Customer Reviews

LG 42LS570T 42-inch Widescreen Full HD 1080p LED Smart TV with Freeview HD

5 star:		(40)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

It's hard to know where to start when describing how great this TV is but first of all there is one point to mention that will be important to a lot of people. This model I'm reviewing is the 570T but the one I actually bought is the 575T which is identical to this for spec, including the price, except that it has wifi built in so if you do want a wireless internet connection then look at that model instead. I couldn't find it on here and I think it's excursive to high street shops but either way it's the same TV other than the wifi.

The picture is stunning. Over the years I've had a Samsung DLP, Sony LCD, Samsung plasma then a Panasonic Plasma. This LG blows them all away in terms of quality, the colours are richer and sharper than I've ever seen before. There's more detail in the background, people look so real that they could be in the room with you and if you have any doubts over whether to go for plasma, LCD or LED (which are almost the same thing) then my advice is to go for LED. Put this next to a Panasonic Viera plasma from 2010 and it makes the Viera look like something from the 80's. I love Panasonic by the way but this just shows how fast technology advances. The LG wins hands down in every way when it comes to quality. Freeview HD is great and the quality will make you fall off your chair, even if you have seen HD before it really is something to behold on this set.

If you're fussy about names and have read some of the silly reviews where people insist that Samsung/Sony/Sharp is better than LG etc. then take no notice. LG is now the worlds biggest TV seller by gross sales figures and they supply Samsung with all their screens anyway. LG is partly owned by Philips and they all have their fingers in each others pies to some degree. All the arguing about Sony, LG, plasma, LED is just daft in my opinion. Who cares who makes it or what it is if it looks brilliant?

The sound is surprisingly good for such a slim TV. It is very, very thin and light so I didn't expect much from the speakers but i'd give the sound 8 out of 10 and it's fine for everyday use. If you want thumping base you'll need extra speakers but it's very loud and not that tinny if you fiddle with the settings. I only have it on 8 and I think the volume goes up to 100 but after 20 it was hurting my ears!

It's the first TV I've ever had where it just worked first time. I turned it on, tuned it in and it worked with a great picture straight out the box. I set up the internet and it connected first time, I pressed all the right buttons on the remote and everything is just so instinctive and easy to find without having to look no the manual.

The only thing that needs a bit of work is getting the smart features to work. If you click on iplayer or Youtube straight away then you just get a page saying "loading..." and nothing works. Click on "Search" and it will update the TV which takes about 5 minutes. Click on search again and keep doing this until there are no more updates. After that just register an account at the top right of the screen (like setting up an email account) and then everything will work. That bit is a bit fiddly and someone who's not into computers might get stuck but now you know how to do it!

It has tons of apps including Twitter, Facebook, Netflix, Lovefilm...dozens of them along with loads of puzzle games, music etc. You could spend hours just looking through this part and new ones are being added all the time. Most of them are free but some you do need to pay for. I can confirm that as of September 2012, iplayer is working fine. If it doesn't then you just need to reset or update your TV.

The connectivity is brilliant. You get 4 HDMI's and 3 USB's to plug in memory cards (in card readers) to watch all your photos/video on the big screen. It works with JPEG, AVI, WMV and other formats but not HD video taken directly from a camcorder in . MTS format. You can also plug in the wifi dongle if you get the 570T (the non wifi version). An external hard drive can be plugged in to allow you to record off any channel, even the HD ones. You can also pause live TV with a hard drive plugged in and they are so cheap to buy now that it's well worth adding one. A 160GB hard drive will record 15 hours of HD or 38 hours of SD. It's a shame you have to have a hard drive and you can't use a memory card for this feature but never mind. Again, all these features worked first time with no hassle at all. What a nice change!

It comes with a HDMI to SCART converter if you really want to plug in an old device but I don't have anything with SCART any more so I haven't tried that bit out. A slight downfall here is that, as of yet, it looks like it doesn't recognise automatically when you have turned on a DVD player so you have to manually press the INPUT button and then switch it to the correct AV channel. All the ones available are lit up and the ones where nothing is plugged in are faded so it's not really a problem at all but it would be nice if there was some way it would switch itself.

A great feature is the light sensor which automatically adjusts the picture settings and fades or lights up the screen more depending on how dark the room is. I've had this before on other TV's but they always seemed to overdo it and fade the screen too much. This one is spot on and it gives great results whatever the occasion. Sport is great on this TV and there's no blurring at all with fast moving people, cars or balls. It's a bit confusing to know exactly what the refresh rate of this TV is. It's listed on many places as 50hz but it's not. It says 100hz in other places and officially on the box is says it has an MCI (Motion Clarity Index) of 200 which is like having 200hz. Whatever it is, it works great and is at least equal in performance to the 600hz I had on the Panasonic, which isn't really 600hz anyway. Don't be fooled by figures!

