty lame. This is the bottom of the line model but the only difference is the computer features. This TV has a PC port. Online streaming content is 480P, at best, and extremely compressed. I don’t think it looks good on a big screen.

Menus are well designed. This TV makes it easy to optimize to your preferences. I did not like the “Auto” setting for picture brightness. I wanted it brighter. Otherwise, the initial setup wizard did the job.

No S-video. Seems like it is being dropped by the manufacturers.

I would like to have 2 antenna inputs but the only TV I found that has two is Mitsubishi.

Since broadcast frame rates are around 30 fps and interlaced only refreshes half of the lines, I think the effectiveness of 120hz (240hz)refresh rate is pretty subjective and content specific. Same goes for the 24 fps movie source stuff on DVD. This TV has settings for these features. If I find them useful, I will update this review.

I could gush awhile, but I think I will watch the TV instead. When you read other reviews that gush, apply them to this one.

Thanks to all of you who share your opinions and experiences with us. It helps a lot. For TV, even visiting a store will not help much because they do not optimize the picture and the store lighting is usually green. So the brightest one tends to draw your eye.

5 Stars Very pleased with our LG LH40 55″ HDTV
We’re happy with the LG 55″, sound and picture quality are excellent, tho it now has an add-on sound bar and sub-woofer. The TV arrived on time, the guys carried it all the way to the room where it was to be installed; even concerned about the box getting the carpet diry in that room and asked for a blanket or towel. The delivery men removed it from the box and were willing and ready to hook it up for me, a service from them we didn’t need.

This is our first “big TV”, the biggest previous to this being 37″. We’re thrilled with the HD picture, even the looks of this TV.

5 Stars Beautiful Television
Great picture, decent sound quality, easy to setup. Worked right out of the box, no problems.

Buy/More Info

LG 37LH30 37 Inch 1080p LCD HDTV Gloss Black

The LH30 series is an entry-level full 1080p LCD HDTV series featuring invisible speakers that give the LH30 a slim panel design. The LH30 series includes Smart Energy Saving technology for better energy conservation and a USB port for access to digital music and videos without the need for a PC. It’s Full HD in a stylish and economical package.

User Ratings and Reviews

4 Stars cheap but good
wonderful

lowprice but good quality and need a home theater sound system

do not hesitate if you gonna buy tv

2 Stars Be careful @ 60hz
I`ve owned a very nice 32″ LCD TV for about a year now.

I thought about going bigger & this TV was attractive &

priced just right.

When it came in I noticed the picture quality was less than

what I currently own.

A bit of investigation lead me to this:

When you get a TV set bigger than 32″ make sure it ie at

least 120hz. This is very important especially if you

are watching sports.

The “pixels” in a 60hz cannot keep up with fast action

thus causing a slight blur in the pic.

Unfortunately the description of this TV did not even mention

the HZ.

Makes me wander why cause it seems the makers are

dumping the lesser 60hz sets. Well, walla, answer:

A newer & better 240hz is just on the horizon. 4 times

the pixels & picture quality.

Guess it`s like everything else. BUYER BEWARE

5 Stars Awesome
So here’s the deal, I compared the 2008 model of this LG with a comparable Sony and Samsung. Side by side, feature for feature the LG put them both in the closet. Do yourself a favor and do the same if you’re thinking of buying a TV. As of this writing (mid March 2009) the 2009 model will be out approximately next week. The store I bought from gave me $100 discount if I bought and waited for the new model to arrive. I gladly obliged.

4 Stars LG 37LH30 LCD HDTV
I am not going to be very technical in this review, and since I don’t know about all those technical details that would give a rating of excellent, I gave it 4 stars. I had an expert set it up when I got Dish Network installed, so that it would work seamlessly with the receiver. (Which it did). The picture is clear, as clear as the 37″ Sony Bravia’s picture is in another room, and the LG cost at least $300.00 less. That means that I will be able to buy more “home theater” equipment to go with it.

