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  • Introduction

  • Tour & Design

  • Blacks & Whites

  • Color Accuracy

  • Motion

  • Viewing Effects

  • Calibration

  • Remote Control

  • Connectivity

  • Audio & Menus

  • Formats & Media

  • Power Consumption

  • Vs Vizio SV470XVT

  • Vs Sony KDL 46VE5

  • Vs Samsung UN46B7100

  • Conclusion

  • Series Comparison

  • Introduction
  • Tour & Design
  • Blacks & Whites
  • Color Accuracy
  • Motion
  • Viewing Effects
  • Calibration
  • Remote Control
  • Connectivity
  • Audio & Menus
  • Formats & Media
  • Power Consumption
  • Vs Vizio SV470XVT
  • Vs Sony KDL 46VE5
  • Vs Samsung UN46B7100
  • Conclusion
  • Series Comparison

Introduction

The 47LH90 is currently available for about $2100.

Tour & Design

Front


The front of the LG 47LH90 is surrounded by a large bezel with a touch of color to it. The bottom right is where you'll find the power indicator.

 

Back


The back of the TV is very reflective, as evicenced by the mirror image of our TV lab in the image below. The ports are on the right side of the back, but not particularly close to the edge.

For information about the ports on the back of the LG 47LH90 see our Connectivity section.

 

Sides


The left side of the TV doesn't have a lot going for it. The right side has the standard on-set controls.

For information about the ports on the back of the LG 47LH90 see our Connectivity section.

 

Stand/Mount


The stand has a nice design to it. It's shaped like a Pac-man mouth. The power LED to the right a bit more will glow eerily whenever the set is turned on. You can thankfully disable this feature.

 

Controls


The on-set controls cover all the basics.

 

Remote Control


The TV's remote control has a long, thin form factor, coplete with lots of colorful buttons.

 

In The Box*(6.5)*


In the box you'll find the remote, some batteries, and both a paper and CD version of the manual.

Assembling the TV was the typical 'insert stand, affix with four screws' procedure.

 

Aesthetics*(7.0)*


We thought the 47LH90 looked good, but it didn't blow us away. The bezel is very thick to allow for the translucent bit around the edge. While this flourish looks nice, we're not 100% it's worth the bulky-looking bezel. The stand also has just a touch of color to it, which looks nice (just don't confuse the common phrase, 'touch of color,' with Samsung's Touch of Color™, because we're pretty sure that's a trademark violation).

Blacks & Whites

Black Level*(5.10)*


Black level is one of the indicators that a TV has good detailing during dark scenes; if it isn't capable of a low black level, your blacks and going to be unnaturally bright and washed out. Typically LCDs have issues with this test, because they depend on backlights. Plasmas can usually display much deeper blacks, the tradeoff being dimmer whites.

Even compared to other LCDs, the 47LH90 didn't do particularly well on this test. The 'good' range for black level is 0.1 candelas per square meter (cd/m2); around there is great, below there is golden, but once you get towards 0.2 cd/m2, you start to wander towards washed out blacks. Unfortunately, the LG 47LH90 is capable of 0.38 at its lowest.

The 47LH90 does have a localized dimming feature, but we don't see much of a difference between it and a regular dynamic backlight. When it worked, it washed out the subtle details in the area. It typically meant the difference between someone's black suit looking like a suit and that same suit looking like a flat swath of black. We weren't too impressed with the feature.

 

Peak Brightness*(9.78)*


Peak brightness is an oft-overlooked facet of picture quality. A low peak brightness can hurt your contrast ratio, lead to external lights washing out the screen, or otherwise reduce the level of detail in your picture. LCDs have the advantage on this test, since their display technology essentially hinges on shining a bunch of flashlights at your face. Plasmas have issues here because they draw too much power to display large areas of white at a high luminescence.

The 47LH90 did very, very well on this test. Typically all you need for a decent picture is 200 cd/m2, with anything above 300 cd/m2 being gravy. The LG 47LH90 exceeded both these benchmarks with a stunning 456 cd/m2. Due to the logarithmic progression of the greyscale, 0.1 cd/m2 in the dark end can mean the same difference as 100 cd/m2 in the bright end. While this means the 47LH90 isn't a mind-blowing magnitude greater than a 300 cd/m2 TV, the difference will be noticeable. You shouldn't have any issues with the 47LH90 getting washed out by external light; if your 47LH90 is having brightness issues, your set is either defective or the majority of other TVs out there will be having the same issue.

