LG 47SL80 – Stylish energy-saver with poor performance

Thumbs Up:

LG SL80 series has good look with thin bezel. LG 47SL80 has 1.8-inch depth glossy glass, extensive picture controls with unique Picture Wizard and accurate color. It has four HDMI ports with PC input.

Thumbs Down:

LG SL80 is light on black levels. This panel does not separate anti-judder and anti-blur working. It does not deliver complete usage of 240Hz. The glossy screen tends to reflect the ambient light. The off-angle view is below average.

The Whiz Kid Speaks:

47-inch LG 47SL80 is a member of SL80 series by LG. It measures 43.7×1.8×27.1 inch and weighs 51.8 lbs without stand. The measurement comes to 43.7×11.3×29.6 inch and weighs up to 62.8 lbs with stand. The LCD display is based on S-IPS technology and has a resolution of 1920×1080 pixels. The display format is 1080p and the refresh rate is 240Hz. The LCD pixel response time is 2.2 ms.

LG 47SL80 is a full HD TV of 1080p display format. It has 16:9 image aspect ratio and 10-bit color depth. Both horizontal and vertical viewing angle is 178 degree. The display menu language is available in Spanish, English and French. The backlight life is 60,000 hours. The LG HD TV has V-chip control, HDCP compatibility, progressive scanning and composite video analog signal.

The digital TV tuner is ATSC and QAM, whereas the analog TV tuner is NTSC. The stereo reception system is MTS. LG 47SL80 also has secondary audio program, parental channel lock and closed caption capability.

The video interfaces are Composite, Component and HDMI. The input video formats are 1080/60p, 1080/30p, 1080/24p, 1080p, 1080i and 720p. LG 47SL80 has inbuilt 2× (10 watt) right/left channel speakers with stereo surround sound. The built-in decoders are Dolby Digital and the sound effect is SRS TruSurround XT. The audio controls are Balance, Treble and Bass. The additional sound features include invisible speaker system and auto-volume adjustment.

The connectors on panel include 1×Audio line-in (Mini-phone stereo 3.5 mm) – Rear , 1×Serial (nine-pin D-Sub)–Rear, 1×VGA input (15 pin HD D-Sub (HD-15))–Rear, 3×HDMI input (19 pin HDMI Type A)–Rear, 1×Digital audio output (optical) (TOSLINK)–Rear, 2×Audio line-in (RCA phono×2)–Rear, 2×HD component input (RCA phono×3)–Rear, 1×Component video input (RCA phono×3)–Rear, 1×Hi-Speed USB(four-pin USB Type A)–Side, 1×HDMI (19 pin HDMI Type A)–Side and 1×Composite video/audio input (RCA phono×3)–Side.

LG 47SL80 has functionality of VGA (HD-15) PC interface, digital photo playback and digital audio playback. The supported audio format is MP3, video format is DivX and picture format is JPEG. The 47SL80 has swivel stand measuring 200×200 mm.

LG 47SL80 flat-panel LCD TV is based on ISFCCC and EPA Energy Star complaint standards. The power consumption is 250 watt and idle standby/sleep power consumption is 0.36 Watt. LG is providing one-year parts-and-labor limited warranty on 47SL80.

Razzle Dazzle:

LG SL80 series has big size flat and thin panel LCD TV. Its main appeal is its minimalist and stark appearance that forecasts “all-picture” look, which is introduced at CES 2010 in models such as LE9500. Both the screen and slim black frame around it are fronted by same glass that extends up to all the edges of flat-panel. Whereas, dark gray strip at bottom edge gives some accent. The swivel stalk of the stand has stainless steel color to serve the purpose of providing impressive look to this stylish flat-panel.

Inside Dope:

LG has launched its SL80 series of thin-panel and slim-bezel models. The LG SL80 series has sleek, compact and stylish design. The HDTVs of this range are highlighted with glossy glass-screen on the front. The LG 47SL80 lacks extensive and interactive features as found on other TVs in same price range. Its picture quality is short and there are some blacks on picture, which are not deep. The glass screen of SL80 reflects ambient light. If you prefer a good design and can compromise on these issues, we will recommend you to go ahead for this panel.

LG has improved the remote for its high-end SL80 series. The remote has more spacious, backlit and logically grouped buttons. We appreciated that most of the functions had dedicated keys except that for aspect ratio. However, the similar shape and sizes of all the keys do not look good from ergonomic standpoint. You can press “Energy Saving” button to provide energy-saving graphics on the HDTV. The remote of LG 47SL80 is capable of controlling new gear through HDMI while the remotes of other TVs do not have such capability.

LG 47SL80 series has quite extensive menu system that has easy-access menu for sound modes, timer, picture, aspect ratio and other often used functions. The main menu is similar to that of previous models of last year. It has a new addition – Simple Manual that provides basic function and setup. We would like to see onscreen explanation of basic and advanced menu options.

LG 47SL80 lacks interactive and extensive features as found on LG LH50 models; however, its basic feature set is similar to that of LG LH55 series including 240Hz refresh rate to combat blur in motion. There are two forms of 240Hz refresh rate and LG employs “scanning backlight” form that augments usual technique of 120Hz to double 60 frames standard signal using a backlight. It flashes rapidly off and on to reduce the blurring in motion. Both Vizio and Toshiba employ this technique also. The other 240Hz technique to quadruple standard signal is used in the models of Samsung and Sony to provide better results than LG, Vizio and Toshiba.

