Friday, October 26, 2012

LG 42CS560


These days, you don't have to spent a lot of money for an HDTV. Budget screens are becoming less and less expensive, and you can pick up a solid 42-inch set for under $700 with relative ease. At that price, you'll have to makes some compromises, though. LG's CS560 series of 1080p CCFL-backlit HDTVs are barebones when it comes to features, but they offer excellent color reproduction and a very bright picture. The downside: Black levels aren't great, and shadow details suffer. But the 42-inch model we tested, the 42CS560, retails for just $629.99 (list), so it's tough to deny the price appeal.

Design
As a budget set, the 42CS560 won't win any points for good looks. It's flat, plain, and black, with a bezel that measures 1.5 inches around the screen and a thickish 3-inch profile. It's 29.5 pounds and can be easily mounted on a wall, but doesn't keep a particularly low profile. A small, nearly invisible row of touch-sensitive controls sit on the lower right corner of the bezel, controlling power, volume, channels, and menu navigation, though you'll likely be using the simple remote most of the time. Around back, there are just two HDMI ports, component and composite video inputs, and an Ethernet port. A single USB port sits on the side, making it the only port you can conveniently access while the screen is mounted on a wall.?

The 7.2-inch remote has plain rubber buttons and isn't backlit. You get four color buttons for various contextual uses, and the SimpLink button provides access to the TV's DLNA feature. It's a big departure from the remotes on LG's high-end HDTVs, which often come in pairs; one long, sleek conventional remote and one motion-sensing magic wand.

You won't find any online services or other extra features on the 42CS560. It supports DLNA through Ethernet so you can play media from computers and other devices over your home network, and has a tuner so you can watch over-the-air or basic (clearQAM) cable without any extra devices, but that's it. Again, it's a strictly barebones HDTV.

Performance
We test HDTVs with DisplayMate test patterns, SpectraCal's CalMAN software, and a Konica Minolta CS 200 Chroma Meter. While the 42CS560 suffers in black levels, it gets very bright and its color accuracy out of the box is excellent. In our tests, after basic contrast and brightness calibration, the 42CS560 displayed 335.48 cd/m2?(candelas per square inch) peak brightness. However, at those settings, it only reached a black level of 0.34 cd/m2, a very poor showing for any type of HDTV. Cranking the backlight down cut the black level to a still-poor 0.17 cd/m2, but it cut peak brightness in half as well. You might be able to coax the blacks darker, but the contrast won't differ much from the tested 987:1 contrast ratio we measured. Our Editors' Choice budget HDTV, the 720p plasma?Samsung PN51E490B4F, reached a much better, but still mediocre 0.08 cd/m2. If you want dark black levels, look elsewhere, but you probably won't find levels lower than 0.05 cd/m2?without spending upward of $1,000.

The 42CS560 fares much better in color response. Out of the box, with color temperature set to Warm, blues and reds were nearly perfect and green registered as only slightly cool. As the CIE color measurement chart below shows, the screen shows colors that are very close to ideal (the circles represent the recorded colors, and the squares represent the ideal levels). If the colors seem slightly off to you, the 42CS560 has a plethora of advanced color options, including individual saturation and tint settings for six color channels.

LG 42CS560

I watched?Piranha?on Blu-ray on the 42CS560, and while the bright, vibrant colors looked good during the party sequences above the water, the poor black levels hurt the dark scenes under the water. Deep reds and bluish greens of the blood and water made the scenes above pop, but in the murky deeps shadows looked pale and uninspiring.

As a CCFL-backlit LCD HDTV, the 42CS560 is a bit of a power hog. With no energy saving features enabled, it consumes 136 watts, high for its size. With energy saving set to Medium, it consumes a more modest 80 watts while keeping the screen bright enough to be comfortably watched. The Auto and Maximum energy saving modes cut the power down to 60 watts, but made the screen slightly too dark. In comparison, the?Sony KDL-46EX750??LED-backlit LCD HDTV consumes only 67 watts with no power saving features turned on and 48 watts with power saving enabled.?

Overall, the CS560 series offers excellent color reproduction, but its poor black levels keep us from recommending it wholeheartedly. While it offers a 1080p picture for a very low price, you're also getting a serious lack of features, few HDMI ports, and sketchy shadow detail. The 720p, 51-inch Samsung PN51E490B4F plasma remains our Editors' Choice for budget HDTVs, with darker black levels and 3D support with glasses for nearly the same price. If you can spend a bit more, the Vizio E601-A33 offers a much more full-featured experience with online services, built-in Wi-Fi, and a larger, 60-inch panel at about $1,000.

More HDTV Reviews:
??? LG 42CS560
??? LG 37CS560
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??? Samsung PN51E490B4F
?? more

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/AqalFT-pFdU/0,2817,2411182,00.asp

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