LG is now bringing their Cinema 3D TVs to the market with the LW6500 model. The Cinema 3D TV technology is the first to utilize the much cheaper polarized 3D glasses that you know from cinemas. This means lighter and brighter 3D glasses without batteries or flicker. LW6500 is also a traditional 2D TV and comes with LG's new Smart TV platform.
Our first impressions
LG LW6500 has a design in matte black plastic with a transparent line around the bezel. In the right side of the frame LG has integrated some touch buttons. The stand is made from the same glossy black plastic and transparent outer layer. It has a manual swivel function.L9 Cell Phone
Inputs are located on the back and besides the analogue audio outputs and a service port, all inputs and outputs are either pointing downwards or to the side.
LG's Cinema 3D LW6500 is also pretty slim because of the Edge LED backlighting system
Functionality
The remote control has not changed much from the 2010 models. Some buttons have been added to control the Smart TV functionality but besides that it still feels and looks a bit cheap. DLNA is also supported for streaming video, music and picture to the TV from other devices. Most video codes are supported. For the full list see LG's official site.
Let's move on to the Smart TV interface, which we took a preview of in this article. The Smart TV interface has a lot of functionality and we won't cover everything but below you can see the main screen that also has some of the DLNA and other media features.
MediaLink is LG's new media platform to stream video, music and pictures from other devices in the home ¨C such as a PC, smartphone or iPad ¨C to the TV. It uses the so-called Plex interface and therefore you should install Plex (supported on PC, Mac, iPhone, iPad and Android) for the best experience. From here you can select which videos to share and now you can wirelessly stream the videos to your LG TV.
In the middle you see the Premium Apps such as movie rental Apps, Facebook, YouTube and more. At the bottom you have Apps and some other features such as the web browser and App Store.
The App Store is not yet available but will be updated with a firmware update later. The available Apps will depend on your country. The photos above have been taken on LW6500 connected to a Scandinavian internet connection, meaning that most of the App content is local.
Calibration settings
On the new LG TVs with Smart TV you need to enter the menus with the Home button and then head to the settings option on the screen. In the menus LG Cinema 3D LW6500 has these picture setting options: backlight, contrast, brightness, sharpness, color, tint, color temperature, TruMotion and Eco mode. In the advanced menu you can control: Dynamic Contrast, Dynamic Color, Clear White, Skin Color, Noise Reduction, Super Resolution, MPEG Noise Reduction, Gamma, Black Level, Eye Care, Real Cinema, Color Gamut, and xvYCC.
You can also choose from these picture modes: Standard, Vivid, Cinema, Game, Expert1 and Expert2. C7+ Analog TV
Conclusion LG's new Smart TV platform has potential but the App Market is not available yet and the web browser needs one more update. Therefore it's hard to say anything definite other than LG has an interesting platform that we will certainly keep an eye out for in the future. We obviously focused a lot on 3D picture quality because LG with the introduction of their Cinema 3D TVs has introduced a new 3D technology to compete with the existing active 3D technology. And Cinema 3D is a great alternative. Despite the slightly less detailed 3D pictures it has tons of advantages such as almost zero crosstalk, cheap and lightweight 3D glasses without batteries, and no flicker. The polarized 3D glasses also cause less eyestrain in the long run. Based on that, I'm ready to call the Cinema 3D technology ¡°3D for the masses¡±. It's easier, cheaper and provides a good experience. Welcome Cinema 3D, you have potential. However, the absolutely best 3D experience is still achieved with high-end 3D plasma TVs such as Panasonic GT30. 2D picture quality on LG LW6500 is decent but not better than typical mid-end TVs. The colors are fairly accurate after calibration and the response time is fast enough for most use. Black is not deep enough and we also saw some clouding from the Edge LED based LW6500 model. i9100 Wifi All in all LW6500 is a good TV and the Cinema 3D technology is interesting on more than one level. It's not a revolution but a much more mainstream 3D approach because of the ridiculously cheap 3D glasses. The extremely low crosstalk also means that it's the best 3D LCD/LED TV today. 2D picture quality is fairly good but not beating the completion in the mid-end area. The Smart TV interface still needs a few updates but if it lives up to its promise, LW6500 is certainly a model to keep an eye on in the coming months. And if you're looking for a 3D screen we recommend you to take a look at Cinema 3D.