Customer Reviews

LG 42LH50 42-Inch 1080p 120 Hz Broadband LCD HDTV, Gloss Black

5 star:		(31)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I am really happy with this LCD. The newtwork features are what really set this set apart. I am sure these type of features will soon be common, but for now LG is leading the way. Under NETCAST, you have streaming Netflix, Vudu HD movies and youtube. The Netflix setup was easy and the movies lookedmuch better than I expected. I tried both SD and HD movies and they looked good but of course I will be glad when they get a better HD selection. The Vudu movie service is one of my favorite features and not evem because of the easy access to streaming HD movies at your finger tips. The best part of Vudu for me is that you can view HD trailers for upcoming movies, and most of the previews aren't even on TV yet. They lso have all the latest movies, so it's a better selection than Netflix. The youtube streaming also looked much better than expected. An example of how cool this feature can be, my wife was watching a talk show with friends an it was talking about the viral video of the baby dancing to beyonce and she was able to quickly pull it up and see what all the fuss was about. Needless to say her girlfriends loved it. The other nice feature of this set is the ability to use the usb drive to connect a thumb drive or hard drive and watch video clips, pictures or listen to music. You can also view media on your network, so this tv really does it all. Oh and the yahoo widgets are aslo available. They allow you to watch Yahoo videos, follow your Twitter account, yahoo weather, news, sports, stocks and Flickr. Lastly, there are plenty of settings adjustments that can be made to tweak your picture. There are some settings on CNET that look great. Oh, and I went with some linksys powerline adapters to get it onlne and they work great. I have had no problems with streaming any media, even HD.

I recently took delivery of this TV as I had purchased an LG surround sound system and liked that very much.

I am very impressed with the quality of the picture. I especially love the Netflix connection.

It was very easy to set up and connect my components to it.

I corrected the audio issue by going to the menu and selecting the audio options that felt right for me.

I use my sound system for movies and Netflix, but do not use it for regular TV. one of the audio options allows you to set the sound so that TV and commercials will be at the same sound level. This is a great feature. You can pick sound for Cinema, Sports, etc and you can select the same options for picture.

I have watched several Netflix movies on it and the picture quality was terrific. Some of those are older movies and not in HD, but they sure looked good on this TV.

Our "not too old" Sony TV decided not to come on one day so we decided it was time to upgrade to something better. Were we in for a treat.
The previous reviewers have pretty much covered the basics of this TV, so I will relate my experience with it so far. I've had the TV for a couple weeks. I do not subscribe to any paid TV service (Cable, Satellite or FIOS) and have been relying strictly on digital OTA (Over The Air) for my TV channels. This TV displays OTA HDTV signals with unbelievable clarity. Also, it does a very good job with SDTV (480i) digital signals as well. I've watched 480i on other HDTV sets and was never as happy with the picture as I am with this one. Another surprise on this TV was how well it pulled in some analog stations from Canada.
I have a second HDTV tuner hooked up to the new TV via HDMI in order to utilize the guide and for scheduling recordings from my VCR. Yes, my VCR! As I stated above, this TV handles 480i so well it makes VCR tapes bearable, even enjoyable! So, my VCR still has some use.
I have the TV hooked online via an Ethernet cable. I subscribe to Netflix and only have a 1 mps speed for my internet. Netflix does not look all that good at this speed, but is watchable, especially for animated kids shows. Having Netfix on your TV is awesome. The interface is so easy to use that our 6 year old had it down in no time. I also tried VUDU and found that the picture quality was much better than Netflix and was usable at my 1 mps speed. You-Tube was about the same as it is online - some videos looked OK, some don't.
I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to access and view files on my computer. You can view pictures, play background music while viewing slideshows, and view videos stored on shared folders on your networked computer or any type of memory device attached to the USB port, such as a thumb drive or external hard drive. I was a little disappointed that it would not play AVI files from my wife's digital camera, but I'm sure there's a solution. It will play WMV, other AVIs, and some DVD files I'd copied (VOB, I think).
Picture control is very good. I like the energy saving feature, but sometimes it seems the auto adjust feature leaves the screen a bit dark. I usually set it to medium or minimum, depending on the amount of light in the room.
The sound is OK. While it sounds good, there could be more control when watching online content. Sometimes the sound can be too loud for one video, then too low for another. Or even vary during a video. Hard to blame the TV though. The quality of the sound is good, not awesome but acceptable. If you want more, get a sound system.
The remote is a weak spot on this TV. I find myself hunting for buttons all the time. There is no natural flow to the buttons. The remote is very long and narrow, I cannot reach all most commonly used buttons with my thumb and I have big hands.
The inputs in back face the back so plan accordingly when mounting it to the wall.
The manual is on a CD, a printed one would have been better. There is an onscreen manual which isn't too bad though for most things.

