LG HB965TZ review

The Picasa interface is extremely polished and friendly. Slideshows were unfettered by animated loading icons and came with a choice of transition types, including none. It was quick to respond when flicking through photos manually. Friends’ galleries that were added using a computer appeared under the Favorites tab, but it was also possible to add them on the player simply by entering their Picasa log-in name.

There isn’t much to report about the AccuWeather service: seven-day forecasts are available for 68 UK towns and cities, and the interface is once again attractive and friendly. Panasonic and Samsung’s players offer a very similar service.

The player can access media on the home network via DLNA and Windows’ Shared Folders – when the player requests CIFS log-in details, just use your Windows username and password. Both methods were quick to browse large music collections but the players couldn’t play all of our DivX test files, despite claimed DivX support.

Photo slideshows over DLNA offered the same controls as in the Picasa browser plus the ability to select music to accompany slideshows. Photos tagged as portrait shape weren’t rotated, though. The HLB54S also exhibited our pet hate of loading icons between each photo.

There’s not a huge amount to LG’s network facilities, but in the HB965TZ’s case at least, this is a clear case of quality over quantity.

The four freestanding speakers look extremely smart and their sound quality is fantastic, with a balanced, detailed tone and a sense of air and clarity that other all-in-one systems we’ve tested simply can’t match. The subwoofer blended in seamlessly to give a full-bodied, focused bass that flattered both music and film soundtracks, and it coped superbly at high volumes. The centre speaker was disappointing, though, with a slight lack of warmth and precision. It wasn’t bad enough to spoil the package, though.

Sadly, the same can’t be said about the intermittent, faint whistling noises we heard coming from the speakers. They were quiet enough to be drowned out by all but the gentlest moments in film soundtracks, but we would still class this as an unacceptable fault. Reports on online forums show that we’re not the only ones to experience it.

LG provided us with a firmware update that was supposed to fix the problem, but after watching a film this whistling sound was still evident. We have been told that anyone with a faulty system can get it replaced as long as it’s still within the warranty period.

Given the fault on our review system we don’t feel as though this system can be given an award. It’s a shame, as we found the system otherwise excellent.