LG Scarlet LCD Review

[iSonics]

This is a new LCD TV launched by LG and has an energetic ad campaign and website. We got a model to review in our labs. LG sent the products to many websites all across the world and seems that they are very confident regarding the product. This model is launched to compete with Samsung Series 6 which we have already reviewed. This is the first red LCD TV of the market.

Design

This model has a glossy touch all over its body. The body is clean and there are no ugly looking grills and grooves and all you can find is smooth sheen reflecting deep red finish. This unit amazed us because this model had an answer to our question “Why just Black?” This model can be mounted on wall and the stand is shiny as well. The looks of scarlet are very good and it has also won an innovation prize because of its design. This model looks sleek and portable.

The speaker is located in the bottom panel and its invisible as there is no visible grill. LG claims that it has provided a hidden grill. There is a large ring carved on the center of the bottom part of the panel. This ring have the name as “Scarlet” to the model and it glows red when TV is in stand-by mode and white when TV is on.

Specification

It has a 42-inch screen and is full HD which a resolution of 1920 x 1080 which is the maximum in the market. This monitor gives ultimate performance when you have a source which can use the full HD resolution; otherwise the display looks stretched because of resolution mismatch. The contrast ratio is also very high at 50,000:1, brightness is 500 cd per square meter.

Performance

It has an Artificial Intelligence Sensor which helps the processor to modify the brightness by sensing the brightness of the surrounding environment. This model can constantly adjust brightness, temperature, color, contrast, sharpness, and white balance based on the input from the sensor. Further, it can also be tweaked to save 62% of the power consumption.

It has 1.3 HDMI ports which mean it has 1 HDMI port in side and 3 HDMI ports in rear panels. It also has a USB 2.0 port which allows you to listen to MP3 songs and view Jpeg images from your storage devices. There is still no support for any format of videos. You can also find legacy VGA-in and some other ports like composite and component in.

This TV has good performance and offers three audio and video presets. First is Cinema which optimizes the screen brightness and contrast ratio so that you can have a cinema hall experience. Second is sports preset which optimizes the audio so that you can listen commentary even in heavy background noise. Third is game mode which again optimizes the output so that games involving even high speed motion can be viewed easily.

This model was able to show true black; dark scenes were shown real dark. The contrast ratio was also good. You can also control backlight easily and we tweaked it according to out room. We tested the TV in both extreme dark room and extreme bright room. The effect of glare was also nulled by this TV as we intentionally focused some bright light on it. However, it has a glossy finish still the output was good in bright lights with light focused directly on screen.

Primary colors display was great and the scenes looked natural and live. The presets worked perfectly and the image is blurred when you try to tweak the color settings. So, we recommend not to tweak colors settings. The brightness was good but not as spectacular as primary colors.

This TV has a frequency of 100Hz which is good but we could still find some blur in motion images. The audio was not good. The sound through the invisible speakers of LG was ordinary and we found a need of external speakers while using the TV. There is no fun of playing your MP3 songs via USB on this TV because of ordinary sound.

The noise reduction and Signal to noise (SNR) ratio was good. Voice was clear and noise was less. The remote control was good and was easy to use. The buttons on the remote were well spaced and they shine in dark, so you can use them easily while watching a movie in dark.

The onscreen menu was easy to use and access. All the icons were placed properly. It allows a user to tweak settings like white balance, temperature, sharpness, backlight etc. The menu facilitates easy toggling of presets.

The white balance was not satisfactory. Unfortunately, the display of black was not uniform and shadows in particular were not displayed properly. Some other models in the same series like Samsung series 5 perform much better than this one.

We had a few gadgets available for testing the model. When we were playing games on XBOX 360 we found that the lag in images was less. This may be because of TrueMotion 100 Hz feature. However, we could again find some jaggies and lines on the screen. After XBOX we tested a High definition movie and color display was simply great. Contrast was also fine but we were not satisfied by the audio and the sound quality was much inferior as compared to other models of Sony Bravia and Samsung series 5.

LG has provided a Anti-dazzling system which reduces the white saturation effect on bright scene and increases black expression in black scene. This technology helps in reducing the fatigue of eyes caused by watching TV for long time. It also improves the image quality.


Conclusion

This is a good series and we hope that it works out well. It has good performance and quality. It has a good contrast ratio and colors display. There are very few mid-range LCD TV that can match the performance of this model. This design is good and LG correctly says that it's a seduction. However, if you need high quality sound from the default hidden speaker then you'll be disappointed.

So, only buy this model if you can have fun with a TV model that has ordinary quality voice. The model has a price tag of Rs 1,09,000 which is not a small amount. Therefore we recommend having a look at the model at nearby LG store before buying the product and listen to the sound. If you like the sound then you can buy it, rest all features are good.