4 Stars Very good value
I have had the LG 37LH30 for about 3 weeks now. It seems to be an excellent TV and I would have given it 5 stars except for one thing. It has only one optical audio out and no RCA type audio outputs. That means I cannot run the audio out to a simple old amp to power my external speakers. I would need to buy a newer amp with optical audio inputs. The optical gives 5.1 audio, but I don’t have that sort of setup and do not have any 5.1 audio coming in anyway. Other than that it is doing a fine job. I have DVD, cable to the TV tuner, Tivo, PC-VGA and a cable set top box all coming in with inputs to spare. I went through hours of comparisons and feature filtering and am happy with the result.

Buy/More Info

LG 32LH30 32 Inch 1080p LCD HDTV Gloss Black

The LH30 series is an entry-level full 1080p LCD HDTV series featuring invisible speakers that give the LH30 a slim panel design. The LH30 series includes Smart Energy Saving technology for better energy conservation and a USB port for access to digital music and videos without the need for a PC. It’s Full HD in a stylish and economical package.

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars Making a case for LG; amazing tv.
LG does’nt get enough praise.

Just bought this TV for the sake of it being an IPS panel and for its apparent adjustability (and also 1080p). Plus this tv is so easy to calibrate; the ‘picture wizard’ is extremely helpful.

The amount of menu options is jaw-dropping, as is the style of the set. The LH40 model looks neat with the plastic square along the bottom of the panel, but I like the more minimalist look of the LH30, and I do not like the 120hz or the $100 price jump of the LH40.

I made a comparison to my sony 32M4000 (which I have now given to my father) and there are some interesting differences (many are polar opposites):

-The sound is far superior on the LG.

-Black levels are very close, sony’s is a bit deeper and maintains black colors better at angles.

-The whiteness of whites is slightly better on the sony, but colors and mid tones definitely have more of a ‘punchy’ factor on the LG.

-Color is amazing; rich and saturated; best ive seen on any LCD, period.

-Color does not wash out at all from different angles, only very dark colors and black tend to become discolored (blue or red depending on the angle).

-Of course there are far, far fewer picture options on the sony.

-My sony has a ghosting problem with dark colors, not so on the LG; motion blur and lag is also reduced too.

-OTA HD channels look decent enough, not as sharp as the sony, but the better color makes up for it imo.

What was the main factor that made me get this LG?..its S-IPS panel.

Samsung is an excellent maker of lcds, but I steered clear of them this time, as buying a tv from them is like playing the lottery. They use 3 different panels with differing levels of color and contrast quality; you are not essentially getting what you pay for:

You may get Samsung’s own S-PVA panel, the best quality (if you’re lucky).

An A-MVA panel from Taiwan’s AUO (a notch worse than S-PVA).

Chinese company Chi Mei’s S-MVA panel (worst of the three).

Panasonics IPS Alpha panels are decent, but on some panels dark colors appear far too blue from different angles.

That narrows it down to LG’s S-IPS panel; its color saturation, vividness, and response time are worth the slight sacrifice in contrast and black depth (at least in my opinion).

This tv is not perfect, however; I spotted 3 dead pixels right out of the box (2 bright, 1 dark), right around the middle of the screen. They are practically invisible without being a foot from the screen and looking hard for them, however.

Viewing angles demonstrate some darkening of the picture, but its not too bothersome (swivel stand helps).

No other flaws I can think of at the moment, I recommend this tv!

My calibration settings use color adjustments from cnet.com along with some of my own tweaks, try them out!

