LG 42PQ60R Plasma HDTV

LG is one active company, they have been releasing quite a few models in the recent past, both LCDs and Plasmas. Today we are looking at their latest Plasma model, called the 42PQ60R. It’s nice to see major manufacturers still supporting plasma technology, as there are clear advantages over their mammoth counterpart LCD.  So let’s see of this particular new model can make some of us LCD fans switch over.

Design
The design deserves attention here, as LG have incorporated new features, and claim these features as one of the USPs of this new series. The main one being the frontal appearance itself of the HDTV: it’s very streamlined and almost post modern looking. This is due to a flat glass panel covering the screen and bezel absolutely seamlessly. Thus the surface of the front panel is flat and a bit reflective, which in theory can be a negative while viewing, but the reflectivity in this model  is not actually that much.

The stand is a large oval one, with a glossy finish. Bottom panel has LG logo in silver, all behind the ubiquitous glass panel. The power on LED also is fancy here, LG is known to have cool looking ones, right from their Scarlet range last year. This particular LED is positioned on the bottom panel’s right hand side, and is shaped like a crescent moon, turned upwards.  It glows red on standby mode, giving the aesthetics of the TV  nudge in the positive direction.

 Features
The connections available are satisfactory, with 3 HDMI 1.3a inputs, 2 component ins, PC input (Mini D-Sub), composite ins (3 in total), plus the all important USB 2.0 input. One point needs mention here: the USB can play MP3s, JPEGS and also Div X, MPEG 4 movies. The DivX playback is limited to SD playback  There is no head phone out, and comes with inbuilt stereo regular speakers. There is a feature called ISM that helps in removing burnt in images, by applying whitewash screens, inverted video etc.

It’s a 42-inch screen, with native resolution of 1024 x 768, which is typical of plasma 42-inch screens. The brightness is 1500 Cd/m2 and contrast ratio is 20,00,000:1 dynamic. (LG is famous for having some over the top numbers in specs; I wonder how they measure them). The response time is 0.001 ms, all ratings supplied by LG.