The implementation of LG SL80 series for de-judder processing is quite similar to its previous 120Hz and 240Hz displays. If you select the option to reduce the blurring in motion, then SL80 series force you to only engage in smoothing the de-judder effect like previous models. The 2009 models of Toshiba and Samsung allows separation of these two options of 240Hz. The SL80 series offer two strengths of de-judder – Low and High. It also has separate “Real Cinema” option that works with 1080p/24.

LG SL80 series has picture controls that are similar to other LG TVs. Last year, LG has introduced some adjustments like Picture Wizard. This Wizard uses internal test patterns to assist you for selecting basic calibration controls for backlight, vertical and horizontal sharpness, tint, color, contrast and brightness. You can save these selected options in one of eight-Expert picture memory slots.

One independent input is associated for each picture memory slot. This group of Eight-expert slots has two slots for storing default settings. Intelligent Sensor is the ninth mode that sets picture-parameters and reacts to ambient light conditions accordingly. Even the non-expert modes has advanced controls including three-color temperature presets for noise reduction, dynamic color and contrast, black level control, standard and wide color spaces, three levels of gamma, edge enhancement and room lighting sensor. There is also an eye-care setting in non-expert mode that prevents the screen from being too bright. This setting is disabled in Cinema and Vivid modes.

Imaging Science Foundation expert modes has more controls. Our favorite control is 10-point white balance control to get accurate grayscale, which was introduced by LG last year. LG has added capabilities for internal test patterns, 2.2 gamma and color filters for red-only, green-only, and blue-only to set color balance. There is a full color management system on the tap. We like the facility to apply Expert-settings one at a time or to all inputs. Most of the settings will appeal HDTV geeks and pro-calibrators, but do not attract normal end-users. However, LG’s new models offer the complete package of user-menu picture adjustments.

LG has touted the efficiency of SL80 series. We found the same in our tests. LG has included both store-demo and home-use settings as per Energy Star 3.0. In addition, there are Energy Saving settings to reduce backlight that saves light output and consumed wattage. These settings will disable the standard backlight control.

The SL80 series does not have picture-in-picture option, but has various aspect-ratio controls including five modes for HD sources and four modes for standard-definition. There are two modes for adjustable zooms and one set-by-program mode to choose the aspect ratio setting automatically based on signal. There is also a Just-Scan mode with 1080p and 1080i to assure zero over-scan and proper 1:1 pixel ratio for SL80 series model having 1080p display.

The connectivity on SL80 series is extensive because of four HDMI ports – one at the side and three on the back. The back panel has an AV input with composite video, two-component video input, an RF input for cable or antenna, an RS-232 port for custom installation, an optical digital audio port and an RGB style analog PC input. The side panel has fourth HDMI port, a USB port and second AV input with composite video. The USB port is used for playing MP3 music files and displaying digital photos.  The only one connectivity component for S-video input is missing.

While testing LG SL80 series has provided good performance, numerous adjustment options, good video processing and superb color.  However, the glossy LCD screen tends to collect the ambient light worse than matte screen.

The picture setup of the LG SL80 series has accurate initial settings that include Expert controls and defaults in both Cinema and Expert modes. 10-point IRE system has helped to bring grayscale to extremely flat-level and ended up with similar flat gamma. LG SL80 series turned blue completely at 5% like other usual LCD TVs. However, primary and secondary colors were superb. In addition, the colors decoding was nice.

We played a movie “The Dark Knight” on Blu-ray disc on LG SL80 series with some LCD TVs like Samsung LN52B750, Sony KDL-52XBR9, Mitsubishi LT-46249, LG 47LH59 and Pioneer PRO-111FD plasma.

The shadow detail was good; however, the background details and black color appeared lighter than that of other displays. The difference between SL80 series and other LCD TVs was visible except LG LH50 that appeared a bit darker.

The LG SL80 series resolved 700-800 lines of motion-resolution in our test whether the TruMotion 240Hz was set to either High or Low mode. However, Sony and Samsung resolved 900-1000 lines while testing. LG 47SL80  registered 300-400 lines after disabling the LG’s processing that was a standard of 60Hz LCD TV. The motion blur seen in test patterns was difficult to notice in real environment. It is impossible to get better motion resolution of anti-blur effect without engaging de-judder processing.

The motion looked like video even in Low settings, which was equivalent of Standard on Samsung and Sony. The artifacts were not exceeding in Low mode, but they appeared more frequently in High mode. The amount of artifacts in SL80 series is more than that viewed on Samsung and Sony at their respective Smooth and High modes. We will recommend you to turn off TruMotion 240Hz while watching movies on LG 47SL80.

LG 47SL80 delivered completely de-interlaced video-based sources with every line of static-resolution. LG 47SL80 model displayed average uniformity on the screen with little dark areas around corners and edges, but it did not show backlight or bright spots. The off-angle view was completely washed-out on LG SL80 series, but not on Sony and Samsung. The glossy screen was showing the reflections of each bright object like lamps, windows and even bright cloth-and-accessories worn by us. However, the LG LH50 and Sony had better matte screen that did not reflect so much. LG SL80 series did not preserve black-levels in bright environment better than matte-models.

LG SL80 series delivered fine performance with standard-definition. LG 47SL80 resolved the every line of DVD-format. The noise reduction also worked well. LG 47SL80 worked well with computer sources and delivered every resolution-line from 1920×1080 pixels input with neither edge enhancement nor over-scan through both VGA and HDMI.

LG 47SL80 was efficient in default settings and scored average in bright picture as compared to other models. It worked better than plasma and non-LED based models.

Nitty Gritty:

The LG SL80 series has stylish look and energy saving features. However, the performance is poor. If you like the style more than performance, then you can go for this LCD TV.

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