AverageNinja
Average Penis Too
Writing an intro for a review is hard. For me, it’s the hardest part of writing a review to be honest. Especially if it’s about a TV I got for my 17th birthday, as I have to try and write about it and not look spoiled. It is what I got for my 17th birthday though. I really needed it too! So I went to the store and bought a TV from the brand "Ok.". I went home, installed it and after 30 minutes: dead pixel. Damnit. So, after the incident with the dead pixel on the “Ok.” TV, I went back to the store and got a new TV. The man who helped us was really friendly. He checked the screen with some kind of lamp and then he gave us a refund. We then decided I should get a different TV from a more common brand. That’s when I saw the LG 42LN5404, a beautiful 42” LED TV for the price of only €400! I couldn’t leave that there, so I went home with an even bigger, better TV than I did a few hours ealier. And this time (**SPOILER ALERT**), it didn’t have any dead pixels. So let’s have a look at this TV!
Specifications
Display Type: Direct LED
Screen Size (in Inches): 42"
Resolution: 1920x1080p
Tuner Support: DVB-T and DVB-C
Network: Supports WiDi(?) and Miracast
Video: DivX HD
Picture: JPEG, JPS, MPO
Audio: AC3(Dolby Digital), EAC3, HAAC, AAC, Mpeg, MP3, PCM
Powersupply: 220v ~ 240v, 50/60Hz
Energy use: 52W
Annual On-Mode Power (annual use of power): 76kWh/Annum
Stand-by energy use: 0.3W
Inputs:
Side:
1x CI+ Slot
1x HDMI (ver. 1.4)
1x USB
Back:
1x AV in
1x Scart (Full)
1x Component In (Y,Pb,Pr) + Audio
1x Digital Out (Optical)
1x HDMI (ver. 1.4)
Dimensions:
Box it came in: 1150 x 660 x 175mm
TV with foot: 968 x 629 x 236mm
TV without foot: 968 x 579 x 79mm
Weight:
Box: 19.8 kg
TV with foot: 15.6 kg
TV without foot: 14.2 kg
The product
Let’s start off with the box. I don’t have any unboxing pictures with everything still in their packaging and what not, but I do have pictures of the box, the tv, the remote and everything.
The box looks good in my opinion. White with a purple~dark-pink’ish colour. I like it. Here is the box:
The remote control looks neat, I really like it! It’s not too big, and has a brushed aluminum look to it. It’s just plastic though, nothing strange there. Here's a size comparison:
So now for the TV itself. Because damn this thing looks hot (at least that’s what I think)! When you put the plug in, you’re greated with a beautiful red LED (which you can turn off in the settings menu if you’re worried about your power bill). When you turn it on for the first time, you’ll see the LG logo popping up and then the setup will start. The setup is really straight forward, it’ll ask you if the tv is for home or in a store (if you pick store it’ll be setup as demo model), you’ll need to set your language and it’ll start looking for channels with either cable, satellite and whatnot. After this, you’re ready to go!
Worth noting too: the “foot” of the TV has a small hole which comes with a screw. You can screw it into your desk and it won’t fall off very easy! That’s a nifty little feature that might actually score this TV an additional 0.1 points on the final score!
(screw hole not visible, it's on the back
)
The menu
This TV isn’t “smart”. It doesn’t have android or anything like that on it, but I’m one of those people who don’t care about smart TV nonsense. I feel like I’d rather use my PC or iPod to check the internet and whatnot. This does mean there’s no real menu to show other than the settings menu, so let’s check that out.
The settings menu is divided in 8 different sections: Picture, Audio, Setup, Time, Lock, Option, Input and My Media. I’m not showing that last one, but it’s very, very handy. If you have an USB stick or external harddisk, you can put it in the TV and watch movies, listen to music and check photo’s that are on that disk/stick! I really like that, though I use my PS3 for all of my music. But if you don’t have a blu-ray/DVD player or a console, this might just help you out.
Let’s take a look at the menus.
Picture:
This menu is used to change all of the settings that’re relevant to the screen. Contrast, gamma and whatever are changed from there, as well as picture mode (for example: normal, cinema, gaming). Those picture modes are very welcome in my opinion, I use it a lot and I actually take the time to change the mode whenever I'm going from gaming to watching a movie for example. Very nice!
Audio:
Same as with “Picture”, only this is everything that has to do with audio. Worth noting: you should change your sound optimizer to either “stand-type” or “wall mount-type”. That, and you should really enable digital surround sound in my opinion. That should give you a little better sound.
Setup:
Setup is for the TV channels and whatnot. Use this if you want to install a new decoder or whatever.
