It takes a lot to impress us when it comes to HD TVs. We’ve seen quite a few of them in our years in the industry, featuring everything from local dimming to active 3D. So trust us when we say that the 55-inch LM9600 that was delivered to our office the other day is one of the prettiest and full featured TV of it’s class we’ve seen in awhile.
For starters, the LM9600 had an amazingly thin bezel. And when we say thin, we don’t mean it only has an inch worth of screen bezel – if you look at the LM9600 head-on, it actually looks like the HD TV has no bezel. Of course, it still has one but because it’s extremely thin (less than 5mm) it doesn’t seem that the device has one when you look at it from the recommended viewing distance.
The LM9600 uses a full-array, local dimming LED backlight, which means that the entire LED panel (not just the edges) are illuminated by LED backlights. Additionally, the entire panel has several zones that can be dimmed independently of each other, which translates to better black levels and color uniformity compared to other HD TVs.
The LM9600 also comes with a traditional remote control and a motion sensitive “magic remote”. The magic remote basically works like a giant Nintendo Wii controller, and allows you to control the TV via gestures and through your voice. Nifty.
LG’s probably one of the few companies that uses passive 3D technology in their TVs. Other companies, most notably Korean rival Samsung, uses active shutter technology in their glasses which require batteries and constant trips to the charger. Since their TV use passive 3D, LG’s able to create cheap, light 3D glasses that isn’t bulky or inconvenient. The LM9600 came with six pairs of passive 3D glasses.
Along with the LM9600, LG also sent over the 3D Cinema BH9520 home entertainment system. Part Bluray player, part network device, this particular device includes 5 speakers that forms the backbone of a decent 5.1 entertainment system (front speakers, center speaker, subwoofer and rear speakers) which almost any idiot could put together.
The BH9520 was ridiculously easy to put together, and included a wireless transmitter for the rear speakers, which means that you don’t need to practice creative wiring to hide all the wires that go from your rear speakers to the home entertainment system, reducing overall wire clutter.
Both the BH9520 and the LM9600 can be connected to the internet via an Ethernet cable, though you can also connect the BH9520 via WiFi. Once connected, both devices can download apps from LG to enhance their functionality. The BH9520 can also stream content via DLNA from your home network to whatever TV it’s attached to.
That’s it for now. We’ll be laying down a better review of both the devices once we are done with it.