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In today’s AV world we have a rapid explosion of little black boxes waiting to take over the space beneath our TVs. Which seems odd, considering modern technology is supposed to be smaller and less obtrusive. Luckily, there are some manufacturers who want to reduce clutter, one of which is LG.
The LG 50PG6900 is a 50-inch, 720p plasma with a built-in Freeview+ recorder, so you can pause and record TV programmes for viewing later. As you’d hope, there are two tuners built-in, which means you can watch one channel while recording another. The LG has 160GB of hard disk space, which should be enough to record around 48 hours of video.
But there’s no point in having cool integrated features if the TV looks like it’s been smacked with the ugly pencil during the design phase. Happily LG has taken plenty of time making this TV look the part. The front panel is basically one large piece of glass, which gives the TV an incredibly sleek, modern look.
Such sleek design can cause problems with sound, because it generally means you’ve hidden the speakers at the back of the TV, which isn’t an ideal location. Luckily, LG has put some effort into perfecting this as well, and backs up cunning speaker placement with a technology called ‘clear voice’, which you’ll be surprised to hear is designed to make speech as clear as possible.
Connectivity seems decent too, with three HDMI sockets and the usual array of analogue connections lurking around waiting to accept signals from any older equipment you have, or games consoles such as the Wii and Xbox 360 that mainly rely on component or VGA outputs.
You also get a super-fast response time and a 100Hz picture mode, which LG thinks will reduce both screen flicker and motion blur in one fell swoop. The other good news is that the plasma panel in this TV will last 100,000 hours, which means it will be many years before you have to replace it.
Should you want to buy one, the 50PG6900 is available now, and costs around £1,000. That’s a helluva deal for 50 inches of plasma with a built-in PVR, but remember it’s only 720p — not that 1080p is the be-all and end-all. We’ll be reviewing it in full soon, so check the television reviews channel for our full verdict. –Ian Morris