Time:
This speaks for itself I think. Use this to set date and time.
Lock:
This is used to set a password for certain channels, parental guidance and whatnot. I don't need it, but when you have little kids running around it might be good to block Film 1 action and such, you wouldn't want those kids stumbling upon some kind of horror movie.
Option:
Used for general options. Language, Country, Standyby light (on or off, like I said), DivX VOD (no idea what that is) and home use / store mode. I wouldn't say you're going to need this menu very often, but it's nice to have I guess.
Input:
This is actually useless, as there is a “input” button on the remote control which takes you to the exact same menu. It let’s you change the input (HDMI, USB, AV, Component etc.).
Image quality
Well, that’s the menus taken care off!
Now let’s get to the main part of the review. The image quality.
Actually, most people with an HDTV will know what I’m talking about, as it’s nothing special with this particular TV. It’s what you would expect from an HDTV with a LED screen and 1080p support. Fairly straightforward I’d say. It’s a huge upgrade from what I had though. I used to game on a small CRT TV, and now I have this. I really needed it. Gaming wise, the performance is quite neat! I bought GTA V shortly after I got this TV and it looks amazing! I sit quite close to the TV, I’d say about 1.2m away, and I can’t really see that much pixels at all. Of course, the PS3 could use a lot of Anti-Aliasing, but that’s not the TV’s fault! This TV deserves a PS4. Or a Steam Machine. Or an XBOX One. Maybe a gaming pc (you could hook your gaming beast up to the tv with an HDMI cable). But I’m broke, so that’ll have to wait. Long story short: standard quality. Looks good to me.
Sound quality
Well, it’s hard for me to talk about sound actually, as I’m anything but an audiophile. The sound isn’t anything to write home about I can tell though. It’s not very hard (quite soft actually), and the quality isn’t great. You can make the sound a bit better by using different sound options (gaming for one of your HDMI ports in which your console might be plugged, music for your USB port because you have music on it, or maybe cinema because you watch films using it). Still, it isn't very great and I'd recommend buying an external sound set. But hey, what would you expect? This is a €400 TV. It's not very expensive for a TV like this at all, and if the sound is the only thing I have to complain about, it's fine by me.
Conclusion
This TV is better than the “Ok.” one. That’s for sure. Not only that, it’s also bigger and better. And that’s for only €25 more. If you’re in the need for a new TV and you have a budget of about €400, I’d recommend this TV to everyone. If it came in white, it would make the perfect TV for €400 in my opinion. But in black it’s still very, very good. A no-brainer I think.
Pro’s: Price, foot has screw hole so you can screw it to your desk, nifty standby LED, image quality.
Cons: not white.
Score: 9.1 (9.0 if it hadn’t come with the screw hole in the foot).
Specifications
Display Type: Direct LED
Screen Size (in Inches): 42"
Resolution: 1920x1080p
Tuner Support: DVB-T and DVB-C
Network: Supports WiDi(?) and Miracast
Video: DivX HD
Picture: JPEG, JPS, MPO
Audio: AC3(Dolby Digital), EAC3, HAAC, AAC, Mpeg, MP3, PCM
Powersupply: 220v ~ 240v, 50/60Hz
Energy use: 52W
Annual On-Mode Power (annual use of power): 76kWh/Annum
Stand-by energy use: 0.3W
Inputs:
Side:
1x CI+ Slot
1x HDMI (ver. 1.4)
1x USB
Back:
1x AV in
1x Scart (Full)
1x Component In (Y,Pb,Pr) + Audio
1x Digital Out (Optical)
1x HDMI (ver. 1.4)
Dimensions:
Box it came in: 1150 x 660 x 175mm
TV with foot: 968 x 629 x 236mm
TV without foot: 968 x 579 x 79mm
Weight:
Box: 19.8 kg
TV with foot: 15.6 kg
TV without foot: 14.2 kg
The product
Let’s start off with the box. I don’t have any unboxing pictures with everything still in their packaging and what not, but I do have pictures of the box, the tv, the remote and everything.
The box looks good in my opinion. White with a purple~dark-pink’ish colour. I like it. Here is the box:
The remote control looks neat, I really like it! It’s not too big, and has a brushed aluminum look to it. It’s just plastic though, nothing strange there. Here's a size comparison:
So now for the TV itself. Because damn this thing looks hot (at least that’s what I think)! When you put the plug in, you’re greated with a beautiful red LED (which you can turn off in the settings menu if you’re worried about your power bill). When you turn it on for the first time, you’ll see the LG logo popping up and then the setup will start. The setup is really straight forward, it’ll ask you if the tv is for home or in a store (if you pick store it’ll be setup as demo model), you’ll need to set your language and it’ll start looking for channels with either cable, satellite and whatnot. After this, you’re ready to go!
