2011

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For this TV
Amazon.com:

 

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Page updated
2013-11-03

worm.gif (3649 bytes) LG Plasma 60-in.TV Model 60PX950 Infinia...

A product review.   TVs have become computers. If you are a mom & pop consumer from the old and simpler days, this kind of TV may not be for you.

 
An old Sony KLD-52W3000 (left), and the new LG 60PX950
(right)


The 60-inch LG 60PX950 (boxed), a Sony 52 inch KLD-52W3000 (right)

 A review of the  LG 60PX950 60-inch Infinia 1080p plasma 3D TV (2011):

DOCUMENTATION
There is no manual! One has to go to a computer to look up something in the manual, a .pdf file, when you have a question on how to operate this thing. (Or you can print the 201-page manual yourself and have about a one-inch stack of paper to schlep around.)

TVs have become computers. So, if you are a mom & pop consumer from the old and simpler days, this TV may not be for you.

MENU
The main menus (there are two of them) produced by each remote are different. And some options (i.e. 'Eject SD card') are not available and are hidden, or superfluous.  For example, my cameras have no 'Eject SD Card' option or requirement.  I can pull the card out without damaging it.

The TV's built in "My Media" menu and sub-menus is amateurish and poorly organized -- it reminds me of the old DOS computer days form the mid 1980s. It's bare-bones and slow.

SD CARD
When you create files on an SD card with an Apple iMac computer The TV shows folders on the SD card which cannot be played on the TV and have nothing to do with what a user of the TV needs to know. (Window-created files come out OK, yet some picture files (all JPEGs) which display properly on the computer won't display at all on the TV.)

If you like this TV  but don't want the
3D feature, these are good choices:

WiFi and USB
If you use the dongle (mine was supplied) to connect your TV to your computer via WiFi, then only one extra USB port remains free. If you then plug a "USB port expander gizmo" into that remaining port expecting the TV to recognize the additional ports you think you've just created, you're out of luck: when you tell the TV to look for those additional ports it will not find them. The on-screen facility to search for additional ports exists, but it doesn't work (or at least it doesn't work that way).

As other reviewers noted I, too, think that WiFi should have been built-in. To my mind it's like this because of time pressures or laziness on the part of the developer's managers of this product.

MUSIC
The music player plays files from the beginning, but if you try to move its "slider" toward a point past about the middle of its range for that song, it resets and insist to start playing at the beginning again.

SOUND HOOKUP
When this TV is hooked up to a component audio system via the "optical" fiber connection using the TOSLINK protocol, everything works fine if you only watch the cable programs. But when you watch an over-the-air TV program no sound emanates from the attached audio system! I use HDMI from the cable box to the TV and when it's connected to a component system, again I have no sound when the TV is set to receive over the air programming.

Computers from Amazon...

EXTERNAL SOUND HOOKUP
Apparently the new TVs don't have outputs for component audio systems. The only output provision which exist on this unit is via optical TOSLINK. You'll have to buy a $50 adaptor to make it work with ONE component audio system.

MAGIC WAND REMOTE
The magic wand remote works well, except that for some menus it doesn't work at all and you must switch to the common remote control. And vice versa. This device is also handy to point to things on the screen, such as in a video or when viewing your pictures. Unfortunately finding the "next" and "previous buttons" is a bit tedious. I se no reason why that magic wand's channel + / - buttons could not easily have been made to go to the net picture slide, next page or next song. The programmers were either lazy, careless of forgot to do give us that.

VIEWING YOUR PHOTOS
When viewing pictures, the file name is displayed and a date is displayed. The date is not the same as that recorded by the digital camera at the time the picture was made! Instead, the user is often treated with knowing on what date the picture was modified (using PhotoShop, etc.) which is to my mind one of the most useless and irritating pieces for information to be displayed. Sometimes the date displayed is the current date (!) even if nobody touched that picture file today.

CHANGING CHANNELS
Changing Channels is very slow -- digital TVs have this property, but in comparison with similar TVs this LG 60PX950 plasma TV takes an extra long time to to jump from one cable channel to another.

WIDGETS and NETCAST
The NETCAST feature, in general is lame. Its menu navigation is cumbersome and old fashioned. Except for You Tube and for the widget that displays the weather, which are cool and intuitive to use, most of the others such as Netflix et al, seem to be there to sell you monthly, automatically charged subscriptions.
 


A Blue Ray Player
w/Internet
~ $170

The bells and whistles such as most of the "hot new" NETCAST feature are nothing to write home about. If you really want these things, buy a cheaper (Samsung ?) TV and/or purchase a Blue Ray player that comes with similar Internet and WiFi access built in.

PICTURE QUALITY and SOUND
Of course this plasma TV has an excellent picture; its sound quality is


Sony HT-CT350
 5.1 Sound Bar
~ $330

just a little below that of a medium priced "sound bar" setup (I compare here with Sony HT-CT350 5.1 Sound Bar ~ $330).

CONNECTING TO YOUR PC (No iMac)
The "MediaHome 4 Essentials" disk which comes with this unit for PC connectivity is worthless to me. It's supposed to connect a commuter wirelessly to the TV. My wireless TV-connection to the Internet works but MediaHome 4 wont won't work -- it can't access my computer and only a goofy-sounding error message appears on the TV screen. When emailing customer service for MediaHome 4 support, the MediaHome 4 people send you a very lengthy instruction set to help them try to debug the problem. It involves downloading some software for them and doing some diagnostics and then returning a file from your computer to them. It's very involved; MediaHome's trouble shooting technique is very un-automated and labor intensive for the victim.
The MediaHome technical support responds VERY SLOWLY. And MediaHome drops you if you are not persistent. It's always some other, new support person who handles your problems so that you have to tell them the same over and over again.

3-D
I can't comment on the 3D capabilities of this unit -- I haven't bought the optional 3D glasses. From poking around a bit in the menu for the 3D feature I found that confusing also. It seems that 3D display should happen automatically when a 3D program or 3D disk content is displayed the screen. But no, it seems that you have to tell the TV that.

USER-FRIENDLINESS
Very little thought seems to been given to the user-friendly aspect of using the LG 60PX950 -- it's almost as if the TV's operating system were designed by some computer nerd in the back room and when it came time to market the resulting brainchild no quality control expert or manager took a look before it went out the door.

Workers do their best to crate descent products under the time pressure these developers usually face. But managers are often mediocre, in my opinion, "buggy" products slip out the door.

To me this TV seems like a first generation product; it would be a good idea for one to wait for an improved iteration of the 60PX950 product line from LG.

TVs have become computers. So, if you are a mom-and-pop consumer from the old and simpler days, this TV may not be for you.

PACKAGING
The shipping box was is large and flimsy. Mine arrived beat-up and torn.  Well, an Apple product it ain't.

SORRY
-- I tried to keep this short and concise but there are lots of problems with this unit.

To find this review on the 'Net again, please GOOGLE or YAHOO 'NowScape 60PX950'.

Gift Certificate


Page updated  2013-11-03  by @Com