Heavyweight Clash

[getdownmonkeyma]

For those not able to grab a copy of What Hifi Sound and Vision quite rundown of how they fared:

Hitachi 32LD7200 - 4 Stars
JVC LT-32DS6 - 4 Stars
LG 32 LP1D - 3 Stars
Loewe Concept 32 - 5 Stars
Panasonic 32LXD500 - 5 Stars
Sagem HD-L32 - 4 Stars
Sony KDLV32A12U - 3 Stars
Toshiba 32WL56 - 5 Stars

Overall Winner was the Loewe, nothing to seperate that from the Panny, Loewe got 5 stars for everything Panny dropped only one star on the sound.

Tosh got an honourable mention, Sony got a bit of a slating, Hitachi and JVC got praised, but said they were no longer the best out there.

No Phillips os Sharp on test, strange.

 

[freekb]

Magazine test are like forum reports, ie. suspect.

Even if the magazine is not biased (ad-money, snobbery, reviewer-bias) then the manufacturer is likely to be cheating anyway. My father used to work for philips and when review/PR time came round they hand-picked TV-sets from the assembly line and their techs then went over it with a fine comb and tweaked them for top performance.

To give an example from other industries, the graphics card manufacturers are notorious for build optimisations in their drivers that will do great on the benchmarks run by reviewers, but actually do nothing in the real world.

Also, when I read a review in most mags, I get the impression that their 'tests' consist of watching a few scenes from a few movies. I wouldn't call that testing, that's just an opinion from a guy who spend probably not that much time with the set. Where's the benchmarks (tomshardware.com style), where's the geeky detailed test results, hey, I'd be happy if they even published a methodology and detailed scoring criteria.

Can anyone tell me what 4/5 for image quality means? Does it mean its excellent with DVD's but sucks on freeview? Or is average across the board? How much worse is 3/5 vs 4/5? Is that crap vs decent? Or is it really good and so-good joe public could never tell the difference?

I think that decent stores that let you demo/test/play with a set and sources are still the only way to go - you can't trust the rags, and the forums are an even bigger minefield, littered with fanboys, fringe-loonies/videoholics and clueless opinionated newbies.

 

[richard plumb]

The JVC over the last two issues has had huge amounts of praise lavished on it. It got best in class in last months magazine, was used in a 'HC rescue' and recommended all through the mag.


Then in this months issue it gets marked down for costing £2k! Well considering you can get one for less than the panasonic or Loewe, it seems a bit odd

 

[gilesme]

It always seems strange to me that they use list price.

You can get good discounts on some models, but not on others (e.g. Loewe).

Why don't they use the "froogle" price, or from some other search engine ?

Take the point about tweaking the demo sets - however if all manufacturers are up to the same stunt, it kind of levels the playing field ?

 

[TarMoo]

Magazine test are like forum reports, ie. suspect. .... you can't trust the rags, and the forums are an even bigger minefield, littered with fanboys, fringe-loonies/videoholics and clueless opinionated newbies.

I take it that your TV didn't come top in the test then

Most people use these reviews to select a short-list of purchase candidates and then make a final decision by viewing these. In the end it is each person's individual preference that counts - which is quite consistent with many people thinking that their particular TV is the 'best'.

 

[gilesme]

Let me guess - he has a LG 32LP1 LCD ?

 

[nogimmix]

Very surprised the Panasonic 32LXD500 beat the JVC as I've demoed both and the JVC just slightly beats the Panny, seems the blacks are a lot better.

My friend actually took his Panny back and changed it for a JVC after he viewed my TV. He also noticed some smearing when playing the Xbox (via Hi-Def).

 

[Mr_Fantastic]

I saw the Panasonic tonight in Comet, I didn't demo it or anything just looked at it. The picture was very good, excellent black level, far better than all the others. But what I found excellent was the fact that the blacks remained black when looked at from all angles. The majority of the other sets showed blue or red/magenta colours when viewed from anything but straight ahead. I didn't get the chance to check for smearing which is important as I think it is a failing of LCD technology. But so far I am impressed with the Panasonic but the price is a bit high for me. There were some JVC's but I wasn't impressed with them. The problem with Comet is that they don't put the model numbers on the sets so it is difficult knowing what you are looking at.
I had a quick look at the magazine article mentioned at the start of this thread but it is a pretty poor review, very bad indeed.

 

[Jakus]

It is so Sad and true that we are influenced by reviews and specifications

Reviewers are often by Toss..rs and specifications not standardised

Great...really great

 

[Raze]

It's interesting to see 'their' opinion, but thats all I see it as, an opinion.