Worth noting too: the “foot” of the TV has a small hole which comes with a screw. You can screw it into your desk and it won’t fall off very easy! That’s a nifty little feature that might actually score this TV an additional 0.1 points on the final score!
(screw hole not visible, it's on the back
)The menu
This TV isn’t “smart”. It doesn’t have android or anything like that on it, but I’m one of those people who don’t care about smart TV nonsense. I feel like I’d rather use my PC or iPod to check the internet and whatnot. This does mean there’s no real menu to show other than the settings menu, so let’s check that out.
The settings menu is divided in 8 different sections: Picture, Audio, Setup, Time, Lock, Option, Input and My Media. I’m not showing that last one, but it’s very, very handy. If you have an USB stick or external harddisk, you can put it in the TV and watch movies, listen to music and check photo’s that are on that disk/stick! I really like that, though I use my PS3 for all of my music. But if you don’t have a blu-ray/DVD player or a console, this might just help you out.
Let’s take a look at the menus.
Picture:
This menu is used to change all of the settings that’re relevant to the screen. Contrast, gamma and whatever are changed from there, as well as picture mode (for example: normal, cinema, gaming). Those picture modes are very welcome in my opinion, I use it a lot and I actually take the time to change the mode whenever I'm going from gaming to watching a movie for example. Very nice!
Audio:
Same as with “Picture”, only this is everything that has to do with audio. Worth noting: you should change your sound optimizer to either “stand-type” or “wall mount-type”. That, and you should really enable digital surround sound in my opinion. That should give you a little better sound.
Setup:
Setup is for the TV channels and whatnot. Use this if you want to install a new decoder or whatever.
Time:
This speaks for itself I think. Use this to set date and time.
Lock:
This is used to set a password for certain channels, parental guidance and whatnot. I don't need it, but when you have little kids running around it might be good to block Film 1 action and such, you wouldn't want those kids stumbling upon some kind of horror movie.
Option:
Used for general options. Language, Country, Standyby light (on or off, like I said
), DivX VOD (no idea what that is) and home use / store mode. I wouldn't say you're going to need this menu very often, but it's nice to have I guess.
Input:
This is actually useless, as there is a “input” button on the remote control which takes you to the exact same menu. It let’s you change the input (HDMI, USB, AV, Component etc.).
Image quality
Well, that’s the menus taken care off!
Now let’s get to the main part of the review. The image quality.
Actually, most people with an HDTV will know what I’m talking about, as it’s nothing special with this particular TV. It’s what you would expect from an HDTV with a LED screen and 1080p support. Fairly straightforward I’d say. It’s a huge upgrade from what I had though. I used to game on a small CRT TV, and now I have this. I really needed it. Gaming wise, the performance is quite neat! I bought GTA V shortly after I got this TV and it looks amazing! I sit quite close to the TV, I’d say about 1.2m away, and I can’t really see that much pixels at all. Of course, the PS3 could use a lot of Anti-Aliasing, but that’s not the TV’s fault! This TV deserves a PS4. Or a Steam Machine. Or an XBOX One. Maybe a gaming pc (you could hook your gaming beast up to the tv with an HDMI cable). But I’m broke, so that’ll have to wait. Long story short: standard quality. Looks good to me.
Sound quality
Well, it’s hard for me to talk about sound actually, as I’m anything but an audiophile. The sound isn’t anything to write home about I can tell though. It’s not very hard (quite soft actually), and the quality isn’t great. You can make the sound a bit better by using different sound options (gaming for one of your HDMI ports in which your console might be plugged, music for your USB port because you have music on it, or maybe cinema because you watch films using it). Still, it isn't very great and I'd recommend buying an external sound set. But hey, what would you expect? This is a €400 TV. It's not very expensive for a TV like this at all, and if the sound is the only thing I have to complain about, it's fine by me.
Conclusion
This TV is better than the “Ok.” one. That’s for sure. Not only that, it’s also bigger and better. And that’s for only €25 more. If you’re in the need for a new TV and you have a budget of about €400, I’d recommend this TV to everyone. If it came in white, it would make the perfect TV for €400 in my opinion. But in black it’s still very, very good. A no-brainer I think.
Pro’s: Price, foot has screw hole so you can screw it to your desk, nifty standby LED, image quality.
Cons: not white.
Score: 9.1 (9.0 if it hadn’t come with the screw hole in the foot).
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