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  • Tour & Design

  • Performance Features

  • Connectivity & Media

  • Controls, Menu & Remote

  • Conclusion

  • Tour & Design
  • Performance Features
  • Connectivity & Media
  • Controls, Menu & Remote
  • Conclusion

Tour & Design

The front of the LT-42WX70 is dominated by the 42-inch LCD display. Around the display is a relatively thin black bezel that has been textured to feel like leather. At the bottom left you'll find touch-sensitive controls. Below the bezel is a removable speaker bar.

The front of the television has a leather-like bezel

**Back**

The back of the LT-42WX70 is made of a uniform silver material. The ports are covered to ensure that the clean look is maintained. You'll also notice the interesting swivel mechanism with the stand rising up from the bottom and two attachment points onto the back.

The back has a uniform silver finish

**Sides**

The right side of the JVC LT-42WX70 has a single HDMI port, with a silver cover to keep the clean silver finish intact. The left side has no features of note.

You can't see it here but there is an HDMI port under a cover at the bottom of the right side

**Stand/Mount**

The JVC LT-42WX70's stand has an interesting design. From the front it has a ver low profile, but from the back (see above) you see that it extends upwards and behind the television with two mounting points that hold the HDTV and allow it to swivel. It can also be mounted on a wall.

From the front the stand is completely unobstrive, but on the back it rises up

**Aesthetics**

The JVC LT-42WX70 is an attractive television. From the smooth lines of the back, tasteful leather-like finish on the bezel to the 1.7-inch thick design this is a television for those who want to make a fashion statement with their television.

Performance Features

Display Size & Technology

The JVC LT-42WX70 has a 42-inch LCD display, the only size it is currently available in. It uses a standard backlight instead of the LED backlights that many HDTVs this year are now sporting.

The 42-inch display has a full 1080p resolution

Format & Resolution

The LT-42WX70 is full 1080p HDTV, meaning it is capable of displaying even the highest quality HDTV content available from Blu-Ray disc. It has a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels and an aspect ration of 16:9.

Brightness, Blacks & Contrast Ratio

JVC has not provided any specifications for the maximum brightness or black leve of the LT-42WX70. They do claim a dynamic contrast ratio of 50,000:1 and a native contrast ration of 4,000:1. To explain the dynamic contrast ration is achieved by a little bit of cheating on the manufacturers part. They turn off the backlight to get the deepest black and turn it all the way back up to get the brightest white. The native contrast ratio will likely more closely resemble what you'll get during regular viewing, but we won't know how close until we get the LT-42WX70 into our labs and test it ourselves.

Refresh Rate & Motion

The JVC LT-42WX70 offers a 120Hz refresh rate, an improvement over the standard 60Hz that most of JVC's line sports. The improved refresh rate could have a significant improvement on how the display handles motion, but on the floor it wasn't playing any content where we could judge if the motion is in fact better. We'll have to wait until it's in the lab before we can make a call here.

Viewing Angle

LCD HDTVs generally offers a worse viewing angle than Plasma HDTVs, but what we saw on the floor leads us to believe that the JVC LT-42WX70 might be better than the average LCD in this respect. We saw very little fading of color as we moved through viewing angles and colors remained accurate.

Color

Color is a big deal on the JVC LT-42WX70. It is specifically targeted at photo professionals that need displays that will accurately display colors in photos, for example. To achieve this JVC has equipped the HDTV with support for a variety of different color spaces. In addition to the standard color gamut that we'd expect from any HDTV the LT-42WX70 is also capable of handling xvYCC color and Adobe RGB mode. JVC also says they've included 52 different image-quality adjustment properties for fine tuning the display. JVC told us that they expect the LT-42WX70 to compete with much more expensive monitors for the money of those for whom color accuracy is paramount.

Connectivity & Media

Audio & Video Ports

The JVC LT-42WX70 doesn't have a huge array of ports. There is a single HDMI port found on the right side near the bottom. On the back you will find two covers, one to the left and one to the right of the rising stand. Remove these covers to reveal two additional HDMI ports (one is used only for the optional tuner box), a composite video input and a 3.5mm audio input. There is also an SP audio output on the model we saw, which is one of those connectors that requires you to thread the bare metal of a wire into black and red switches. We're not sure if this will be true of the final shipping model, we'll just have to see.

The port selection is difficult to access and not very extensive

In addition there is an optional tuner box available that will allow you to run a single HDMI cable to the HDTV, and if you have a lot of accessories you might want to think seriously about picking one of these up. It has a USB 2.0 input, three HDMI ports, one component video input one HDMI output (to send the signal to the TV), an SPDIF optical audio out port and a composite video input with associated analog audio input.

A more complete set of ports is found on the optional tuner box, but you'll have to pay extra for it

Media & Other Connectivity

The JVC LT-42WX70 does not have a USB port or card reader built-in, nor does it support network connectivity for accessing online content. The optional tuner box does have a USB port and the specifications indicate that it will support photo and music playback.

Placement

The placement of the JVC LT-42WX70's ports is certainly not convenient. On the HDTV itself you'll have to get behind the TV and towards the very center and are beneath two different covers. Good luck if the HDTV is wall mounted. The optional tuner box offers a much more convenient array of ports, but of course you'll have to pay extra for it.

Audio

An interesting feature of the JVC LT-42WX70 is a removable speaker bar. Although it doesn't snap off easily, it is meant to be unscrewed. This improves the HDTVs aesthetics if you want to connect a better speaker system separately. Speaking of which we recommend you do just that if you care about audio quality, we weren't able to test the LT-42WX70's speakers but no on-TV speakers can compare to even a low cost surround sound setup.

Controls, Menu & Remote

Remote

The JVC LT-42WX70 sports a new, slim remote, which is nice considering JVC's standard remote lacks in style somewhat. This one has a matte black finish on the front and a smooth silver back, just like the TV itself. We did find it a bit long, however, and it didn't balance perfectly in our hand as we moved up and down to access various controls.

The remote is more stylish than what we've seen from JVC before

Controls

The JVC LT-42WX70 on-TV controls are found at the bottom left of the display and are touch sensitive. The usual concerns about touch sensitive controls apply here, we tend to like tactile feedback on our buttons. That said, let's face it, how often do you use the on-TV controls.

*Touch sensitive on-TV controls are found at the bottom left
*

Menu

We weren't able to access the JVC LT-42WX70's menu system.

Conclusion

The JVC LT-42WX70 is an interesting stab at the high-end of the market. In a year where the popular high-end features are LED backlights, 240Hz motion and internet connectivity JVC has bucked the trend by focusing on a more obscure feature, color fidelity. Color accuracy on an HDTV is very important, but we're unsure if the average consumer is willing to pay more for additional color spaces that they may not be familiar with. Photo professionals may be thrilled by an HDTV with these features that JVC says will cost significantly less than competitors. At this point we don't know how much that will be, however. JVC does say it should be available in the first half of this year.

Meet the tester

Alfredo Padilla

Alfredo Padilla

Editor

Alfredo Padilla is a valued contributor to the Reviewed.com family of sites.

See all of Alfredo Padilla's reviews

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