Marymoose reviews the TV! (LG 32LC46)

Member Name: marymoose

Product:	LG 32LC46
Date:	13/12/08 (417 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: An excellent reasonably priced TV

Disadvantages: Er . . . perhaps we should have got a bigger one?

Having reviewed my camera and finding it very pleasing watching my account balance rise (electrical products must make a lot of money for Ciao), I decided that I'd look for other items which I could review and make more than half a penny per read, and then I discovered that no one had reviewed our TV - so, here goes! Yes, I know we're on DooYoo now, but no one's reviewed it here either!



---Introduction---

Hubby and I got our first TV together back in 2001 - it was a second hand 22inch thing costing £50. It lasted over a year, but one day in a fit of rage hubby threw the remote at the wall - it broke. Rather than replace the remote (we couldn't turn on the TV without it) we took the opportunity to invest in a 28 inch widescreen Grundig TV. Our TV served us well, we bought a matching Grundig freeview box to go with it (not that it worked in Hull though back in 2003 as there was no freeview signal).

A couple of years later the TV suddenly stopped working, and thankfully since we'd got the 5 year warranty we got the man to come out. He informed us that the model of TV was made with a fault there was the wrong size fuse inside it - he was surprised that ours had lasted as long as it had. Anyway, he fixed it, and imparted some information. He suggested that the week before the 5 year warranty ran out we should pour Coke down the back of it. The Coke would stop the TV from working, and could easily be passed off as an accident.

However, I like to think I have some morals (or at least I'm too scared to do naughty things like that). So, when the TV started to get slightly unhappy, and the freeview box was really playing up, we decided it was time we'd get a nice new TV, and we'd pay for it ourselves! After all these days a TV isn't made to last more than 20 years like my parent's old Phillips one did.



---So, what did we want?---

Times had moved on and prices gone down, so we wanted a flat screen TV, and also one which didn't take up as much space as the old one in terms of its bulk. We also wanted one which had a slightly bigger screen. Since our living room isn't particularly big we didn't really think that anything over 32 inches would fit and not look ridiculous. Hubby isn't in to watching sports (thank God - otherwise I don't think I'd have married him) except the occasional F1 racing, so we didn't 'need' one of these gigantic screens! Hubby since says that I MADE him get a TV smaller than what he wanted - but this is not the case at all.

We had a budget of £1000, but this was also to include a home cinema system and DVD player (the one we had had for 4 years was starting to play up), so for the TV itself we didn't have a ridiculous amount of money! Prior to deciding we were actually going to buy one, we had spent several occasions perusing the TVs in our local Currys.

When we decided that we were going to go ahead and buy a TV, hubby perused the Internet looking for deals and came across what he thought was a good deal in one shop for an LG TV, DVD players and home cinema system. He printed out the information and with that in hand off we went to Currys (since we didn't have a branch of the shop the deal was from in Workington - it might have been PCWorld)). The TV and home cinema set was on sale in Currys, but at a higher price than the one we'd seen online. Hubby showed them his print outs, and said that we'd buy it if they could match the deal - otherwise we'd drive to Carlisle. They were happy to agree so long as we purchased some sort of lead from them which we needed to buy anyway.

The first thing I noticed when the TV was brought out was how light it was (our model is 13.8kg with stand, and 10.7kg without) TVs used to be fairly heavy things, but this one isn't. It still needs two people to carry it though as it's fairly big, and you don't really want to drop it!



---Life's Good---

That's the slogan for LG (I like it), and more about the company can be found here (uk.lge.com) - I don't think you really want me to give you the history. The brand seems to have become very popular lately, and seems to be well respected, and most importantly reasonable value for money.



---Setting it up---

Are you having a laugh (?), this is not my domain at all! I helped hubby get the TV out of the box and made a mess with all the packaging (mainly from the home cinema system), but he set the thing up. It seemed to be relatively stress free and quick.

The Manual is a huge thing, but that's because it's in lots of languages, and it's a struggle to find the English version (even though it's on the first page). The manual actually covers lots of different LCD and Plasma models. It looks fairly simple to understand, so I think that with the aid of this I would have at least been able to attempt to set the thing up if hubby wasn't there.

Marks out of 10 for set-up - 8



---How it Looks---

When we got the TV set up it looked great and exactly the perfect size for our living room. However, a month or so later our friends were getting rid of their TV stand, and since it matches a load of our other furniture (coffee table, HiFi stand etc) we took it off their hands. It's a bigger stand and while it looks good against the other furniture it actually makes our TV look a lot smaller. I think now that we could perhaps have got away with a bigger TV. Oh well, we'll have to wait another 5 years or so, unless we win the lottery of course! The TV itself looks nice....just as I'd got used to everything being silver fashions have changed and we're back to black (isn't that a song?) The TV casing (if that's what it's called) is shiny (glossy) black, and quite frankly it looks like a TV.