I'd rather go out there and see the sets I'm interested in for myself.

I think (as I guess many of you do) magazine reviews no longer have the clout they used to. The best way is to go check the ones you think are good, out yourself. Unfortunately not many places let you demo kit side by side these days so as a consumer we're kind of stuck...

 

[Freelancer]

The JVC over the last two issues has had huge amounts of praise lavished on it. It got best in class in last months magazine, was used in a 'HC rescue' and recommended all through the mag.


Then in this months issue it gets marked down for costing £2k! Well considering you can get one for less than the panasonic or Loewe, it seems a bit odd

Yes, my thoughts exactly. Online you can get the JVC for almost HALF the original asking price. If it's 4 star for 2 grand, for just over 1 grand, does it make it an automatic 5 star?

All these variables give such a headache..

PS, i dislike mag reviews that just plainly rate for picture, sound, features (which they all do). They should start doing ratings and ranking systems for viewing the set with certain specific criteria: eg, sport, or console games, or for movies, for freeview or for analogue - things that everyday people will be using their set for - not an overall and general vague account.

 

[freekb]

Let me guess - he has a LG 32LP1 LCD ?

Doesn't take a genius to click on the view-all-posts-by-this-user link.
Yes, I've got the LG - and yes, it sucked in the reviewers opinion (or whatever 3/5 means).
Even if it got 5/5 it wouldn't change my views on test in mags. I could've just slated What Hifi and argued that Hifi-test in germany gave it a shared first place with the Hitachi 32LP7200, beating both the Tosh and Jvc. See here: http://www.testberichte.de/preisvergleich/level4_hifi_test_26565.html

What does that tell you? Is one of them lying, is one of them wrong, are they taking a different approach, are they attaching different weights to different aspects of the tv, did one of them get a somewhat defective model? Who knows - you just have to trust them on their word that they've done a good job at testing. It doesn't help that just about all the magazines publishing on the subject matter here in the UK are all owned by the same company given that publishing house an effective monopoly on guiding consumer influence in the UK. If that's not begging for exploitation by PR companies - I don't know what is.

I've been in similar arguments with a journo from Ride magazine about their kit-tests, bitching that their methodology, lack of published test data and all-in-one magic test-scores. And no - I didn't own any of the kit involved - I was just standing up for a guy who argued "pinch of salt".

My background and take on this is a scientific one. Unless you go about it with scientific rigour in providing both context and data on your tests, your conclusions are suspect.

The only magazine that I'll cut some slack on this - but still guilty is HCC - they do publish some figures and do muck around with calibration, etc.

 

[nick501]

Surely the main criteria for buying a TV is 'is the person who's paying for it happy with it?'

I reckon reviews are helpful only as a rough guide cos there are too many factors which will affect the tv's performance, eg source material, individual setting preference etc and of course, the opinion if the reviewer.

I bought a Tosh 27wl56 'blind' as it were, straight off the internet without really knowing anything about LCD's and what to look for.

I am really pleased with the TV, and if a reviewer gives it 1 'star' the PQ wouldn't suddenly get worse after the review or improve if they give it 5 'stars'

so if YOU are happy with your TV

 

[freekbear]

Who knows - you just have to trust them on their word that they've done a good job at testing.

And they can't even get the basics right: What Hifi Sound and Vision says it has detachable speakers (I'd like that very much) - I asked LG - here's what they said.

Also, What Hifi complains about noise in the image.... At least when the thing is hooked up to my PC and playing back movies the only noise present is noise present in the source (verified by using my Sony CRT as a reference).

Thorough job guys!

-----------Reply to Customer Enquiry------------
Thank you for your email. The speakers are integrated into the unit, we would not recommend that they are removed. The bar at the bottom is part of the main unit and can not be replaced by a smaller part. Removing the speakers could void your warranty. Yours sincerely LG Electronics UK Helpdesk

-----------Customer Details------------
[snipped]

-----------Original Customer Enquiry------------
Received Date : 04/10/2005 15:17:14
The type of inquiry : Installation & Connectivity
Product/Model No. : LCD TV/32 LP1D


Hi, I own an 32LP1D LCD TV and I read somewhere in a magazine that the speakers are detachable. Is that correct? If so, what is the effect on the warranty? If so, won't the metal bar at the bottom, that spans the width of the screen, be sticking out - or are there smaller replacement parts for that bar to make it look better? Regards, F.