LG will introduce its 84” (213cm) TV to the Australian market in November 2012. It has twice the resolution of a normal high definition TV (3840 x 2160 pixels).
This isn’t a TV for watching the news, or those poorly produced soapies from the 1990’s, but it is a pretty impressive beast. We can see a lot of people with home theatres giving it (and no doubt other brands that will follow) some careful consideration.
Wall mounted it will require careful installation as it weighs in at over 70kg (81kg with the stand). You’ll need to consider your ideal viewing distance, but you won’t be able to see any pixels from more than 1.3m away. It’ll be more a case of how much of the image you want to take in without having to look around the screen – two to three metres would be a more realistic distance.
Video: LG 84 inch TV first look
CHOICE takes a first look at the new LG 84 inch TV, which is due to be released in Australia in mid-November.
Image quality
LG supplied us with a pre-production model along with some 4K resolution images, which are very impressive. Nothing is planned to be broadcast in this resolution soon, and there’ll be very little available on disc for some time. However, some consumer level video cameras capable of close to this resolution should be available soon.
We also used some of our DVD, broadcast TV, Blu-ray and still image source materials and it handled all except the lower resolution images very well. We were particularly impressed with its ability to upscale Blu-ray movies, but broadcast TV and DVD images start to show signs that the processor is struggling in fast moving sequences. However, we’ve seen much smaller and cheaper TVs with worse faults and it remains watchable even when under stress.
Sound quality
It has the best sound quality we’ve heard on a TV since the days of cathode ray tubes and you can crank it up to quite high volumes before you get much distortion. The sound isn’t as good as a home theatre system might provide, but it’s quite adequate for watching a movie or a TV show.
Faults
The TV supplied to us does have some faults, which could be fixed in future models when the production line is up and running:
- There’s some noticeable light bleed in the corners. This becomes apparent when watching a movie with black bars top and bottom or in very dark scenes.
- The light distribution is not entirely even which is noticeable even in some bright scenes, but is not bad enough to be too distracting.
- The black level isn’t as good as some TVs we’ve seen of late.
CHOICE Verdict
This is an expensive, but impressive TV. It’ll appeal to consumers looking for a big screen with the potential to deliver very high definition and immersive images, probably in a home theatre set-up. However, if you’re considering spending around $16,000 you should check to make sure the faults we found aren’t noticeable in the TV you’re purchasing.
Update
Sony launched a 4K, 84 inch TV on Monday 5th November. It's priced at around $25,000 and only available through Sony stores. Unfortunately, it's unlikely we'll be able to get one in the CHOICE TV lab in the near future, so we can't compare them at this stage.