LG 42PQ6000 42in Plasma TV Review

Hi all

Sorry to hear that I'm not in everyone's good books today! And I have to preface my response by saying that I no longer have a 42PQ6000 in my possession that I could use to offer up the detailed level of response some of you would like.

However, the TV is fresh enough in my mind to allow me to totally stand by my picture mark of 6.

First, regarding other positive reviews of the TV elsewhere on the Net (some of which I was aware of before I actually tested the TV myself), I don't see my disagreeing with these as a big issue at all. Sometimes people just plain don't see things the same way - as these comments prove! - and it would be a grey old world if they did. But without wishing to disparage any other reviewers or sound cocky or superior in any way (honest!), I have to point out that I've seen many, many hundreds, possibly thousands of TVs in my 10-year career as a technology reviewer - more, I suspect, than any other reviewer around at the moment, so I trust implicitly my ability to draw comparative opinions between TVs.

And as some of you have been kind enough to say, you usually trust my judgment too!

The simple facts are that for me the 42PQ6000's pictures contain significant and distracting problems, no matter how much time you spend calibrating them.

And as I actually stress in the review, I really did spend a lot of time calibrating the 42PQ6000 - as I do with every TV I review. In fact, due to the largely dismal presets the TV ships with (this in itself is annoying, if hardly rare), I spent far longer calibrating the 42PQ6000 to get the best picture I could than I normally would expect to.

Yet no matter what I tried, I was unable to stop pictures from disappointing the heck out of me.

Black levels, for instance, are never a match for any other brand of plasma TV around right now. In fact, crucially, I also found the screen's presentation of black level to be inferior or more forced than Samsung's equally cheap 40B550 LCD TV. The point about relatively weak black levels, I note this morning, was mentioned in the AVforums review of the TV, if you really must have a second opinion on what I've said.

Colours, too, never seemed to totally escape from those common plasma flaws of orangey skin tones and green bias, no matter how much I worked on them, and achieving a decent clean white was impossible - a point raised, I also note this morning, by the What Hi-Fi review of the TV, to give second opinion wanters another reference point.

I acknowledge that the previously mentioned AVForums review reckons you can get colours looking pretty accurate, but I just don't agree that the 42PQ6000's colours are consistently satisfying, no matter what any mindless measuring machine might say. And of course, it has to be said that colour meters do not easily pick up on the patchy rather than smooth reproduction of colour tones that I mention in the review.

Then there's the issue of image retention, which was incredibly obvious on my 42PQ6000 review sample, as it has been on numerous other LG plasmas I've seen in recent times. This issue alone - which was also picked up by AVforums! God I'm actually starting to sound defensive - is enough to really crush the spirit of someone who still loves TV after all these years and hates to be distracted from what they're watching by such an obvious flaw.

It's possible this issue diminishes over time - and I'm happy, of course, for 42PQ6000 owners who I've offended with my review to report on this here - but it really shouldn't be there at all when it isn't present (to anything like the same extent, anyway) on any other brands of plasma TV today.

Now, getting a bit more specific. Paul, while I'm very happy that you love your friend's 42PQ6000, I can assure you that I had my eyes tested last month and they came back as 20/20. Also, I wonder how large a frame of reference you're drawing your aggressively expressed opinions from? Have you seen literally hundreds of TVs to compare with, like I have? Have you looked at a 42PQ6000 in the context of having a new TV in a test room every two days like I do? Presumably from your 'by Trusted Reviews standards' comment you've actually seen every other TV I've reviewed and agreed with my marks, otherwise that comment is completely meaningless. But hey - at least you seem to agree with my other marks!

As for Paul's point about other reviews, as well as referring him to the point about this I raised earlier, I'm also bound to say that while there are indeed some reviews that really like the 42PQ6000, I noted in researching this reply that What Hi-Fi had issues with it (especially its colour), and avforums describes it merely as a 'decent display' that's bettered by at least one similarly priced rival. So it seems I really am not some lone, visually-impaired rogue spirit here, after all.

Taken in isolation, as most people experience TVs, the 42PQ6000 can of course look very good - especially if considered against the LCD TVs of a couple of years ago that many households may have. But considered against the best the current LCD and plasma worlds have to offer, it just isn't 'up there'. Sorry.

As for the much more valid point raised by DavidCrofter about how I could like the 50PG6000 so much and this so little, I would simply say that 1) the value aspect last year of the 50PG6000 was more pronounced than that of the 42PQ6000 this year (in other words, the 50PG6000 didn't have as many decent rivals - especially at its size level - as the 42PQ6000 does this ear) and 2) I really do believe that the amount of progress made by LCD and LED this year, in particular, has shifted the comparative performance goalposts massively. So the fact that LG hasn't progressed as far as I'd have liked with the 42PQ6000 actually is key - especially as it hasn't addressed its key black level and image retention flaws.

I'd also like to pick up on your 9/10 Sound score, David, if you don't mind. For when you say 'the best I have had in a flat screen TV', I have to wonder how many flat screen TVs you've had? Have you had any of the Philips models with the separate tweeter/woofer arrangements, for instance?

Next, I have definite sympathy with the two writers who raise the point about the 600Hz system not being directly intended to handle motion. In trying to stay succinct on that issue in my copy - I thought people might find it a tad boring, ironically! - I agree that I've not really described the import of 600Hz sub-field systems as well as I should. It's just that I tend to believe that the relative benefits of different manufacturers' 600Hz (and similar) engines tend to reveal themselves most obviously during the reproduction of motion. I shall try to be clearer about this in future, though.

Next, I take on board the comment disagreeing with me that many people will actually go to the trouble of getting an ISF engineer to calibrate their 42PQ6000. I still somehow doubt that if you did a poll of everyone who bought a 42PQ6000 you'd find that more than a tiny percentage of them had actually called an ISF expert in. But I accept that the readers of this website will probably be more knowledgeable and dedicated to AV than your average Comet punter, and so really might go the extra (and definitely worthwhile) ISF mile.

Ultimately, though, I really am intrigued by the amount of love for this TV being shown in this comment thread so far. Especially as I note this morning a 'user rating' of just 7.0 on the CNET review! I guess part of it may have to do with the fact that this TV has been around a little longer than most of the TVs I review, so more of you own one and thus feel indignant and defensive that I'm not particularly enamoured of your TV.

But maybe part of it is also to do with the fact that the 42PQ6000's plasma heritage together with its admittedly excellent level of set-up flexibility appeals unusually heavily to the more serious minded AV buyer likely to take the trouble to post a comment on Trusted Reviews. But if this is the case, all I can say is that just having plasma tech and lots of setup tweaks no longer makes a TV automatically great.

In fact, to sum all of this up, it's my honest, considered, post-calibration opinion that the 42PQ6000 has easily enough problems with its picture to render it merely average. And last time I checked, 6 out of 10 seemed a pretty good definition of average.

John Archer