1/31/10 Update
I was able to register this TV on [...] The code (and website to register it on...) can be found by pressing the Netcast button, then the blue option button. There, you can view you registration code for DivX. This is undocumented in the TV manual.

4/20/10 Update
There is finally a new widget available, "unofficially". Google "Maps TV Widget" and follow the instructions. It works great on the LG 42LH50.

I bought this from Video Only where it's known you can bargain with them. Although, I wouldn't recommend buying from that place because it's a hit or miss. Forget customer service if you happen to end up with a disfunctional product. Only go there if you're willing to take a risk in order to save money. I've been lucky with three big purchases from there (60" Sony, 52" Sony, and this 42" LG) all at about $200 less than the lowest price out there at the time. I bought this LG tv about 2 months ago when I believe the normal price was $1099 everywhere, and Amazon was selling for $899. I paid $750 out the door for this tv and I am the happiest customer ever! (Right now, I think Amazon has lowered its price to $749, but I live in WA so that means tax wouldn't make it a deal for me.) With its loaded features, I think this tv has the best value. I'm scared of the quality of cheaper brands like Insignia or Vizio, but do not have the money for an expensive brand like Sony. I think this specific model from LG offers a lot more than a Samsung of the same price.

Its features surpasses my other two Sonys mainly due to the feature I use the most: movie playback through USB. I've only seen one other customer review that mentions this. I'm surprised that it's not mentioned in the specifications from various websites about its .avi, .mp4, .mkv, etc playback through USB (unless reading owns me and I overlooked it). I normally connect an external drive with a ton of pictures, music, and videos to the PS3 (which only reads from a FAT32 file system = 4GB file size limit). I connected this drive to my LG tv and I was surprised it does better than the PS3. It reads both NTFS and FAT32, so I was able to watch a 8gb .mkv 1080p blu-ray file. It looks absolutely stunning. The TruMotion 120hz feature made the movement seem so realistic. The colors are stunning on Vivid mode. I also love the ClearVoice feature because I always hate it when action movies are so loud during action scenes, but are so quiet during scenes with dialog so I'm turning the volume up and down throughout the whole movie.

My boyfriend plays Call of Duty on the PS3 with the tv and I can tell you his kills have increased dramatically :)

The Yahoo widgets, Netflix, etc features are probably the biggest selling points of this tv. The salesguy made sure to emphasize these features, but I can't make any comments on them because I honestly would never use it. An 100' ethernet cable running from the router through the house to this tv would be annoying. I know there's a lower model (LH40) without these features but for some reason it's either the same price or more expensive than this higher model tv (LH50). Weird? So these features are just a big bonus for what I paid. Maybe I'll eventually use it one day. I do wish it had wireless instead, but I know that could potentially degrade the connectivity quality for streaming. A minor issue I have is Volume 1 is not as quiet as other tvs, but that's subjective and it could just be my young ears.

I absolutely love this tv! And it didn't explode. I definitely recommend it. :)

I agree with reviewers who noted the great picture, ease of set-up, adjustment features and access to internet. I got this unit for about $800, and I am pleased with the price. I too wish this unit had a wireless capability, but I solved the problem by hooking a modem and router up directly to the TV. This was necessary because I did not have an internet cable in the TV room (bedroom), and it took a couple hours to work through the online connection instructions.

A couple of suggestions: Go with the biggest TV you can afford. This TV looks good from 10 feet, but I wouldn't want it any smaller. For those of us who made do with 19-inch TVs for many years, it seems unnecessary to have such size, but trust me, size matters. You will want bigger.

Note that Netflix's collection of movies for online streaming is limited. There are some great movies available, but they are usually older. VUDU has the latest in eye-popping HD, but you have to pay at least $2.99 per film.

The sound is only average. I am thinking of adding external speakers.

Use the included disc for set-up and/or technical questions. The paper guide is brief and inadequate.

