LG 32LG3000 review

LG’s 32LG3000 is a 32in 720p LCD TV with a native 1,366×768 resolution, so we were surprised to see that it supported a 1080p 24p signal from our Blu-ray player.

At this resolution, though, the TV has to downscale the image to fit the TV’s native resolution. We noticed more natural movement in tracking in fast action scenes compared to Sony’s KDL-32V4000, which doesn’t support 24p. Contrast and colour accuracy were also good, although you’ll have to play with the image settings to get the best out of the 32LG3000. Settings can be a bit confusing, though, using obscure image-processing modes such as Fresh Contrast, Fresh Color, Eye Care and Film Mode. Most of these modes tended to make the image look overprocessed.

The Fresh Color mode made colours too saturated, and we preferred the more natural look with this setting turned off. The Eye Care and Film Mode options seemed to make no difference to image quality. Image quality from a DVD source suffered only mildly from ghosting, but otherwise it needed the same level of tweaking to get the best picture.

Although the TV has a dynamic contrast ratio of 15,000:1, we found that the Black level setting was turned off by default and contrast wasn’t impressive. Turning it to High made a huge difference. Connections to our PC via VGA and HDMI were both straightforward, with the clearest results obtained by setting Windows to display at the native 1,366×768 resolution. However, 1,920×1,080 was possible, and as long as we used the Just Scan aspect ratio option, the image fitted perfectly onscreen. The Game mode turned off a lot of image processing, and we found contrast was great and colours were natural.

Scanning for TV channels took two minutes for analogue and three for digital. The picture on Freeview was very smooth, almost to the point of being blurry, but colours were crisp and vibrant and with a little tweaking you can find the picture that suits you. The EPG was very clear, with six channels shown at once, and an option to switch between the normal timeline view and Now & Next. Bizarrely, selecting a channel doesn’t actually close the guide, so you have to do that manually.

The menus on the 32LG3000 are especially clear and use memorable graphics throughout to make things easier. When choosing an input, the ones that are connected are shown in a solid colour. There’s also a Quick Menu for basic tasks such as aspect ratio, picture mode and backlight level.

Although it supports 24p, we found the image quality on the 32LG3000 to be inferior to Sony’s KDL-32V4000, and the image-adjustment options focused on pre-set, strangely named processing options. The 32LG3000 has better support for PC connections, however, so if you need to plug your laptop into a TV, for example, the 32LG3000 would be a better choice. It’s a good all-round LCD TV, but the KDL-32V4000 is better value.