Welcome to the next generation of 3D TVs!
One of the biggest selling point of the new Cinema 3D TVs from LG is, of course, the flicker-free glasses 3D image. However, I’ll get to that later, for now I’ll be looking at some other features of the 42LW5700. First off, this isn’t just a 3D TV, it’s also a Smart TV. As such, there are a few neat tricks the Cinema 3D TV have when they’re connected online. You can connect the 42LW5700 via a LAN cable, or through an optional WiFi adapter. In this day and age where pretty much every major entertainment media consumption device is coming with built-in WiFi, LG has no excuse to exclude the WiFi adapter from this new Smart TV of theirs.
Regardless, things do pick up once you’re connected. For instance, the first thing you’ll do once you go online with the Cinema 3D TV is to update your firmware. As mentioned earlier last month, these new Cinema 3D TVs have been launched in partnership with Etisalat where two of the ‘premium’ services available are the eLife Video on Demand and the OnWeb services. Sadly I have a Du connection at home, so I couldn’t really test these features out. Still, you can always check out the hands-on impressions of these Etisalat services we’ve posted earlier on.
Next, you have the now standard channels of any recent home entertainment media device, i.e. the access to Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. The Cinema 3D TVs also have a built-in browser. The 42LW5700 came with two games and the Media Link app which allows you to connect to any PC or MAC in your home provided you have installed the application on your computer and both your TV and computer are connected to the same router.
Speaking of apps, you will notice that the “LG Apps” icon is greyed out. Unfortunately the LG Apps store isn’t available within UAE yet. I’m guessing LG is still trying to figure out how to receive payments for in-store app purchases. Hopefully the app store is up and running within a few months.
As with any high-end TV nowadays, you will notice that once you venture in the menus, especially the Picture menu, that there is a plethora of settings you can play around with to give you an image suiting your taste. As you can see from the video above, there’s also a section where you can go through a series of tests in order to optimize the image quality. Further fine-tuning can then be done in the advanced settings.
