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LG 42LM760T review

 Review: November 2012  
 

Rating: 5 stars

In a nutshell: This is the best 42 inch TV you can buy, and it even costs less than rivals from Sony and Samsung.



 

Design & looks

If you're browsing the rows of near-identical flatscreen TVs available in the shops, LG's Cinema Screen design is one of the few that will really leap out at you. Everything about the design of this TV has wow factor. The razor-thin 33mm flat screen. The narrow bezel. The stylish stand. The metallic finish. It's simply a beautiful piece of technology that will look amazing in any room setting.

You'll also enjoy using the "magic" remote with a scrolling wheel, which you point at the screen and use to scroll, zoom and select. There's a standard remote too, if you prefer the old-fashioned way of operating your TV.

Picture quality

This is LG's best 42 inch TV, and the picture quality is outstanding. 42 inches is a good size for most families, and if you've got the space you'll appreciate the extra 10% screen size that 42 inches gives you compared with a 40 inch screen.

We've previously described the LG 42LM670T as having one of the best displays in the 42 inch category, and the 760T is just as good. The only difference is an even faster response time, which frankly you'll be hard pressed to notice.

The 760T uses an IPS panel, which is capable of reproducing very dark blacks and high brightness levels, to give an excellent contrast ratio. The viewing angles are wide, so you avoid the problems in most Samsung LED TVs where the picture fades or loses colour fidelity if you move your head a few feet to the left or right.

It's a very fast panel too, rated at 240Hz. LG's image processing hardware pushes this up to an effective response rate of 800Hz, which is incredibly fast. There's no risk of any motion blur on this TV, even with fast action or console gaming.

The TV uses LED edge lighting to illuminate the pixels. In cheaper displays, this can sometimes lead to reduced contrast ratios and the problem of light leaking from bright regions of the scene into dark regions, creating a grey cloudy effect. However, LG's "LED Plus" local-dimming technology is able to locally dim the backlighting to avoid this problem, and the result is as good as any TV of this type we've reviewed.

Overall, this screen is on a par with Sony's flagship KDL-40HX853 model, and it outperforms Samsung's top-of-the-range UE40ES8000.

Finally, it's worth noting that this is one of the few A+ energy-rated televisions available, with an astonishingly low average power consumption of just 52W in normal mode.

3D

LG TVs use passive 3D display technology, in contrast to the active 3D used by Samsung and Sony. At S21 we prefer passive glasses, as they're cheap, lightweight, comfortable and flicker-free. Opponents of passive 3D say that they're unable to fully display 1080p HD images, but LG disagree. The jury's still out on this one.

In practice, the 3D performance from this TV is outstanding, as long as you don't get too close. Sit a sensible distance from the screen and 3D images leap out at you, even if you're sitting off-centre. There's no evidence of crosstalk or "ghosting" effects unless you start moving your head around a lot.

An added benefit is full screen gaming, which uses the 3D display to turn a split-screen game into a full screen game, with each player seeing the game from their own perspective.

Finally, in stark contrast to Samsung and Sony, LG are very generous with their 3D glasses, and the sales package includes no fewer than 7 pairs of glasses (4 x 3D Glasses, 2 x Dual Play Glasses, 1 x Clip-on).

Audio quality

Audio quality isn't quite up to the same standard as picture quality, but it's no worse than rival ultrathin televisions. The TV has twin stereo speakers with a total power output of 20W. The Infinite Surround effect attempts to reproduce full 3D surround sound, with arguably mixed results. Clear Voice 2 does a pretty good job of boosting vocals for added clarity.

In fact, there's no problem following dialogue on this TV - the problem is the lack of bass, which can make certain scenes sound flat, especially if you enjoy the occasional action film. In this case, there's nothing for it but to buy a dedicated soundbar or 5.1 home cinema system. To be fair, we offer this same advice for all flatscreen TVs.

Smart TV

LG's Smart TV offering gives you a lot of useful features, all very easily accessible from the Home Dashboard. You get access to BBC iPlayer plus movie downloads from LoveFilm and Netflix. The Social Center app lets you log onto facebook and twitter.

With access to your home network via the built-in Wi-Fi or ethernet cable, and support for DLNA, you can easily stream music, videos and photos stored on your PC, laptop or smartphone.

Connectivity

No problems here. In addition to wireless and wired internet, this TV has a very generous total of 4 HDMI connections and 3 USB ports. All other options are covered too - SCART, component, composite AV, a variety of audio inputs and outputs and a headphone jack.

A Freeview HD tuner is included, although not Freesat.

Conclusion - the ultimate 42 inch TV

OK, let's not beat about the bush. This is the best 42 inch TV we've reviewed. It's better than rival 40 inch TVs from Samsung and Sony and it even costs less than them.

Everything is fantastic, from the beautiful design to the outstandingly good 2D and 3D performance. The inclusion of 7 pairs of glasses and a magic remote is a bonus and the brilliant Smart TV functionality and connectivity can't be faulted.

The one area we'd improve would be sound quality, but it's no worse than most ultraslim TVs.

The only thing to point out is that you can save a couple of hundred quid by choosing the LG 42LM670T. The only difference is the 400Hz response rate instead of 800Hz, but unless you watch nothing but sport, you'll struggle to spot the difference.


LG 42LM760T features include:

User questions

Sorry - questions and comments on this page are now closed.

What is the power rating of the USB ports, can they supply at least 85m/a?

Asked by Alan from U.K. on 21st Mar 2018



LG 42LM760T user reviews

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