 

Contrast*(6.32)*


Contrast is extremely important, because our eyesight is based on contrast. We have trouble seeing subtle differences, so to keep up a level of detail we're capable of perceiving, a TV has to be capable of a high level of contrast.

The LG 47LH90 had a great brightness with a relatively poor black level, which results in an average contrast ratio of 1201:1. This means the TV will have some trouble catching your eye, compared to the more top-of-the-line TVs. For the average consumer, the difference will be negligible. Chances are, however, if you're reading this lengthy, geeky review, you're not the average consumer. You will notice the difference.

A quick note on contrast: manufactures lie like crazy about this. They'll turn off the backlight when they measure the black, then boost every setting possible to achieve the brightest possible white. Now, this isn't a realistic contrast ratio: since different settings are required for each, there's no way you'd see both levels at the same time during normal viewing. This is why any listed contrast ratio that's more than 10,000:1–and most are over a million to one at this point–are pretty much lying to you.

 

Tunnel Contrast*(9.34)*


For this test, we start with the entire screen black, then slowly inject a white margin around it until only 5% of the screen is black. Theoretically, this shouldn't have any effect on the TV's black level; the deepest black should remain consistent regardless of how much of the screen the black area encompasses. Of course, the ideal isn't realistic, if only due to normal fluctuations in lighting. What we're looking for on this test, however, isn't those minor fluctuations: we're looking for a sudden drop off, either due to some automatic dim feature or the surrounding white washing out the dark area.

The 47LH90 performed well on this test. It didn't have any major issues at all. The largest difference in black levels was full screen vs. 90% black, but even then

 

White Falloff*(9.81)*


White falloff is the inverse of the above test: instead of a changing black area, however, this test focuses on whites. We're checking for the same phenomena as well. Sometimes plasmas can't produce bright full-screen whites, and sometimes LCDs dim the backlights when they deem the screen to be dark enough.

Fortunately, there's not a lot of fluctuation in the 47LH90's brightness levels. This means you won't suddenly lose details when the luminescence of a scene exceeds some arbitrary limit.

 

Uniformity*(8.38)*


On our uniformity test, we check out a black and white screen and look for imperfections in the screen. Typically on LCDs we see far more issues with the black screen than the white, and the inverse is true for plasmas.

We didn't really see any uniformity issues with the LG 47LH90. White screens were almost pristine, as we would have expected. Dark screens were pretty good too, at least ideally. The problem here was a combination of size and display technology. The screen is pretty large, and LCDs have terrible viewing angles; the 47LH90 is no exception. If you were seated directly in front of any given portion of the screen, it'd look perfect; seated dead center, you'd notice the corners appear to leak light like crazy. Again, this has more to do with viewing angle than it does with uniformity, but the end result will be the same for someone seated dead center.

Greyscale Gamma*(9.39)*


Greyscale gamma describes how rapidly greys shift to white or black. The ideal is for a logarithmic progression that mimics our own sensitivity to contrast. That way each increment looks identical to the last.

We didn't see any issues with the TV's greyscale gamma. As long as you set the TV to a 'low' gamma setting, you'll net a textbook greyscale curve. To put our test results in context, when this curve is plotted logarythmically, the ideal curve should have a slope between 2.1 and 2.2. We were able to get a 2.3 out of the 47LH90 when we set the Gamma to 'Low.' This is just kissing the upper limit for ideal, meaning you won't see any gross inaccuracies in the TV's greyscale gamma.

 

Resolution Scaling*(7.22)*


Chances are, your TV will be displaying a lot of content that's not within the TV's native resolution. Standard definition broadcast is in 480p, DVDs come in 720p, broadcast HD content runs at 1080i, and Blu-rays use 1080p. Here, we test how well the TV performs showing non-native content.

Since these section is the only one where we talk about sharpness, we have to interject a little caveat before we get into the individual tests: the TV has really wacky sharpness. Typically when the sharpness is too high, the TV will create a halo around a color with its inverse. For example, a black bar on a grey screen will suddenly become surrounded by white. Even when we turned both sharpness settings all the way down, we still saw these halos around shapes. When we turned the sharpness up, a second, brighter halo formed inside the initial one.

480p

While we didn't see any major issues with 480p content, we did see a handful of minor ones. We noticed some slight shimmering on fine patterns, and some edges were a bit soft. Overall, though, the 47LH90 did well at this resolution.

