It's a Big Deal!. Review on LG 42PQ60R

After much research I finally bought the LG. I had almost decided on the Panasonic PV8 but after a side-by side comparison with the PQ60 I went for the LG.There were a few reasons for my choice:

1. First and foremost, was the side-by-side compario, as mentioned above. This was at Sony Mony Electronics at Andheri W in Mumbai. Frankly the PQ on this set looked better to me than everything else in the store including the LCDs.

(Interesting thing happened while I was there. The price tag on the set was 44, 120 and another customer asked a sales rep there how could an LCD be so cheap? And the rep got very hot and bothered, said there must be some mistake and took out the tag! It was only when the senior sales guy there told him it was a plasma did he put the tag back. Seems this model only arrived in the store a day or so ago. It was not on display at any of the other stores I checked, though the PV8 was everywhere.)

1. The USB port plays MP3's, JPEG's, Divx, Xvid, Avi and MPeG.(In fact this is the only major difference between this and the PQ30, whose USB port only plays Mp3 and Jpeg, so for a 1000 or so bucks more, better to go for the PQ60{there is another difference - PQ30 has one less HDMI port}).

I took some downloaded movies from my computer to the TV, and it played them pretty well. I also downloaded a short HD clip to test it out, but the USB port won't play HD content - only SD.

1. The reviews were pretty good on the international sites(in some countries the PQ60 is called the PQ6000) Cnet.uk gives a rating of 8.6 on 10. Apart from the critics even some people on avforums seemed to like this better than the Pana PZ800) The review on tech2, however, did not like the PQ60, mainly coz of the black levels. The reviewer does not mention that there is a setting where you can set just the black level to high or low.

   
   




2. This pulls only 200W of power compared to 335W on the PV8 and 380W on the slightly older LG PG61UR. So this means a lot less electricity consumed, and a lot more eco-friendly as well.

   
   




3. Aesthetically this set looks a lot better. The edge to edge glass is nice, though I don't know why some people were saying that when the TV is off you can't tell where the screen ends and the bezel begins. It's all too obvious - the bezel is black and the screen is gray! You can't see the speakers - they are downward facing. I was not too impressed with the audio quality, but since I am attaching external speakers that is not a big issue. It does however have a feature called clear voice II - to hear the dialog better in movies.

   
   

It's also thinner - 76.8mm vs 92.5mm for the pv8.

1. The LG service - I've had products from all of the electronic brands over the years and frankly the Korean cos beat everyone in this area by a gigantic margin. After sales from the indian cos like Videocon etc is PATHETIC, and the Jap cos do only a little better. I have a LG washing machine and a Samsung fridge, and the service on both has been really good. The Samsung guys even changed the door on the fridge TWICE - just because it had a teeny-weeny scratch on it! I also have a Hyundai car and even here the Korean service ethic shines.

   
   




2. The price - now I heard all kinds of prices quoted for the PQ60 - 55k at Ezone, Oberoi mall even though the LG website itself mentions the MRP as 49990.

   
   

The sales person there initially didn't even know there was such a model. Vijay sales, Borivali said the PQ60 was not available, but the PQ30 would be arriving for display in two days time. Vijay Sales, The Hub had a PQ30 on display for 46k, but both said they would not be stocking the PQ60. Croma Malad said they had already sold their stock of PQ60's and would not be ordering more! Strange, since this model has only launched in March-April 09. Most other places did not even know there was such a model, and I heard the usual'plasma is a dead tech, so we don't stock' line quite a few times. In fact overall I'm amazed at how generally ignorant the sales guys are at even the big mass retail outlets, and they expect the customer to be even more clueless than they are, to swallow some of the stuff they dish out! At one place I saw a'1080p Full HD' sticker pasted on top of a set, even though the graphic embossed on the set itself - JUST BELOW the sticker - said it was only HD ready!

Finally I saw a PQ60 on display at Sony Mony, right alongside a pv8. The tag said they were offering a discount on the list price of 49k, which came to 44, 120. Exchanging my old 29"CRT would take it down by a further 3k, bringing it to 41, 120. Now they have a Summer Fiesta or something going on, which means they give everyone a scratch card with further discounts of upto 51%! The sales guy said you will probably get 3to5 percent off on the scrach card, which will bring the price below 40k. That was the clincher. I took a scratch card, got a further 5% off, and finally paid Rs. 39000 for the set. At first they kept saying they will only deliver the next day, but after some persuasion they agreed to deliver on the same day. I paid at about 6.30pm, and they delivered by 9pm as promised.

So far I am quite happy with the features and PQ, though I have set everything to low for the run-in period. Black levels are good when watching DVD's, though for some reason the black bars that appear on top and bottom when viewing movie content look gray. But that is irrelevant, as long as the black levels within the picture are good. There is no trace of the dreaded IR(image retention) which was such a problem with LG's older plasmas.

The only con I can see so far is that text appears a little pixelated if you watch your TV from anything less than 8 feet.