The instruction manual is a fun read because it has some very odd advice in it. LG is a South Korean company and I guess they have a lot of chopsticks over there to eat food with because it advises you to not insert metal chopsticks into the TV and not to drop chopsticks on the TV. It also warns you not to climb onto the TV, sit vases with water in on top of it, to use it to bounce a football off and that watching TV for a long time can make you get blurred vision. I'm glad they told me all that or I might have wrecked my TV and my eyes by now.

I would advise not going for any warranty that you are offered when you buy this TV. By law, all TV's sold in Europe have a 2 year warranty and I give lots of credit to LG for telling you this clearly in the literature. My last TV packed up after 16 months and the shop was not happy about having to abide by the EU warranty and kept trying to fob me off by saying that I only had 1 year warranty. If you really want a warranty then LG offer you 3 years for £99 (including accident damage) with a bit of paper that comes inside the TV box. It's a smallish box for such as big TV by the way, I got it in the back of my 3 door 2011 Fiesta with just the back seats down.

I cannot say too much how great this TV is. If i'd seen it in a shop and was asked to put a price on it I would have said around £700 to £800. It's crazy that it's under £500!!! The only thing it doesn't have is 3D but that gives me headaches and makes my eyes tired so I don't want that. If you do then there is a model the same as this with 3D for an extra £100 or so.

I'm someone who doesn't normally care about TV much. I rarely watch it but even I can see how I'm going to be watching a lot more now because of the sheer brilliance of this set. The price is so good that I'm going back to buy another one in a month or two before they stop making them! Buy this TV and prepare to be dazzled.

So impressed with this TV, it's replacing another LG (LCD) I've had for 5 years and never had any issues with it so I decided to get another LG and it was a great decision. The built in wi-fi is perfect for streaming from Netflix and Lovefilm and the quality comes out as good as any DVD. It upscales DVD's to amazing quality and the picture on blu-rays is amazing.

Others have commented about BBCiplayer not working but mine works just fine (to be honest I don't use it though as I hardly watch anything on BBC).

It's very easy to set up, didn't need the instruction manual just plugged everything in and it all worked perfectly first time. The navigation using the remote to access online features can be a little long winded but it's not bad enough to warrante purchasing the magic remote thing that costs £40.

I would recommend this TV to anyone, it's great value for money and the only thing it doesn't have it 3D which I have no interest in having anyway (who wants to sit in their lounge looking like an idiot in those glasses?!).

Brilliant TV. Set up is really easy. Plugged in the ethernet cable and the aerial, powered it up, followed the simple on screen instructions and it all just worked. The TV did a software update all is great. BBC Iplayer works well - I was a bit worried about that because of the other reviews, but nothing to worry about. The sound is good. The only thing is that I expected was to be able to use skype. There is no Skype app, so even if I get a camera, there will be no skype unless I get a special camera from Skype. I contacted LG and they said that Skype will release an app for this TV, but don't know when. I'm a bit disappointed in the description the use of skype with this TV because it's not as expected.

Very surprised by previous reviews of this item on here. Main point are:
*BBC iplayer does work
*picture in HD is excellant - one of the best on display in Curries
TV is very slimline
*Home screen is very modern looking and has good ease of use for working apps etc
*sound as with most slim tellys is ordinary - my soundbar comes in handy
*remote is very user friendly
*took my time deciding on which 42"tv - over the moon with my choice

I bought this TV to replace the ageing 32" we had in our bedroom. For £480 I got an LED 42" TV with all the SMART features I could need, which seems like a good deal to me.

Compared to our Panasonic Plasma in the living room, it's a little "lively" with SD content. Whereas the Plasma can make SD channels like "Dave" almost 720p in appearance, the LG is a little harsh. Changing from the "Standard" to "Cinema" screen modes helped, and also reduced the slightly unnatural skin tones. In HD it's a lovely picture, again more so now that we have it on Cinema mode. As far as picture quality goes, you can do a lot worse.

My current reference piece is the lift off chapter from the Apollo 13 Bluray, and the LG really does handle it well. The sound is adequate (think what you'd expect a thin LED could produce and you're on the right lines), and colour reproduction in Cinema mode is good. One thing I wasn't expecting was how the LED image appears more vivid than the plasma. The Plasma is sharp and it looks like a film, whereas this LED adds a "documentary" feel to the image, and you almost feel like you're watching the scene through a window. I guess that's a result of the LED brightness, and again the Cinema mode tones it down. It's a slightly different viewing experience to the Plasma, and actually works well with animated content.