720p

This is where we started having some issues. We saw some very minor coloration in patterns alongside the shimmering effect mentioned above. This means fine patterns might have a slight pale green tint, probably not enough you'd notice. Some finer details blurred together. For example, a set of alternating black and white lines looked almost like a solid grey block. It was very hard to see the individual lines. 

1080i

Here we saw all the issues from 720p, only magnified in severity. Fine patterns had all kinds of false coloration, ranging from pale green to greenish grey. The shimmery effect was also worse. Small font was hard to read, which might've been due to the weird sharpness rules mentioned above.

Color Accuracy

Color Temperature*(8.47)*


In our calibration, we try to set the TV's color temperature to the ideal 6500K benchmark. While it's important to establish an accurate color temperature, it's significantly more important for the TV to maintain this level throughout the greyscale. If the temperature shifts around, it makes calibration less about achieving perfect picture quality and more about minimizing inaccuracies.

The TV had a pretty solid color temperature overall. About halfway through the color gamut, the temperature starts to rise, but doesn't exit the perceptible range by a distracting amount. 

 

RGB Curves*(7.94)*


Since red, green, and blue make up each other color on your display, their individual performances are quite important. Because of this, we test them separately. In the below graph, we've plotted each color's performance throughout the greyscale.

The 47LH90 did well on this test, but didn't exactly wow us. As you can see above, the lines weren't particularly even. This means fine details are getting lost, due to the inadequate differentiation between similar colors. The colors' slopes also don't leave enough room for progression in the middle of the spectrum.

Below we've compared the 47LH90's red, blue, and green performances alongside the performances of several competing televisions.

 

 

 

Color Gamut*(4.65)*


The colors a television displays are supposed to follow an international standard, rec. 709. Very few do, however, which is why we perform this test. Typically the issues we see involve the TV overemphasizing certain colors, but it looks like the 47LH90 under-saturates its green and red.

Below is a chart of the rec. 709 points for RGB and white, along with where we measured these points on the TV. Chances are, if you aren't a cinephile, you won't care that much about this chart.

 

Motion

Motion Smoothness*(7.88)*


Blur is significantly reduced by the 240Hz mode. We didn't really see much improvement between the 'high' and 'low' settings, however, so you should probably stick to low, given the artifacting the feature causes. Also, 240Hz causes some crazy artifacting in movies.

With 240Hz on low, the TV did pretty well with 1080p playback. We saw minor blurring, which lead to some lost detail, but nothing major. We saw a lot more blurring on 1080i playback, unfortunately, regardless of the 240Hz setting. It wasn't so much to totally ruin the 47LH90's otherwise good score in this area, but it did bring it down a point or so.

 

Motion Artifacting*(7.13)*


The 240Hz mode has the potential to cause some serious artifacting issues, but as long as you keep it set to low, you should be ok for artifacting issues. On 1080p playback we hardly noticed any issues at all, just some minor shuddering. Solid blocks of color might distort slightly as they move across the screen, creating little tails behind them in addition to the normal shadowing we typically see.  On 1080i playback, the shuddering got significantly heavier, so bad that fine patterns had portions that flashed. Fortunately, although these issues were noticeable, they were fairly rare in occurrence.

 

3:2 Pulldown & 24fps*(7.50)*


On our 3:2 pulldown and 24p tests, we put Real Cinema Mode on, which helps reduce judder and artifacting. We also switched off every flavor of 240Hz, because they caused all kinds of flashing badness.

The 47LH90 did well on our SMPTE pattern test, with only rare, random instances of fine patterns flashing. A second test uses footage of a slow pan across an empty stadium. Here, we noticed a crawling effect over the backs of the seating that was a bit worse than what we typically see from a TV in the 47LH90's class.

Viewing Effects

Viewing Angle*(5.15)*


As you get further away from sitting dead center, you'll actually be viewing a lower maximum contrast ratio. Typically, LCDs are far less forgiving than plasmas in this regard, and typically dip below 50% contrast within 40°. Plasmas often don't drop below this marker until you're sitting close to the 180° mark.

We measured the LG 47LH90's viewing angle at about 24°. This is a pretty shallow viewing angle, but it's  about average for an LCD.

 

R**eflectance***(6.0)*


For this test, we shine an array of LEDs at the display to see how it reacts to a strong external light. We found the 47LH90's screen diffused the light into a large glow on the screen. We could still see the individual points of light in the array, but a lot of the detail was lost. The only downside was the glow took up a large portion of the screen. We noticed the TV's large bezel tended to catch the light, but we didn't think it was particularly distracting. 

