LG LA6900, a TV viewing pleasure.

Design:

When you first take this TV out of the box you can’t help but to be impressed visually, the lack of a bezel around the television and a mere depth of 1.3” is very appealing as it should be, this is the exact reaction LG promotes with their Cinema displays. Weighing in at 44.1 lbs without stand and 50.1 lbs with stand an average sized adult can set this unit up themselves. The LG logo at the bottom of the television lights up if you want it to, it can be controlled through the televisions menu and has 3 brightness settings. The logo can be set to power on when the television is off or on, or can be disabled completely.

The stand the television comes with is also very sleek, much like it’s closest competitor LG is using a similar TV stand design. It seems that sever TV manufacturers are opting for the wrap under TV stand look these days. The screen is a glossy finish, this concerned me at first as glossy TVs tend to reflect light in a room. However generally glossy finishes have better picture quality and as is with this television the screen diffuses bright lights and bulbs in the room that are reflected on the screen. This must be a coating placed on the screen by the manufacturer.

Picture Quality:

This is a 120Hz TV and comes equipped with passive 3D.

After running the picture wizard which LG provides in the menu of the television, I was ready to test the unit. The picture quality is stunning, the colours are nice and aren’t over saturated, the tones and balances are perfect and it was a treat for my eyes to watch Television and play video games on.

True motion leaves something to be desired, often times it creates a halo effect, that’s what some call it. What it is is artifacts, the television needs to process both frames and create a mid frame, this often results in errors or artifacts and creates the less than desirable effect around certain objects on screen.

The Passive 3D is a great. I have never considered owning a 3D TV set but LG changed my mind. This unit came with 6 pairs of glasses, but if you watch 3D movies in the theatre you can just take those glasses home and use them. Both the Theatre and this LG set use the same passive technology to display 3D. The glasses are passive so they do not need batteries, the ones included with the set are very light and very comfortable to wear. Downside to the Passive glasses is that it dims the picture a bit. However the 3D is very comfortable and easy on the eyes, unlike the movie theatre 3D, and the active glasses which some users report to have flicker. Test subjects “The Hobbit” and “Tron: Legacy” both look great in 3D on this television. And passive 3D accounts for 48% of total 3D TV panel shipments in 2013, up from 39% in 2011. http://goo.gl/r1RC07

LED+ means that this set is edge lit using LED and has the dimming feature, during really dark scenes I was able to notice the LEDs dim, this threw me off at first, it was a bit distracting at first. The local dimming feature can be turned down or up depending on the preference, that or disabled altogether.

Sound Quality:

This TV comes with 2.1 sound, it has a subwoofer built into it. I tested this TV with some music that I streamed from my DLNA server, the sound was rich and the low frequency reproduction was acceptable. If you’re having people over and you want to stream some music to this unit it does a decent job. Don’t expect much though.

I also ran a test of the built in sound system with a couple of Movies, here is where the sound system buckled a bit. A 5.1 Soundtrack was not meant to be this TVs forte. It wasn’t terrible, but as with any 5.1 soundtrack one should couple it with a 5.1 receiver.

The sound system has some presets and a sound optimizer. The sound optimizer depending if the television is wall mounted, or sitting on a stand, adjusts accordingly. It has three settings, Normal or disabled, Wall-Mount Type, and Stand Type.

Then you have your presets such as Movie, Music, Game, User… etc.

All in all the sound is decent for a Television set, a lot better than any other TV speakers I’ve heard.

The Remote:

The magic remote can be operated as a mouse, and it has voice search functionality.

The voice recognition software is very accurate.

Features:

Miracast is similar to Intel’s WiDi which this TV also supports, but essentially if your devices support it like an LG smart phone, one can display the screen of the phone on the television.

This technology uses wifi to send the signal from phone to the TV.

The Good:

Picture quality and the passive 3D is where this set really shines here. This years models also sport dual core processor, and side by side to the 2012 models the performance is very noticeable. The 2013 Smart TV sets are a lot more responsive to button presses and menu changes. ARC functionality.

The Bad:

The dimming can be sometimes noticeable in dark scenes. For the most part it does a good job and lets the blacks really shine on screen.

The menu layout is not very intuitive if one is not familiar with LGs Smart TV technology and the magic remote finding the input selection screen can be a little confusing for new users. An input button on the remote would be very welcomed. ARC does not pass 5.1+ sound from any device connected to the TVs other HDMI inputs, this only works for the Smart TV features embedded into the TV operating system.

Side Note:

Remember to turn on the Gaming Picture mode when playing video games on the television, it will dramatically cut down on the input lag by disabling some of the processing that goes on in the background.

Conclusion:

I’d give this TV 8 out of 10, this is a very sexy and sleek design. The picture quality is superb and one of the better screens I have experienced. Passive 3D is nice and really easy on the eyes.  Really good for gaming.

Keywords:

LG LA6900, Dual Core, Passive 3D, Cinema Screen, 120 Hz, Smart TV, Voice Search, Magic Remote, 2.1 Sound, DNLA Compliant