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Reviewed by UK Guest, 19th Feb 2007. |
| Review Summary: Superb HDTV for the price |
Overall Score: 5/5
 
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Review: If you're in the market for an affordable, but great quality LCD HDTV, then you should definitely consider this LG 26LC2R tv. For an LCD of this size, you will not be able to find superior quality product for the same price as this LG.
For £[...] (at the time of this review), you get an outstanding deal with this LCD. When viewing an SDTV signal such as you get from Freeview, this LCD manages to upscale the signal to 720p HDTV at a very reasonable quality. You obviously get some loss of quality in the picture due to the upscaling, but this is no worse than any other HDTV I have seen before. LG provide a technology called XD image processing, which attempts to improve an SDTV signal by removing noise from the image, and dynamically altering the brightness and contrast of the image it's displaying. For the most part the XD image processing improves the quality of SD images, but it can be turned off should you prefer the picture without it.
This LCD is also equally capable when displaying HDTV pictures. It displays HDTV signals very well, with very few artifacting errors that often tend to plague LCD HDTVs in this price range. The colour rendering is generally excellent, but there are occasional problems with images that contain very black areas, where the rendering of the black levels are not accurate. This is common with nearly all current-generation LCD displays however, and is not very noticeable.
I've been using this display with an Xbox 360 connected via a VGA cable to the VGA/RGB port on the back of the display. The native resolution of the 26LC2R is 1366x768 pixels, so you need to set the resolution of the Xbox 360 to 1360x768 for as close a match as possible. You can manually set the resolution the LCD displays HDTV signals at, which allows you to display it at the slightly lower resolution of 1360x768, which provides the best match for the Xbox 360.
If you're a big gamer on the Xbox 360, then this LCD is ideal. When I was looking at purchasing this display, I had been considering a 26"/27" Samsung LCD HDTV. However after seeing displays from both manufacturers up close, the LG seemed to be a far superior display when it comes to image quality.
The LG 26LC2R also has a wider variety of connection options, which means it should be relatively "future proof", when it comes to connecting newer devices. For your money you will get: VGA socket and stereo jack for HDTV from a PC/360, an HDMI socket which is useful for HDCP enabled devices (Bluray/HD-DVD players, PlayStation3, etc), 2 SCART sockets, a set of HD component sockets, a set of RCA/s-video sockets, as well as set of RCA sockets on the left side of the display. The line up of connection is options is outstanding for this price level.
The quality of the built in speakers is also very impressive. I was expecting the speakers to sound very tinny, and to lack any bass, as is the case with most buitl in speakers. Thankfully this is not the case with this LG LCD. There were several options for different equaliser settings for audio output, which provide a very reasonable quality of sound. There is also a seperate set of left + right RCA connectors on the back of the display, for connecting the display to your own amplifier or stereo. You also have the option of disabling the built in speakers, and just using the external connectors, which is quite handy for the audiophiles out there. One thing to note is the lack of a headphone jack, but this can be remedied by making use of the auxilary speaker output and converting it to a suitable connector for your headphones.
To sum up, this display is outstanding value for money. If you want to get yourself on the HDTV bandwagon, this display is ideal. When compared to sets of a similar size, you cannot beat the quality and features offered up by LG with this display. As a big gamer, I would recommend this LG 26LC2R to anyone looking for a cheap HDTV. You won't be disappointed! |
Ratings
| Value For Money: |
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5 |
| Review Score: |
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5 |
| Recommended? | |
Yes |
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DVD, TV & Video