 

Video Processing*(1.0)*


The LG 47LH90 has a handful of video processing features. None of them did anything particularly noteworthy, mainly because video processing features rarely do anything noteworthy.

 

Calibration

Calibration


[

](http://www.displaymate.com/)Your new HDTV won't come out of the box calibrated for general home use. Chances are, it'll be calibrated for the heavy fluorescence of an electronics store.

To ensure we're testing the TVs at their peak performance levels, we calibrate them before running any tests. Our calibrations rig utilizes a CS-200 ChromaMeter and DisplayMate. Below we've listed all the settings we fooled around with; if it isn't listed, we didn't bother with it. Some settings were disabled for all but a few specific tests, such as the 240Hz mode. We'll discuss such settings in the sections where we tested them.

Another factor to note: the settings below won't be ideal for your own viewing environment. If you really want your TV to be optimized, you'll have to hire a professional, who will bring his own CS-200 ChromaMeter and calibrate your TV to fit your own personal needs.

 

 

Video Modes


The LG 47LH90 has a handful of video modes for your perusal, although it isn't very specific on what they do. The modes you can choose from are Vivid, Standard, Natural, THX Cinema, Sport, and Game. Most of these modes have a certain TV-applicable connotations, but their specific function isn't listed on the TV or the manual. The TV offers no description, and the manual's explanations range from, 'optimizes video and audio for sports,' to 'optimizes video and audio for games.'

Remote Control

Ergonomics & Durability*(7.50)*


The LG 47LH90's remote is a long, thin plastic affair, full of large, colorful buttons. The remote felt well-balanced in hand, with thumb placed on the center of the d-pad. The remote is designed a bit differently from old LG remotes: the d-pad is located towards the bottom instead of the top. This actually puts more of the important buttons closer to the natural grip position. The remote is pretty light, but well-balanced and features a textured underside to help maintain grip.

Button Layout & Use*(6.75)*


The remote isn't bad overall, but its shape means you'll have to shift your grip a lot. The labeling is clear and easy to understand, but still hard to read when the remote is only illuminated by the remote's light. Fortunately, it's pretty easy to find the large volume and channel buttons without looking at the remote. The main issue here was we had to point the remote almost directly at the RF sensor on the TV in order to get it to respond. Sometimes the TV was a bit sluggish to register button presses, leading to doubled input and a sad sense of frustration. 

 

Programming & Flexibility*(1.0)*


The LG's remote can be used with other LG devices, using their proprietary SIMPLINK technology.

Connectivity

Input Ports*(7.5)*


The LG 47LH90 has a pretty good selection of input ports. It has four HDMI, two component video inputs, two composite video ins, four analog audio inputs, a VGA input, a 3.5mm audio in, and an RF input.

Here's a view of the side-facing ports.

 

Output Ports*(1.0)*


The only output port is an optical audio out.

 

Other Connections*(0.0)*


The TV has no internet connectivity or Bluetooth support.

 

Media*(1.0)*


There is a USB port on the TV, which will allow users to check out photos or listen to music.

 

Placement*(7.75)*


The ports have pretty good placement. They're close to the edge and clustered in the same general area, which is good, but they're also not placed a few inches further away from the edge than we would've liked. Fortunately this less-than-idea placement is counter-balanced somewhat by the TV's swiveling stand.

Audio & Menus

Audio Quality*(5.5)*


The 47LH90's speakers weren't bad. When the surround sound mode was off, the sound was a bit flat. It didn't have much bass and there just wasn't a lot of presence to the sound. Turning surround sound mode on gave a bit of depth to the overall sound, boosted bass quite a bit, and gave the high end better articulation. It didn't, however, do much to actually create a 'surround sound' experience.

Also, one of the 47LH90's selling points is its hidden speaker system, which, in addition to adding a marvelous aesthetic, supposedly delivers a wonderful aural experience. We didn't notice a significant difference between this and past LG TVs.

 

Menu Interface*(7.0)*


The 47LH90's menu system is fairly intuitive. Pressing the menu button will let you chose from one of eight different items. Selecting one will bring up a second screen, where the eight main items run down the left side and the selected menu is expanded to the right.

The menu system is very basic, but we really don't like the initial screen. Since you can tab through the main menu items in the second screen, there's really no functional benefit to the first screen other than to familiarize you with the icons. If the second menu screen had been larger and contained labels, they could have eliminated an otherwise superfluous round of navigation.

There's also a quick menu. This is presented like a rotary dial: left and right rotate the wheel of menu items, and up/down alter its settings. This is tehcnically quicker for changing certain items, but the rotation animation slows the process down a bit.