Picture menu:

Aspect ratio: Just Size

Energy Saving: Off

Picture Mode: Expert 2

Backlight: 60

Contrast: 88

Brightness: 58

H Sharpness: 60

V Sharpness: 60

Color: 50

Tint: 0

–Expert control menu

Dynamic contrast: Off

Noise reduction: Off

Gamma: Medium

Black level: Low

Real Cinema: On [grayed out]

Color Standard: HD [grayed out]

Color Gamut: Wide

Edge Enhancer: Off

xvYCC: Auto [grayed out]

OPC: Off

Expert Pattern: Off[grayed out]

Color Filter: Off

White balance: Medium

Method: 10 point IRE

Pattern: Outer

IRE: [see below]

Luminance: 137 (100 Luminance only, 90 through 10 are preset)

– 10 point IRE calibration

IRE: [Red, Green, Blue results, respectively, for each IRE point]

100 [-8, 1, -40]

90 [-13, -5, -40]

80 [-20, -12, -40]

70 [-17, -14, -33]

60 [-17, -12, -31]

50 [-17, -13, -26]

40 [-13, -12, -19]

30 [-6, -4, -8]

20 [-6, -4, -10]

10 [2, 3, -1]

Color management system

Red color: 2

Red tint: 0

Green color: -1

Green tint: -7

Blue color: 2

Blue tint: 7

Yellow color: 0

Yellow tint: 1

Cyan color: 0

Cyan tint: 0

Magenta color: 0

Magenta tint: -2

5 Stars Love my HD
Couldn’t be more pleased. Great picture, great sound. Perfect size for smaller family room

5 Stars Excellent Economy HDTV
The LG 32LH30 32-Inch 1080p replaced a 720p 32 inch Samsung which I returned because of erratic sound quality. The LG provides a very clear picture for upscaled DVD movies and over the air digital signals. The speakers provide excellent sound for a small living room although the addition of a home theater system would substantially increase movie enjoyment. Standard definition signals also reproduce a stable clear picture. Colors are very good and the set provides sufficient tools to tweak the picture for personal preference. I have not used it for bluray as yet but HD from satellite is very good. The features of this unit described on the Amazon specifications list accurately describe its features and can be relied upon. I am not a hard core cinema/video buff but I cannot imagine that this unit will not satisfy most viewers who want a well priced midsized flat screen high definition TV. My five stars are based upon what I expect in similarly designed and priced units for a smaller room.

5 Stars Stylish and perfect
First, I am feeling cheated right now, since I paid over [...] for this TV around a few months back. On the other hand, there is a lot of positive things about this TV which I really appreciate.

1. The picture quality is just amazing. It really has a enriched color display and your experience with sports will probably be awesome.

2. The sound quality is not the best I can get, but it is really close to perfection and I would still rate it 5.

3. The body has a rich color and is perfect and is stylish.

4. When viewed from various angles, there is very little depreciation of real output and a few faded spots do appear. On a comparison with other models, this is very minimal. Also, you would be viewing from a good distance, which voids the issue. We also use the swivel when you hook it up for games.

5. I have it connected with DVD players and it is awesome so far. Very satisfied with picture quality.

I kind of wish I have a bigger screen though. I saw this 37″ 1080p [...]which is also glossy black at a local store and is just a [...] extra.

It depends on your viewing distance and how far your sofa is from the television. With 1080p and a deep discount, I would call this a deal!!

5 Stars Now we want to replace our other TV!
Arrived almost before we finished ordering it! Easy to set up (attach base, plug in power and cable) and we were all set. Option to manually or automatically program. We chose the auto. LG is simply great!

Buy/More Info

LG 32LH40 32 Inch 1080p 120Hz LCD HDTV Gloss Black

The LH40 series is a Full 1080p LCD HDTV series featuring a TruMotion 120Hz panel and Intelligent Sensor technology along with LG’s Core technologies. The LH40 series also features LG’s Smart Energy Saving technology for higher energy conservation. Full HD performance, a robust feature set and energy savings make this series a standout.

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars Excellent LCD TV
While I’ve only had this TV for a few hours, I’m greatly impressed. The picture is wonderful and the sound is great in the small room the TV is in. Although I would like a headphone output, connecting it to a home theater system is easy. Having a USB connection for music and pictures is an interesting feature and the music sounds great. I recommend this TV to anyone looking for an excellent smallish LCD TV.

