I’ve just spent an interesting few hours crawling over a couple of new TVs that LG will be launching in the UK this Autumn. There are model numbers and specifications galore – way too many for me to sensibly list here, so I’ll try to distill it into something more digestable…
The star of the evening was the successor to the award winning “Scarlet” that’s currently on sale. At 45mm wide, the new model is known, appropriately enough, as the “Slimline Scarlet” and can make the claim of “World’s slimmest LCD TV with integrated tuner”. (as opposed to the Sony ZX1 announced earlier today, which is thinner but has a separate media box). Shops should be getting stock of this any day now so keep an eye out for it. Keeping the sleek piano black finish and red back that gave the original model it’s name, the new one is slimmer (obviously) and delivers a very convincing 1080p image. It also has a USB port for displaying photos from a connected device, a nice touch. This could work with a digital camera or with a Android streaming device.
Next up we have the LG7000 series. This model range sits at the very top of the LG LCD tree and is available in a variety of sizes from 32″ all the way up to 52″. These models all feature full 1080p panels (even the 32″ version), the latest processing engines and, uniquely, bluetooth connectivity. This can be used in 2 ways: First, you can “beam” photos from something like a phone to the TV. Second, and more usefully it means the TV can use a bluetooth headset for late night headphone listening to those cool channels you’ll only receive with a TV antenna outdoors.
Like the Scarlet, this range also features an “Intelligent sensor” which dynamically adjusts not only brightness but every other aspect of the picture in response to ambient light changes. The practical upshot of this is that at night when the lights are out, the set is dimmer so you don’t get that “washed out” look common to LCDs, but in bright daylight it pushes up the power so you can still see the screen.
Finally we come to what I think might be the most interesting new model – the LG4000 series with integrated DVD player (photo on the right showing the DVD loading slot). Building in the DVD is a great idea for space saving and it comes in 26″ and 32″ sizes – I can see this one going straight into the bedroom / kids room. It has 3 HDMI inputs and the DVD will also handle DivX movies. It shares the same gloss black finish as the rest of the LG range.
LG have also taken a look at the sound the sets make – for those who don’t want to plug in a full 5.1 system the TVs have sound tuned by audio designer Mark Levinson and an “Invisible speaker” system that uses the whole bezel to radiate a wider soundstage.
The sets are all energy efficient, with a 1w power draw in standby mode (although there’s no physical button so if you really need to stop that LED glowing you’ll have to switch it off at the wall) and they all include the swivel stand as standard (wall mounting is an option)
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