 

Manual*(4.5)*


The 47LH90's manual really isn't great. The only thing it does well is pictures, which are very detailed and employed frequently, if they are a bit small. The table of contents is very limited, there isn't an index (although there is a brief appendix), and the pages aren't tabbed. The font size is a bit on the small side as well.

The main complaint we had, however, is it really doesn't answer a lot of questions. The manual is really only good for setting up the TV, not explaining how to use its features. We aren't entirely sure what features like Eye Care and Edge Enhancer actually do.

Formats & Media

Formats*(10.0)*


The 47LH90 is a 1080p TV that supports 3:2 pulldown and 24p playback. It will be capable of playing back the highest quality HD content currently available.

 

Photo Playback*(3.50)*


The LG 47LH90 supports photo playback from a connected USB device. The interface involves a file browser view with the option for fullscreen view. There is no slideshow option, so you'll need to move between photos with the remote. You can have music from the USB drive play in the background.

 

Music & Video Playback*(2.50)*


The LG 47LH90 can also play back MP3 music files. The interface is similar to the one described above, wiht a file browser view and separate screen for playback. It's a very bare-bones implementation of the feature, but it'll get the job done.

 

Streaming Playback*(0.0)*


With no internet connectivity, the 47LH90 can't stream content.

 

Other Media*(0.0)*


There are no other media options available.

Power Consumption

Vs Vizio SV470XVT

Value Comparison Summary


The Vizio is a great little TV. It outperforms a lot of more expensive TVs, but lacks an impressive feature set. The 47LH90, had average to below-average results, as well as a localized backlight dim and a 240Hz mode.

Blacks & Whites


Though the black levels were similar, the LG was brighter, resulting in a higher overall contrast ratio.

 

Color Accuracy


The Vizio had a much more steady color temperature. The Vizio also had better color representation and a more accurate gamut.

 

 

 

Motion


Although the LG 47LH90 had more artifacting and blurring issues than the Vizio SV470XVT, they weren't significant.

 

Viewing Effects


The Vizio has a wider viewing angle.

 

Connectivity


The LG has a few more plugs than the Vizio, but nothing drastic. The one difference here is the LG's USB port, which will allow photo and music playback.

 

Other Comparisons


The LG also has a local dimming feature and a 240Hz playback mode, neither of which the Vizio have.

Vs Sony KDL 46VE5

Value Comparison Summary


The Sony outperformed the LG in a few key areas. It had deeper blacks, a higher contrast ratio, and a more even color temperature. The LG suffered from less blurring and artifacting. The LG is also slightly more expensive.

Blacks & Whites


The Sony had a much deeper black. Although the LG had a higher peak bright, the Sony managed the higher contrast ratio.

 

Color Accuracy


The Sony had a more even color temperature, and a more accurate color gamut. Both TVs had similar color representations.

 

 

 

Motion


The LG had less blur and artifacting than the Sony.

Viewing Effects


The Sony and LG had very similar viewing angles, neither of which were very good.

**

Connectivity**


Unless you love S-Video ports or Composite inputs, the two TVs had the same ports.

**
**

Vs Samsung UN46B7100

Value Comparison Summary


The Samsung is an LED-backlit LCD display, which, in today's TV market, means 'I am fancy and probably more expensive than I should be.' The Samsung did have a much deeper black level and higher overall contrast ratio. The two performed about the same on our motion and artifacting test.

Blacks & Whites


The Samsung had a much deeper black than the LG. THe LG was a bit brighter, but the Samsung still walked away with a better overall contrast ratio.

 

Color Accuracy


Both TVs had very similar color results, across the board. Consider them equivalents in the realm of color and the handling thereof.

 

 

 

Motion


Both TVs had very similar scores on these tests.

 

Viewing Effects


The Samsung and LG had nearly identical viewing angles.

 

Connectivity


The Samsung has 2 USBs to the LG's one, but The Samsung also has a poor total number of ports, due to its ultra-thin design.

Conclusion

 

 

Series Comparison

LH90 Series


The LH90 series features 240Hz playback and localized dimming. The TVs in this series also use their USB ports to view photos or listen to songs.

Meet the tester

Mark Brezinski

Mark Brezinski

Senior Writer

@markbrezinski

Mark Brezinski works on the Home Team, reviewing refrigerators, minifridges, dishwashers, washing machines, dryers, air conditioners, air purifiers, and fans.

See all of Mark Brezinski's reviews

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