LG 42LY95

Author's product rating:   

How is the Picture Quality?	Excellent
How is the Sound Quality?	Satisfactory
Ease of Installation	Very Easy
Range of Features	Excellent
Value for Money	Excellent

Advantages:	Great picture and excellent features .
Disadvantages:	You may need to spend some extra money on a surround sound system .

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

The salesmen at your local Currys or the latest magazine review always promise you ''this will be the last t.v you'll ever buy in the next 10 years.'' Then a few months down the line, a new breed hi-def television arrives. It's bigger and better, pact full of new mind-boggling technology making your latest purchase seem like something from the prehistoric ages. I like to keep myself up to date with my gadgets, so when it came to buying a new t.v, I didn't want to be spending over £1000 only to find 6 months down the line my t.v needed upgrading to cope with some new hi-tech gadget.

Ignoring pesky salesmen I decided to go solely on consumer reviews and independent stores opinions when picking my television. I eventually chose the LG 42LY95. It's long list of features are what grabbed my attention. At £920 plus £25 delivery it was a good £500 under my budget.

The t.v is cased in the industry standard shiny black plastic. I would have preferred a white casing to match the color scheme in my room, but this model only comes in black. As for shape, it looks more or less the same as nearly all of its rivals. Now, I have laminate flooring in my front room. When walking around on it some items in my front room shake around a little, if I have a few guests over I tend to take vases and picture frames out as they tend to vibrate themselves off there unfixed positions. Once the t.v was mounted on the swivel stand that comes with it I gave it my sturdiness test. Me jumping of my sofa on to the floor. With the screen switched off I did notice a tiny bit of movement but with the screen on I didn't notice a thing. There was no problems with flickers in the picture either. You are able to mount the t.v on the wall, I can't do this because of the layout of my room.

For a 42" t.v it's surprisingly light. I'm not the strongest person in the world and I had no trouble with mounting the t.v and no trouble moving the t.v around. The t.v has lots of slots to attach all your gear to. At the moment I have a surround sound system, DVD player, my nice new Playstation 3 and a Nintendo Wii all hooked up. (It's H.D t.vs that got me hooked on console games.) You can also hook up a p.c monitor to it. I've had no need to do this and I doubt I ever will. If you're the kind of person who is really into having just about every single gadget in your home linked up this t.v is a great addition.

Getting the t.v running is easy. You get digital and analogue auto tuners which are found inside the t.vs simple and easy to use menu system. Adjusting the picture again is easy and again is also done through the menu. There's also an intelligent setting, it supposedly sets the picture to work best with light and dark levels in your room. It's not 100% spot on but it probably takes about 70% off manual adjusting. One of the main reasons I got the t.v was becasue it has 1080p. 1080p enables you to get the best performance out of anything that uses blu-ray discs, things like Playstation 3's. It also enables you to get the best quality from HD DVDs. Using the t.v in 1080p mode gives you an amazing picture quality. Friends and family absolutely love it. More than me infact. It looks just that little bit sharper than it would on a 720p. Id advise you to think about purchasing Sky. Watching films or sport on Sky HD is awesome. All the colors stand out well, nothing seems over the top. I can't think of anyway to improve the quality of the picture.

If you're not going to be using the t.v in 1080p mode, don't worry. The picture quality and smoothness is just as good. I don't really watch a lot of normal televison, things like soaps etc. So I can't really comment on the performance. All I know is that it looks fantastic and enhances your viewing just that little bit more.

The t.v comes with in built freeview, I'm not sure if any of the freeview channels are available to watch in HD mode as I've never used it. Considering free views boxes range from about £30 upwards, it's a nice feature to have. Another handy feature is picture in picture or ''PIP.'' This allows you to have a smaller screen on your main screen showing whats on your DVD, or if the level on your computer game had loaded yet.

The smoothness of the picture is very good too. Playing my PS3 I found no staggering or lag like moments. The same goes for watching films. When theres an intense moment with lots of action going on all over the place, the t.vs screen just glides through it. Again, there's no stagger or lag.

The reason I'm using my own sound system is because the speakers you get as standard aren't the best. They do the job o.k, but if you're like me and enjoy music and like to feel the bass and so on I'd recommend buying a new surround sound system. Even a really cheap system sounds better than what comes as standard. The lack of decent sound coming with the t.v didn't bother me at all. I always planned on using my own.

I'm pretty sure that this t.v will still be up there with the best in it's range in the next couple of years. For your money your getting a brilliant television packed full of exciting features. Some features I haven't had the time to fully work out yet. I would definitely recommend this thing to anyone on the hunt for a HD television. The only thing I wish I could improve was the size of the screen. If this thing was 50" plus, I'd be in heaven.