Marks out of 10 for how it looks - 8



---Turning on the TV---

According to the instruction manual "If your TV will be turned on, you will be able to use its features" - interesting phrasing, but the manual is printed in Poland.

The TV remains on standby mode all the time, there doesn't seem to be a way for it not being on standby (but I hear that this doesn't use up the energy that TVs used to use on standby). From standby you can either press the On button on the TV and it will come on, or use the remote control by pressing the On button, or a number.

As far as TVs go it seems easy to turn on (our in-laws TV requires a complicated sequence of keys on the remote being pressed before it comes on.

Marks out of 10 for getting the thing to turn on - 8



---The Remote---

This is where I get a bit confused, because the remote also operates the DVD player (although there is a separate DVD remote as well), so I struggle sometimes to work out why the TV won't turn on (as hubby has set it to DVD mode) - this isn't a problem with the remote, this is a problem with hubby. It's actually I suppose pretty useful as it means you only really need one remote. The buttons light up red when you change the setting.

It's a nice enough remote - what more do you want me to say about it - I would imagine that the battery life is the same as for other remotes (uses 2 AA batteries).

You can use the remote for the usual - brightness adjustment, teletext, changing programme, and using the guide.

Marks out of 10 for the remote - 7 (since I get confused)



---The Sound---

It's easy to change the volume on the TV, and one thing I do like is that the TV comes on at the same volume that you turned it off at. Sometimes I wonder why it's so quiet when I turn it on, but that'll be because hubby was watching it quietly at 3am the previous morning. Our old TV came on exceptionally loud every time, and this drove me mad.

The sound quality on the TV is excellent, but we use our home cinema for the surround sound (we mainly watch DVDs), and that extra good quality sound. I don't know if I'll get round to reviewing that as I'm struggling enough as it is on this review! For the purposes of this review I've turned up the volume on the TV, and it goes pretty loud still retaining good quality sound - I'm not trying it on full volume as I don't want to upset the old lady next door! Like any TV there is a mute button. According to the Internet, the TV has 1 way 2 speakers with audio output of 10W each. You can change the sound settings to Sport, Music, Standard (etc) depending on what you're watching.

Marks out of 10 for sound - 8



---Programmes and Tuning---

Quite simple, you press the Menu button (to bring up the on-screen menu selection and adjustment), and select Auto Tuning. Like any TV it can take a while to find all the channels, but hubby tells me that this is due to the signal rather than the TV. It finds the channels using a built in digital tuner (apparently) so you can get all the freeview channels without a box (pretty standard these days!)



---Programme Guide---

As any TV these days, this model comes with a TV guide. On this TV it has the guide for up to 8 days ahead which is useful. Sometimes it takes a while to warm up and show you what's on, but hubby tells me that's due to the signal, not sue to the TV! Hubby knows everything!

The guide is as far as guide go a nice one - and of course you can set it to remind you when a programme you want to watch comes on, and it asks you if you want to switch channels.

Marks out of 10 for Programmes and Programme Guide - 9



---Other features you might/might not be interested in---
* It can apparently be viewed at an angle of 178 degrees, so you can see the screen from various angles.
* Screen resolution of 1366 X 768
* Brightness level 450cdm²
* Dynamic Contrast Ratio of 5000:1
* Parental Control and Child Lock
* Clock and Sleep timer - could be useful for waking yourself up if you fall asleep on the sofa
* 1080p input for Blu-rayTM disc and HD-DVD players

A great long list of specifications can be found at http://www.32lcd.co.uk/lg-32lc46.php if you're really interested in buying this and know what all these fancy things mean!



---Cost---

Well this is the important bit - back in March (so 9 months ago) the TV cost £449.99. At the time we also forked out £159.00 for 5 year product cover should anything go wrong - accidentally of course! We also bought the LG HT752TH HTK home cinema system for £199.99 (this includes the DVD player) which was excellent value, and cover for that for £59. We also had to buy a couple of wires/cables, a BELKIN 1.2M RCA Audio and a BKN HDMI-HDMI WBW. I'm pretty sure they were for the home cinema system though! The total cost of our purchase was £869.95, so well under our £1000 budget! I would imagine that you could probably get it for a bit less now.



---Finally---
Depending on how people find this review I might attempt to review the home cinema system - but if you haven't enjoyed this I'll stick to non-technical items!

The same review can be found with photos on Ciao!

Summary: It's my TV and I like it - Life's Good!

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