5 Stars Excellent quality, great price.
Mostly used with my PC. I had to go to a big screen due to my vision. I have an upgraded ATI graphics card and the picture is phenomenal. Also, go DVI from the PC to HDMI into the TV FOR THE BEST DEFINITION and make sure your card is set properly. While watching sports on a 120 Hz 32″ LCD you will see things you’ve probably never seen in the past.

5 Stars Great 2nd TV
This is a good size for a bedroom (where we have it), den, home office, computer monitor – but would be small for a main TV. Before we purchased we had the opportunity to see this LG side-by-side with Sony’s 32XBR9. Having done our research we were expecting to love the Sony. Wrong. The color is better on this LG (its 80,000:1 contrast is better than Sony’s) and the LG has less artifacts with fast action scenes; both the LG and Sony are 120hz but LG’s application seems to work better. Both are full 1080p. The bezel/frame is a bit shiner on the LG (Sony is more matte and nicer in my opinion), but the picture is the thing and we went with the LG. Better picture than the Sony, nice menu features, and even cheaper than the Sony!

5 Stars Better than average TV
This is a better than average TV. It’s much better than my last LCD TV. It has a nice matte finish for the viewing area and a glossy black border with a clear accent.

Pros

* Good contrast ratio and brightness for an LCD TV.

* 1080p resolution. The best you can get for HD TV.

* 120Hz TruMotion minimizes blur, which you mainly notice on scrolling text on sports or news shows.

* Better than average low shimmer and background noise on areas of similar colors, like the sky or walls with slightly different lighting.

* Minimal digital artifacts (jaggies) for fast moving pictures, like ocean waves and car races.

* Energy saving mode.

* The standby and power on lights can be configured to be off when the TV is in either mode.

* The TV can easily swivel on its base a few degrees either direction.

* The speakers point downward instead of the front, which is good for confined spaces.

* It has a screw hole in the back of the base to attach the TV to something sturdy. This helps prevents tipping when you’re concerned about little kids or earthquakes.

* In addition to simple standard controls for the picture calibration, you can also select expert mode, which has many configuration features, including color and tint for red, green, blue, cyan, yellow and magenta, which I’ve rarely seen on TVs. Most people won’t care about this expert feature that I liked.

* The top of the TV has a flat spot where the Wii sensor bar can rest

Cons

* It takes a few seconds to turn on, but it’s really mesmerizing seeing the power light pulsate on.

* It has no S-Video, but that shouldn’t be a problem for most people because of the other available ports.

Other technical features of note

* 4 HDMI ports (1 on side of TV)

* 0 S-Video ports

* 2 Component video ports

* 2 Composite video (RCA) ports (1 on side of TV)

* 1 Analog RGB PC port

* 1 Optical connection for surround sound.

* 1 Coaxial port for digital/analog cable or antenna TV

* 1 USB port on the back of the TV for photo and music playing. At least that is what the menu says.

3 Stars Beautiful picture with some compatibility issues
Bought mine two days ago after some research indicated it had a better picture than Sony XBR9. A quick comparison in store confirmed that. The first one I bought had a defect with the base. It would not go into the TV far enough to align the holes for the four screws. It went back the next day. The second one assembled fine and I had it up an running quickly with a standard def composite video signal from a Verison FIOS STB. The picture was stunning! Absolutely fantastic! Could’nt wait to get HD input connected. First thing was my Sony BDP-S350 BluRay. No signal could be detected by the LG. Works great on the Samsung Plasma. Next thing was my FIOS HD Box. Aaah, a picture, but no sound?!!!? Tried multiple selections/setups with LG customer service on the phone to no avail. It went back for the Sony XBR9. Connectivity is fine now, just wish I had the stunning LG picture!