The SMART features feel somewhat bewildering, for instance there's at least 5 ways of streaming film/TV content (LoveFilm, AceTrax, Blinkbox, NetFlix, KnowHow Movies). That's not LG's fault obviously, they just put the apps on that are available. I've not tried the TV apps, such as the games, as again there's so many and I suspect a lot of them are filler. BBC iPlayer works faultlessly, so ignore earlier reviews that brought the rating down. There's no skype, but I don't use it, just bear it in mind.

It works well with my Synology NAS, streaming all the music and videos I have stored (with the exception of ISO images, but not many TVs can play those). The Youtube interface is the new version for 2012, which is a little clunky as you just get the "My Youtube" option and (for example) your favourites can only be played from start to finish, with seemingly no way to select individual clips. If you connect the TV to your Youtube account you can select what you want to watch via your phone, which is slick but seems unnecessarily complex compared to the older, cleaner interface on the Panasonic.

There is also an iPhone app that is one of the best I've ever used, as it works faultlessly and allows full control of the TV. With it there is also no need to buy the additional wand remote, as the app effectively turns your phone into a touchpad for navigating the TV. It also means you don't have to be in the room, which is handy for times like just now, where my kids turned the TV on but don't know how to change the channel, so I changed it from another room for them via my phone!

All in all, it's a lovely little TV and I'm more than happy with it. It's not perfect (very few things are), but for the money you get a good picture, adequate sound and more SMART functions than you'll know what to do with. I'm very fussy and I'm happy with it.

Does everything it claims to do. Annoying to have to purchase the wifi dongle separately at ridiculous price, but it's very easy to set up and works well. Interface with the web 'browser' is very clunky but it's not supposed to replace my computer.

I am very impressed with this TV. The picture is great on both SD and HD, the sound good and the SMART facilities a great addition to what I'm used to. It has a very slim profile too. I suspect that many of the early reviews of this TV may be out of date. Once I had installed the latest update for the TV, iPlayer and You Tube worked perfectly. I have connected the TV to the web through a powerline rather than with the dongle and it works very well.
I would recommend this TV to anyone.

I've had this TV for the past 5 days, it's the first flat screen TV that I've owned. I've been waiting for the past couple of years while the technology was developing, but finally decided that it was time to buy. I've been happy with the sound on regular TV, although for films I usually play through a Yamaha DSP unit to get a better experience. Picture quality is occasionally less sharp than I'd hoped for, but I think it's important to remember that it will also depend on the signal being broadcast from the transmitter and the quality of the aerial system. The HD Freeview channels give a good sharp picture with a lot of detail, although I would say that I haven't made direct comparisons with other TVs. Regular DVDs play well, although again I'm sure that more expensive equipment would give a better picture.

I have the TV connected to a wired network, with a very fast connection speed, the smart apps work well, especially BBC iPlayer and Youtube, although it is very slow to enter text with the remote control, and I can't seem to make the iPad app work with this model of TV.

I've scored this set as 4 out of 5, for the money I feel that it is good value, and if I was looking for a second TV I would be happy to buy another.

This is a good quality TV. The picture is excellent, particularly on HD channels, and noticeably better than the equivalent Samsung, which I was able to do a side-by-side comparison with. It has a good range of inputs, as you'd expect. It was very simple to set up. The BBC iPlayer app works well and looks good. I haven't tried the other apps yet. DVDs upscale nicely. The sound is very reasonable, given the lack of depth of the box. I have attached a hard disk to it and it now has simple recording recording capabilities and the ability to pause live TV.

I don't quite understand why so many people have given this a poor rating just because of the lack - now resolved - of an iPlayer app. It's a good TV with many other features besides this!

If you're wondering why this TV gets such as low rating it's because, even though it's a great value TV with a fantastic picture, loads of inputs and an extensive feature set, a couple of the Smart apps were broken, most notably BBC iPlayer.

Well, I can confirm that the iPlayer issue is fixed in the latest software update (version 04.01.36), which is available from the LG website. Installation couldn't be easier, just download the file, unzip it and place it onto a USB stick in a directory called LG_DTV. Once the stick is inserted into the TV, it will automatically detect and install it. Once done, iPlayer works perfectly, as does the excellent LoveFilm app.

So, if you are thinking about getting this TV, ignore the reviews and go for it; you won't be disappointed.