Nearly Perfect!! CES 2008 Award well earned., June 7, 2008

I was originally considering a Panny 800u, but that’s not due out til early fall and after reading about the CES award LG took and its stunning design elements, I decided to include it on my list.

My final decision came yesterday when a local sales manager called me to let me know he had gotten is 60PG60 shipment and was hanging his display unit. I asked him what he thought and he said, “OMG…you gotta come see this. I’m hanging it next to the Panny 750u for comparison”

So, I headed on over and his explanation was well founded. With an identical source, the LG was far crisper, brighter, and had deeper blacks. Still not as bright as the Sammy 650 LCD nearby, but that Sammy was more $$, only 50″, had far less features, and less dark blacks.

I said… “Wrap it up!”

Purchase Experience

I purchased my 60-PG60 at Brandsmart; if you are located in Georgia or Florida, I highly recommend them.

I opted for the 5 year warranty, which was deeply discounted as well.

Set Up and Use

This sucker is heavy; part of that weight is a very nice and sturdy stand that allows 20 degree movement in either direction; I am using the stand.

Beneath the stand are several rubber feat that make it darn near impossible to slide into place, so be sure you have someone to help you position it.

Out of the box, the color settings were fine for me, but I might opt for one of those calibration disks since the LG includes two custom expert settings. I’ll need some advice on that from you guys.

The THX mode is kind of a mixed bag, it looks cool on some movies but not so good on others. Specifically, it looked great on Blu-ray “Night in the Museum,” but kind of crappy on DVD The Matrix. I’m not sure if its been calibrated for HD or if the dark greenish nature of The Matrix made it a poor fit for this setting. The standard setting looked great.

The invisible speakers worked fine, but I find myself listening to things at a setting around 50 rather than about 15 on my Samsung, which means just about nothing, but I figured I’d include it for reference. UPDATE: The sound is definitely interesting. After a couple days use in a live environment, I’ve found myself really using a range of volume from about 25 to 75. My initial, and a bit stupid, reaction was, “Why do I have to turn it up so much to be able to hear well?” The reality is two fold. First, at the low volume range all was quiet, 2am everyone asleep kind of thing. At the 75 end, dishwasher going, kids yelling upstairs, a vacuum running, and a teenager mucking around with iMovie within earshot. Every other set I’ve owned get’s very loud and somewhat distorted after about 40% of its max volume. I’ve taken the PG60 all the way up to 75 (or 75% of max) without any distortion. It has evidently been designed to use the full range of its volume capabilities. The main downside I see is that you will likely be adjusting this set’s volume more frequently than others due to environment and it would be nice to have some presets to save a bit of time as the volume increments or decrements. A minor quibble since it really doesn’t take much time.

Aesthetics

Obviously this is personal, so take it with a grain of salt, but I think the PG60 is one of the nicest looking sets ever.

It reminds me a lot of my iMac in that the glass is flush with a recessed matte. Unlike the 700/750 Panny, there are no doors to fold down and, for whatever reason, I just don’t like fold down doors.

Everything is black except for the pivot point on the stand which a sort of brushed aluminum, thus creating even more iMac comparison.

Issues

The included manual is woeful. There is a better one available online, but it pretty much sucks too. I really wish manufacturers would create one manual per model and explain each feature…oh well.

The remote is a bit crappy too, mainly because it does not allow rapid access to some features by way of advanced buttons hidden behind a secondary door or some such. This is little more than a nuisance for me because I use a Harmony and can program many of those features directly from Logitech’s site, however if the LG will be your primary remote, you might be a bit disappointed. For example, by remote alone, there is no way to go directly to a specific aspect ratio without cycling through them. One caveat, Logitech does not yet have the PG60s in their Harmony database so you’ll need to go with last years 60″ flagship. It works fine, but you lose access to new features like Just Scan until they get it updated, which should be soon. [UPDATE: Logitech's databases have now include the 60PG60 and you can directly access nearly all functions...yay!]

Someone had asked me to baseline this unit against others…here it is:

Here are my personal baselines for your 1-10 scale:

1) Insignia NS-PDP42

5) Samsung…

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Excellent price/performance balance, December 19, 2008

I bought this television 2 months ago and am very satisfied with the purchase. There have been no problems with the set and it has done everything it claims. After researching for months, it was down to the LG and the Samsung 63A650. While not in Pioneer’s Kuro class, the LG 60PG60 did a superb job in direct head-to-head comparison with the Samsung being only slightly stonger in black level and contrast (differences which I do not even notice at home). Back in October, the Samsung was also 00 more than the LG, so losing just 10% of screen size was a no-brainer. (Most importantly, I found after buying, and subsequently returning, the 63″ Samsung plasma, that there was an issue with 2 light, 4″-wide pink stripes running down the screen that could be seen in shots with a lot of white, especially black-and-white films. Samsung claimed the stripes were “in spec” and not in need of repair or replacement. Despite the otherwise great picture and excellent features, I just couldn’t live with the stripes at G. After checking different-sized Samsung plasmas in three different local electronic stores, I saw one or two pink stripes on all but one screen! Take a look on the ASV forum and you’ll see other people have identified this problem.) The LG 60PG60 makes an excellent replacement.

In general, I agree with the CNET review on this TV: “The good: Highly accurate primary colors in THX mode; solid video processing; superb feature set with numerous picture controls; fine connectivity with four HDMI and one PC input; beautiful external design. The bad: Less accurate color decoding and grayscale in THX mode; produces lighter blacks than the best plasmas. The bottom line: Although its THX mode isn’t as accurate as we’d like to see, the massive LG 60PG60 60-inch plasma TV still delivers a good picture.”

A word on Amazon.com white glove service. I’ve used it several times this year and have had no problems with either scheduling or delivery. This service is truly a wonderful and useful bonus to an already tremendous pricing on the TV. Kudos to Amazon.com!

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Oh baby! It is stunning!, October 19, 2008

I was initially looking at 65″ Panasonic’s plasma but after watching this one at ABT I was knocked out by its terrific quality! The movies, I got it as a screen for movies, from LG BD300 look stunning! The movie experience just above anything I ever saw! In blu-ray it is simply almost like 3-D!

The design, the slick appearance, makes it nice part of the room. Despite its huge screen it doesn’t look heavy. The invisible speakers produce very nice sound, the ability to play music and photos from USB port is amazing.

It is the best TV screen I ever owned or watched.

As LG goes “life is good”, man I agree!

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