LG 42LE4600 Jazz LED Review

When LG first introduced the Jazz series LCD TV, it was clearly the best sounding LCD TV we had come across by miles. Although the sliding speakers were a bit gimmicky it was able to deliver the goods. Then later LG tried to rekindle the Jazz series with the Jazz Theater which boasted of nine speakers scattered across the rear. Amazingly, it sounded better than the older Jazz, the bass was a lot more pronounced and the highs and mids were clear with enough volume to easily fill a large hall in your home. It looked the part as well with cool LED lights on either sides of the TV.

Today, with all the LED hype that's around, first time buyers generally won't look at anything that's non-LED and in a way that's a smart thing too since the advantages of LED are pretty clear. The only way for LG to spruce new life into their older models is to infuse them with the LED tag and that's exactly what they've done to the Jazz. Today we have the 42LE4600 which is a 42-incher LED version of the Jazz series.

Design and Build

The exterior has gone through a makeover once again and this time LG has gone with a more contemporary design unlike the in-your-face look of the Jazz Theatre. This is not a bad thing, as the new design looks equally good with a glossy black bezel and red bit at the bottom. The backlighting is Edge LED and the panel is an IPS type, which means very good colors and viewing angles. The panel has a matt finish and isn't protected by any glass covering. The speakers are placed at the bottom of the TV and face downward, so they use the surface to disperse sound more evenly. Other features include 100Hz refresh rate, DivX HD Plus through USB and four speakers (10W RMS x2, 13W RMS x 2) plus a sub woofer hidden in the stand.

A good set of connectors fill the rear of the TV. There are plenty of HDMI and other analogue connections for all your devices. There is no LAN port, which means no DLNA or internet apps.

The woofer is placed in a stand with vents facing the sides and the rear. The silver bit in the front is just decorative and is not a vent. The Jazz Theater had two woofers facing the wall in the rear of the TV which gave it the extra punch. Let's see how this arrangement favors the Jazz LED. 

Performance

Regular cable TV is watchable provided you sit at a good distance. The LE4600 is able to produce very good colors and has good brightness levels. The menu system makes it very easy to adjust the picture to suit your liking. The noise reduction feature helps a little as well but we've seen better. There is no ghosting or trailing issues over here, action sequences are rendered well. The edge enhancement is best turned off, as it causes a lot of aliasing in the picture. TruMotion works but not as well as Samsung's implementation of it. Overall the picture quality is good but not as great as LG's higher end models.

The buttons on the TV are placed on the rear with the labels placed in the front. The remote has well spaced buttons that are large and easy to operate. We feel it's a bit too long though and if you hold it in the center you can't reach the USB controls at the bottom. If you grip it further down then the volume controls are out of reach. LG has added a new option on the remote and called it 'Cricket', which essentially changes the video and sound mode together. This is nothing but the 'Sport' just renamed for Indian audiences.

USB Playback

The USB port supports NTFS hard drives so large portable storage is not a problem. We plugged in our 500GB Seagate GoFlex and set to work. The music player lets you select basic playback modes like Shuffle and Repeat. You can also change the sound mode here. 1080p video playback is a breeze as well, MKV, AVI, MOV, etc all playback perfectly well without any glitch. Black levels are good without any noticeable bleeding.
 
Sound quality is mixed bag

The Jazz Theatre set a sort of benchmark for TV speakers and this LED version had some big shoes to fill. The overall sound is loud and clear and certainly a notch above most LED TVs in the market. I still feel the Jazz Theatre had better definition to the sound and it could handle almost any music without buckling. The Jazz LED wasn't able to handle the deep bass and varying sounds in Tron Legacy. In 'Cinema' sound mode, the sound gets garbled during action sequences. Switching to 'Standard' mode helps a little but if you listen closely, you can still hear the slight distortion. The satellites are otherwise very clear, reproducing rich vocals and mids, it's the lower end that takes a beating.  

Pricing and Verdict

LG has priced the Jazz LED 42LE4600 at an MRP of Rs. 83,990 while the street price should be closer to Rs. 77,000. We feel this is still a bit expensive and needs to drop to around 55-60K for it to be considered a good buy. The LE4600 is a very good TV as far as picture quality is concerned. The lack of the glass covering on the panel makes the colors pop a little less, but it's not a deal breaker by any means.

DivX HD playback is certainly a big feather in LG's hat and we are glad to see that feature being implemented in their lower end TVs as well. Finally coming to the sound, which is the whole showcase of the Jazz series, it's certainly better than most TVs in the market but sadly is not as great as their earlier Jazz Theatre series.

The sound is loud and clear for the most part but there is some amount of noticeable distortion when there is a heavy use of lower frequencies. With its current pricing, it's a bit on the expensive side considering it doesn't have any DLNA feature. It would be a good buy for around 55-60K.