LG Electronics 42LG60

This 42-inch HDTV's advanced features, impressive style, and very good image quality come at a cost.

Lots of thought has gone into LG Electronics' chic 42-inch "Scarlet" 42LG60 HDTV, as evidenced by everything from the faux-leather remote control to the useful and brilliantly navigable on-screen display menu. But the niceties come at a price: At $1800 (as of November 4, 2008), the 42LG60 costs $700 more than one of its two younger 42-inch siblings, the 42PG25, but $200 less than the other, the 42LGX.

The absolute aback of the LCD console is red, which produces red accents if you attending at the TV from an angle; the blush serves little purpose, though, because humans rarely absorb abundant time gazing at the aback of their big-screen TVs. The bezel is attenuate on the top and sides, but about three times thicker at the bottom, area LG hides the unit's superior-sounding, down-firing speakers. As nice as it is not to see apostle grilles, the extra-large basal bezel was confusing and unattractive, abnormally back aggregate abroad about the affectation looks stunning.
A amount of avant-garde appearance appear standard. Individual six-color controls are simple to acquisition in the Expert Control akin of the account menu. And with a individual bang of the remote, you can locate and acclimatize abounding accurately calibrated presets, from Sports approach to Movie mode.
Most sensors just admeasurement the accuracy of ambient ablaze in the room. But LG's Intelligent Sensor ambience uses a circuitous set of algorithms to admeasurement not just accuracy but aswell contrast, color, sharpness, and white balance. The affection formed able-bodied a lot of of the time, admitting on one break it briefly broken some images while ceaselessly aggravating to acclimatize the settings to bout its afflicted surroundings.
The set becoming a achievement account of Acceptable in our PC World Test Center lab tests--the aforementioned appraisement that the Westinghouse TX-42F430S, which costs about $600 less, received. Still, affair the Scarlet's college amount nets you acceptable angel quality, abundant card options, and added ports such as USB (which you can use to play music or appearance photos from any USB drive.)
Should you be advantageous abundant to add an LG Scarlet to your active room, you won't be disappointed.

LG Electronics 52LG70

The LG 52LG70 is a no-frills LCD HDTV that produces good-looking images

It bears a family resemblance to its plasma sibling, the 52PG30, but the LG Electronics 52LG70 LCD HDTV is clearly the more advanced mode


Whereas the 52PG30's capital card starts with six icons, the 52LG70 adds two more, Ascribe and USB. And clashing with the 52PG30, you can bung a beam drive into the 52LG70 to appearance photos and accept to MP3s.
This archetypal packs four HDMI ports (one added than the 52PG30) and two optical audio outputs into its 52-inch frame. But it lacks a picture-in-picture mode.
Setup is simple: Well-placed connectors and a bureaucracy astrologer that asks whether the set needs home or abundance enhancement advice things along. And the well-designed, analytic on-screen airheaded abridge day-to-day.
When you columnist the remote's Ascribe button to change from your cable ascribe to your DVD amateur (for example), the TV displays icons for all of your inputs; the inputs that are angry on are accent and aggregate calm at the front. Want to acclimatize the aspect arrangement or the TV's backlighting? Columnist the Q (for Quick) Card button for burning admission to these accepted options. Those buttons--and others on the long, attenuate remote--are of adequate admeasurement and are well-placed for the user's thumb. Though the limited lacks backlighting, it (unlike the LG 50PG30's remote) can be programmed for use with added devices.
Our PC World Test Center board rated this model's angel superior as average. I saw several faces with the aberrant blush and arrangement of an oil painting rather than animal flesh. All of the board noticed pixelation and added artifacts in assorted tests, abnormally during fast activity and dissolves. Some images in our tests seemed a bit soft, too, but in accepted we begin the angel superior pleasing.
The 52LG70 is a actual adequate HDTV at an adequate price. But a bigger TV in the aforementioned admeasurement class (the Samsung PN50A760) is accessible at the aforementioned price, and you can acquisition appealing adequate sets (like the Sharp LC-52D85U) that are beneath expensive.

LG Electronics 50PG30

Though inexpensive for its screen size, the LG 50PG30 plasma HDTV lacks features and image punch.

The LG 50PG30 is an inexpensive plasma HDTV ($1700, as of November 4, 2008) with stylish looks. Its design and its range of inputs (including three HDMI ports) will attract attention, but this model's image quality is only average.