Buy/More Info

LG 37LH40 37 Inch 1080p 120Hz LCD HDTV Gloss Black

The LH40 series is a Full 1080p LCD HDTV series featuring a TruMotion 120Hz panel and Intelligent Sensor Technology along with LG’s Core Technologies. The LH40 series also features LG’s Smart Energy Saving technology for higher energy conservation. Full HD performance, a robust feature set and energy savings make this series a standout.

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars Best current option at 37″ for the money
We recently grew tired of our old CRT 37″ behemoth 10-year old Samsung TV and decided to join the HD world. Since our entertainment center can only hold up to 37″ we were limited in options (no plazma, not a ton of 37″ out there for LCD either compared to other more popular sizes). We shopped around, checked prices and reviews, then went to a store and looked at many of them in person, deliberately going on a Sunday afternoon so football would be playing so we could see how well they perform during a sporting event with lots of motion. For the price, the quality of this LG 37LH40 was a no brainer. The only models that looked even close in picture quality were Samsungs that are hundreds of dollars more expensive, and most other 37″ TVs are only 60hz instead of this LG’s 120hz. Setup was simple and we easily have connected the DVR, Blu-ray system, and Wii and have slots of each type remaining we could use for future expansion. Picture quality is very good on standard signals and fantastic on HD signals. Blu-rays look amazing. Good sound from the TV itself and the clear voice feature is nice. Remote is very intuitive and all setting are very easy to adjust. Nice picture and audio features. Very happy with this purchase (also integrates almost seamlessly with our LG Blu-ray home theater system – they recognize each other, etc.)

4 Stars Perfect size
It does almost everything we wanted. Just wish it had an optical sound input for the computer rather then the old pin style one.

4 Stars So far so good
I’ve had this product for about a month and have had no problems. I currently have my satellite dish, x-box, laptop and wii hooked up 2 it. The x-box and computer look awesome….I absolutly destroy people in cod4 becuase of the picture and the speed. My laptop looks really well also, my laptop screen is 1200p but still works well on the tv. I bought the tv because I love hockey and wanted a really quick response time; my LG has the best picture I’ve seen so far for hockey. The menu is easy to use and adjusting the picture with as much detail as you want is simple. The tv saves your settings for each different input, this feature makes things very convenient. The only bad thing I can say is that original viewing settings are all dark, I’ve had to adjust them all to get a picture I want. Sound is decent nothing great but not bad. Overall I would recomend, the response time is awesome and the tv cost only around 200 dollars more then tv’s with response times not even half as fast.

5 Stars This is a great television and easy to use.
I have had this television for two weeks. I got it after being greatly disappointed with a Vizio 37 inch 1080p. The difference between the two was very noticeable. The picture and sound are far superior. Even when comparing to the 720p LG 37 inch, this one is much better. The television was very easy to set up. The amount of HDMI, component and AV inputs are more than adequate for any standard home theater set up. I read one review that gave this television low marks for not having a headphone jack. I feel that if you are going to get a television of this caliber, you will get a good receiver that supports headphones. I feel that is an unimportant option and I prefer having that fourth HDMI port. The energy saving option is a nice addition, although if you get a lot of sun, you need to keep that setting low during the day. All menu options are easy to navigate. I love that the television knows what types of connections you have. When scrolling through inputs, it highlights the inputs that have devices connected. Overall, this is a great TV and I highly recommend it.

4 Stars LG37LH40 LCDTV
This tv performs all the normal tasks as per spec’s.

The biggest flaws are:

1. The lack of printed manual.

2. The remote is chintzy, and isn’t lighted.

My biggest Pluses are:

1. Great picture quality.

2. Good on board speakers.

3. Lots of HDMI ports.

4. Attractive appearance.

One special alert:

1. My DirecTV remote didn’t list LG as a recognized TV.

a.You must KNOW that LG = LUCKY GOLDSTAR in the DirecTv remote

codes list. Then you can proceed to program the sat.’remote.

This is really a criticism of DirecTv, not LG.

A more robust remote and a printed manual would make this set a 5 star buy in my book.

Buy/More Info