Overall, a great TV with cutting edge features that I have grown to love.

Just got this tv to replace an old one that broke and I love it. The picture is so amazingly realistic that when people on the screen start running it makes me dizzy :) The sound is awesome too. And I simply love my netflix instant queue being available on the tv. And it the cabinet looks very sleek too. Just a great tv. Bought it from 6ave here on amazon and got it in under 48 hours with standard free shipping - ordered 5pm on thursday and got it 2pm on saturday! Got it sight unseen (old tv broke and had to get one asap) but was amazed at how great it is. Couldnt be happier! And 6ave customer service was great too!

This is a Great HDTV For the money $850.00 Free Shipping and No Tax. Picture quality is AMAZING. Sound is ok! You can always do better sound wise so I elected to go with the LG Surround Sound DVD with Ipod adapter. Now This Set Rocks! I much rather watch movies at home now as opposed to going out to a movie. With it being Netflix Ready I just plugged my Ethernet cable in and now I can watch all the free movies they have to offer. I got the Netgear 5 port so I can use my computer and TV at the same time with my DSL service. Best Investment I ever Made.

It is the best TV I have ever used. Great picture, but low quality sound. I use external speakers, so don't have any issues with audio.

No Cons, except the quality of integrated audio!

I returned my first set. The newest one was delivered yesterday. Same problem. The darn thing doesn't come on until 3 to 5 times of turning it on and off. This can't be good for the longevity of it. The thing powers up ok, but it seems it doesn't recognize the input. As this is the same exact problem I has with the first one, I must be doing something wrong. I'll have a LG tech come out and evaluate it.

Either way, the set should be way easier to turn the heck on! I'm not a happy camper right now.

As an addendum, I must say Amazon's customer service is superior. No attitude, nothing but respect and diligence in trying to please me. They've eased my apprehension over buying sight unseen big ticket items over the internet.

1-19-10 update---

The LG tech came out today and "erased the memory" and did a "hard boot" to have the set reload to "factory settings." The quotes are his words. He said he hadn't seen the kind of problem I was having before. So, after the "hard boot," the set turned on and off normally as one would expect a brand new $800 out-of-the-box TV to do. He told me if the problem repeated the next day he would come back and replace the motherboard. The tech was unhurried and helpful, I tried the on/off thing many times, and he left about 35 minutes later.

I went out of the house and returned about 90 minutes later. I pointed the remote and wondered if I'd have a normal television experience. Well, what do you know, it darn thing is back to square one. It doesn't turn on. (I'd use an exclamation point, but the whole thing has worn me down a bit).

Back to the phone, and I call Amazon to arrange pickup and refund. As usual, the rep is professional, cordial, sympathetic, and accommodating. The only real complaint I have is that I'm not compensated for the hours I've spent trying to trouble shoot these sets, having now THREE visits from the delivery company into my house, and spending all the phone time with LG and Amazon.

Needless to say, I'll never buy a LG product again.

1-22-10 update---

I didn't immediately hear from CEVA (the pickup/delivery company), so I called Amazon again and got CEVA's phone number. They picked up the TV the next afternoon. I'll post again when my credit card is credited.

2-6-10 update---

My credit card has been credited the full amount, $782.44, as of 2-6-10.

Looking over the whole ordeal, I wonder if these 2 sets were remanufactured or repaired models. There is no way to tell. In an attempt to save ~$50 in tax, I ended up in limbo of one sort or another from my purchase date, December 15, 2009, to today, February 6, 2010. That's 54 days.

On January 22, I bought a 42" LCD 120mz Vizio (VT420M) from Walmart. I walked into the store, bought it, put it in my own truck, and drove it home. It has worked perfectly out of the box from day one. With tax, I paid $800.36, or $17.92 more than the LG. I'm very happy with it.

I love this tv.
This is my first lcd tv.
I switched from a 32 inch old tube tv to this.
I bought this because I have Netflix and wanted to watch the movies instantly.
The Netflix feature is so easy to use and works great.
Just hook up the ethernet cable to the tv and you are ready to go.
The picture quality is fantastic for both Netflix movies and for regular tv viewing.
I am no audio expert, but the sound from the speakers are more than adequate.
When you consider that this tv cost only a little more than a tv without internet connectivity, this is a wonderful bargain.