In PC World Test Center tests, our board had a advanced ambit of reactions to the set. It looked absolutely acceptable if beheld at an angle--as you'd apprehend from a claret TV. And I anticipation the 50PG30 did a actual acceptable job with beginning and accomplishments detail (especially the latter) on our David Letterman account clip. My atomic acceptable 50PG30-viewing acquaintance was in the NASCAR clip, area I empiric some motion becloud and fuzziness. Added judges' appraisals were beneath upbeat. One faulted facial tones; addition said that images appeared flat, with colors that didn't pop.
The 50PG30 is simple to set up--with calmly placed inputs and a bureaucracy astrologer that asks whether to optimize for home use or abundance use. Six ample icons anatomy the body of the on-screen menu; I begin the airheaded to be logically organized--and because they were hardly transparent, they didn't block too abundant of the picture.
The Quick Menu offers even easier admission to accepted options such as the set's account and complete modes. And the selections that pop up (as icons forth the basal of the screen) if you columnist the ascribe button accord top antecedence to sources that are currently sending a arresting to the TV--a acceptable touch.
But the 50PG30 lacks a amount of added features. It has no picture-in-picture, and no USB or SD Card multimedia capabilities. The minimalist limited doesn't afterglow in the dark, isn't programmable; and can ascendancy alone VCR or DVD players that abutment LG's SimpLink (HDMI CEC) interface.
The 50PG30 accomplished additional a allotment of our 50- and 52-inch sets in our all-embracing rankings, acknowledgment in ample allotment to its aggressively low amount (the Hitachi P50X902, for archetype costs about alert as much, at $3200), but it can't blow the above architecture and top-of-line angel above of our amount one large-screen set, the Samsung PN50A760. LG's added aspirant in this category, the 52LG70, is above to the 50PG30 in about every way--but it costs $800 more.

Top 5 42-Inch HDTVs

Our Best Buy, LG Electronic's 42PG25 Plasma, boasts an attractive price ($1000) and impressive features. Image performance ratings run very close in this category, so be sure to check out our chart.

You can bung just about annihilation into the 42PG25. It boasts eight inputs (four HDMI, two composite, and two component), S-Video, and two optical outputs, additional a USB anchorage for examination your photos and alert to your MP3s. All of those plugs are simple to get to; some face apparent on the aback of the set, others are army on the side.
Once you've set up the TV, you can about-face calmly amid inputs. Press the ascribe button on the remote, and ample icons apery anniversary ascribe arise at the basal of the screen. The alive inputs--those that are currently sending out a signal--are aggregate calm at the alpha and are highlighted.
The added on-screen displays and airheaded are able-bodied designed, too, with large, easy-to-read icons. The remote's Q Card button brings up an abbreviated account of items that you're acceptable to use frequently, such as Aspect Ratio, Video Mode, and Audio Mode. Regrettably, though, the card items abridgement descriptions, so you accept to assumption what 'Clear Voice' agency or you accept to attending it up in the manual. Another drawback: The absence of a Display button on the limited prevents you from calmly blockage the accepted channel, program, and abstruse specs.
Surprisingly, the 42PG25 had a harder time with motion than the 42-inch 120-Hz LCDs that we akin it against--the LG Electronics 42LGX, the Toshiba 42XV545U, and the Vizio SV420XVT--which suggests that 120 Hz absolutely agency something. One adjudicator begin "motion becloud actual noticeable" on our NASCAR test, appraisement the 42PG25's becloud as "probably [the] worst" a part of the 42-inch sets. Two board noticed a "slight clashing bricks" in Mission: Impossible III's Vatican bank climb. And anybody on the console gave it a low account on our Jaggies analysis from the HD HQV Benchmark. Despite these angel quirks, however, our board rated its images Good overall; I frequently rated it Actual Good if motion wasn't an issue.
Though not the fanciest HDTV you can buy, nor the one with the best angel quality, the 42PG25 is an adorable set--and its low amount enhances its appeal

HDTV makers and Net-based

Starting with the TVs, Panasonic announced two new connected TVs this year, as well as new direct-to-TV content agreements with Amazon movies, YouTube and others.
Similarly, LG announced direct-to-TV content arrangements with Netflix Watch Instantly, CinemaNow and YouTube. (A Netflix person I spoke to here at the show says his company intents to pipe its Watch Instantly movie service directly to every device "from toaster ovens to ham radios." LG also announced before the CES show that those same net video services could be accesses and viewed through their new connected Blu-Ray Disc players.
Sony's new XBR9 and Z-series televisions are both Ethernet-ready and will be able to stream video from the likes of YouTube, Amazon, and music from Slacker.
On the content side, Yahoo is leading the way with its new Yahoo ConnectedTV product, a platform allowing a series of "web widgets" to appear in a "dock" at the bottom of the screen of your Internet-connected TV. So while you're watching your favorite TV show, these "mini-applications" let you pop out to the Web and watch YouTube videos, social network on News Corp's MySpace.com, track stocks and sports teams using Yahoo's services, buy and sell on eBay, micro-blog on Twitter, or look at photos at Flickr.
Expect many other websites to develop widgets for Yahoo's ConnectedTV platform. I spoke casually with a Skype executive who wondered why his company did not already have one on display - a Skype widget would be a natural for Yahoo's platform.
Yahoo says that new connected TVs from Samsung, Sony, LG and Vizio will support its ConnectedTV widgets. Samsung will likely be the first TV maker to hit the market with Internet content on the TV this summer. Toshiba is said to have a separate agreement to provide Yahoo content on its new connected sets later this year.