LG RH-277H

Author's product rating:   

Picture Playback	Good
Sound Level	Good
Ease of Use	Very Easy
Range of Features	Excellent
Value for Money	Very Poor

Advantages:	None, avoid this product
Disadvantages:	Smoke, burning smells, and trapped discs

Recommend to potential buyers:

no

Full review

Ever one to court controversy I’m likely to face a tongue lashing for this review, because in reviewing it I’m going to tell you none of the special features, anything about what it does; the reason being...... We never got to find out.

My Grandmother ever the eternal optimist decided that it was time to get a DVD recorder, now common sense might tell you or I that if she cant work her Virgin + box, or her video recorder, or her DVD player; then she’s going to have difficulty with a DVD recorder. I was set with the task of purchasing the recorder and headed to Curry, now I must add at all times Currys staff were excellent in case I forget to mention it later.

Upon entering the store I met with Dave, whom I told that the purchase was for my Grandmother and that the recorder needed to be simple to operate. Dave said he found the assignment a difficult one to help me with unaided so Phil (another guy) joined myself and Dave where we spent a mammoth two and a quarter hours looking at all the models. At the end none of us were convinced that we were going to get anywhere and it looked like I had wasted these guys time; that was until the manager bobbed yup with the “new in stock” LG RH-277H DVD recorder, now I have had an LG television for donkeys years and it was incredibly easy to work, so this seemed like a really good indicator, not only that the remote could be made as easy or as simple as I wanted it to be. At a price of £199 I thanked all the staff and scouried out of the store with it.

Set up seemed straightforward once I had tackled the multitude of packaging materials enclosed, I plugged the scart lead in from the back of the Virgin box, and then into the television before powering up. Now as part of the purchase we were given a free DVD ram disc, which for those that don’t know is a disc that is designed to be re-recorded on permanently (well 3000 times anyway); never record something on a DVD ram disc that you want to keep, as you can never protect them.
Sorry I sidetracked a bit there, I put the ram disc in to check the recording quality. Having recorded BBC1 for about 3 minutes I stopped recording and pushed play, the picture was crystal clear. Great I thought, and my grandmother seemed quite enthusiastic too; but rather than get me to figure out how it worked she wanted to watch a DVD she had bought in the town, so I went to eject the disc. To my amazement the disc failed to eject, and having given it time to rest neither would it play... It was completely stuck in the recorder. I rang the LG helpline which was closed “please call back Monday”; but while I was on the phone I noticed a whiff off burnt toast, my Grandmother was badgering about in the kitchen so thought little of it.

I packed up the DVD recorder and headed back to Currys, where the trio had served me earlier were all still stood in the same section I had earlier ransacked. I apologised and told them my tale, to which the manager quickly emerged with another DVD recorder.

I set up the Recorder all again and left my Grandmother watching Nicole Kidman and George Clooney in The Peacemaker. My intention to return later that day to show her (once I had figured it out) how to work the recorder. I remember thinking that despite the problem this really was a rather tasty DVD recorder, much slimmer than my other ones and much more feature packed, all at a good price. I’d actually sat upstairs reading the instruction book deciding that the next day I too would purchase one of these babies.

It was at that point on a Saturday afternoon that having sat on the sofa for an hour you start to slip into a nice warm coma, I could feel my head drop and before you know it I was a gonner. But my slumber was rudely awakened by a screaming (well calling/screaming its all the same thing if you knew my Grandmother) coming from downstairs, worse still I was in that strange period of slumber that although your mind was awake and that I could see, but my body did not want to move; sleep paralysis. Even knowing the urgency I could not get myself to move, after a few minutes I slowly came to life and crawled down the stairs where I saw a fuzzy TV screen a completely dark DVD recorder display and a small amount of smoke; my grandmother claims that when the action in the film got quite intense flames shot out the back of the recorder (I’m not calling my Grandmother a liar, but flames????). All I could tell was that the recorder was well and truly dead, burnt out in fact.

Needless to say I returned to Currys where I bought a different model DVD recorder.

But why am I writing this? Because today in Comets window is a recall notice for this exact model, and yesterday I saw in Sainsburys the same DVD recorder on a “special purchase” of £99. Despite drawing this to the attention of the manager of Sainsburys they seemed little interested and made no moves to check out Comet (not 100 feet away); and the DVD recorders remain on display.

Now I’m fully aware that sometimes freak items come off the production line, but for two consecutive products to have strange faults on, and in reflection that burning toast could have been part of the same fault. Lets face it its highly likely that if two of these products have the same fault there are more out there, especially if Comet have a recall notice up.

I’m writing this because most people will go out leaving a DVD recorder on (even if on standby) imagine if this recorder did burst into flames, what damage it could do to your home. Also imagine how a top of the range DVD recorder could seem very inviting with a £99 price tag? Now bear in mind my incident happened 10 days ago, do you believe that all the models could have been recalled rectified and redistributed in this time?

My advice to you consumers, forget the great specs, forget the stylish design; but remember the model number LG RH-277H, and avoid it like the plague, your home might well depend on it.

Final Point! My Grandmother never got her DVD back.