LG Infinia LX9500 3D TV Review

Jan Vermeulen

Jan Vermeulen is a technology journalist and web developer at MyBroadband. After receiving a Computer Engineering degree at the University of Pretoria he worked at...

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Overall score

70%

8 Design

9 Picture quality

7 Sound quality

7 Interface

5 Value

Publisher: LG

Developer: LG

Platform: Television

Genre: 3D Television

There’s a new war among display manufacturers and it’s taking place in 3D.

Being able to advertise a new feature is key in the electronics game and after TFTs, response times, contrast ratios and LED backlighting, the next frontier electronics companies seem to have set their sights on is 3D.

Earlier this year LG made their new range of 3D televisions available in South Africa. MyBroadband was provided a 47 inch model to review, along with a 3D Blu Ray player.

We gave it a good spin and tested (among other things) the built-in speaker, display quality, 3D experience and the very obvious “will this look cool in my lounge” criteria.

Sound

For the purposes of testing, only the built-in speaker of the TV was used. Considering how thin the TV is one doesn’t expect much from the speaker, but it delivered decent quality sound in a medium-sized room.

Whilst the sound quality was good, it’s really the display quality of this TV that’s important.

Watching a normal DVD

To kick off the review, we watched the contemporary science fiction classic, Serenity.

The effect of the high refresh rate of the display and LG’s “TruMotion” technology were immediately evident. Despite the fact that it was a normal region 2 DVD, the motion in the film was much smoother.

LG describes TruMotion as “motion interpolation technology.” In quick, non-technical terms, this means that it uses a variety of techniques to fill in the gaps between the video frames.

These gaps occur when a video is encoded at a lower framerate than the the display supports. Since the LX9500 claims a 400Hz refresh rate (that’s 400 frames per second), you’d be hard pressed to find any video material that doesn’t run at a lower framerate than the TV supports.

For instance, television broadcasts and DVDs would typically run at framerates of 25 or 50 frames per second in South Africa.

3D Experience

Most people won’t be inclined to drop R40k – R50k on a big TV with a fast refresh rate. Only the inclusion of a major draw card could entice someone to spend that much and it’s left as an exercise for the reader to decide whether 3D is such a “killer feature.”

The set comes bundled with two pairs of active shutter 3D glasses. These communicate wirelessly with the TV and their batteries are charged by using a standard USB cable. There are two USB ports on the back of the TV, so the glasses that come with the TV can be charged simultaneously.

On a single charge the glasses lasted around four hours. This is an acceptable restriction for the most part, though it can cut an intense gaming session abruptly short. 3D movie marathons are also out of the question.

Folks that wear glasses complain that the LG active shutter glasses are uncomfortable, pressing the arms of their prescription spectacles into the side of their heads.

Once the glasses were charged and a 3D game and movie procured, it turned out that the 3D effect was quite subtle. It appeared as if images had a good amount of depth into the screen, but didn’t stand out from the screen in a manner that was unnecessarily disturbing.

Some might prefer this effect, but others could come away feeling short changed at not having their movie leap out at them as advertised.

“Borderless”

Another feature that may surprise the potential buyer is the LX9500′s apparent borderlessness. Those familiar with LG’s marketing may know that they are referring to the seam between the screen and the bezel, and not the bezel width itself.

Whilst the bezel is thin, there’s no mistaking that there is one bordering the display area. Borderless isn’t as borderless as some might be led to believe, but it’s still a very aesthetically pleasing screen to behold. It’ll definitely fit into a designer house which aims to impress.

Locally available 3D content

Bezel widths, battery life of 3D glasses and subtlety of the 3D effect aside, the biggest concern at the moment is a lack of 3D content.

Unlike some of its competitors, LG has chosen not to release its TVs with 2D to 3D conversion technology built in.

While there may be arguments against conversion technology, without it you are limited to 3D Blu Ray and a handful of games on the PlayStation 3 that make use of the TV’s 3D features.

Early adopters of 3D will struggle to acquire content for their shiny new home theatre equipment, but as more films are released on 3D Blu Ray and more games support alternate-frame sequencing 3D this will become less of a concern.

LG 47LX9500 3D TV << Will you move to 3D?