LG RZ37LZ31 vs Samsung LE40R51B

Dan Gleebitz

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Been looking round Currys and Comet today and saw the LG RZ37LZ31 in all its HD glory. Wow, LG have certainly come along way in the last few years haven't they? Didn't they used to be a bit cheap and nasty?
I would say that the LG screens I saw today had the best quality picture I've ever seen.
At my local Currys they had the LG 32LX2R, the LG RZ37LZ31 and the top of the range £4000, 50" LG plasma all side-by-side and all running off of a HD feed.
The 32" had the sharpest picture and the colours were very bright and clean.
The 50" LG plasma had the most amazing picture I've ever seen. It was like looking out of the window. So life like and realistic. The picture wasn't as sharp and clean as the 32" but it just had that, "thing".
Now, the 37" was drifting somewhere between these two sets. Because it's an LCD it had a very sharp clean picture but it also had a lot more depth and realism like the 50" plasma.
The LG RZ37LZ31 is looking like the best telly within my £1500 price budget but there is just one thing standing in the way... The Samsung LE40R51B.
I am yet to see the 40" Samsung screen in "real life" and I've heard good and bad things about it. I've read the posts on here about the buzzing sounds made by this set and some of the others in the Samsung range. Plus I've also heard that picture quality, although clean and sharp, is lacking good contrast and colour depth (samsung 800:1, LG 1200:1).
Is it worth having a screen 3 iches bigger only to loose some picture quality or do you stick with a quite adequate 37" screen with slightly better picture quality.
Has anyone been lucky enough to compare these two sets side-by-side (with the same setup)? What was your opinion?
 
Not comapred but I have the 37" LG, I have Sky+ and a HD850 dvd player and the picture quality is excellent roll on HD
 
i understand the lg has only 1 scart connection. i am very interested in buying this set as i also saw it over thew weekend in currys with a HD feed and it was brilliant!! but worried as i want to hook up sky+, dvd player/recorder and a ps2/3. how would i be able to connect these 3 things? are the otyher connections as good as scart?
 
Deano70 said:
Not comapred but I have the 37" LG, I have Sky+ and a HD850 dvd player and the picture quality is excellent roll on HD

Hi Deano,

I really like this telly but still not sure about LG. I read somewhere that Philips' LCD panels are all made by LG, is this true? Why would someone spend so much more money on a Philips if they're technically the same?

Have you used your LG for any gaming e.g. Xbox, PC etc?
 
Dan only had the set 2 weeks and still not got round to plumbing in the PS2 but will post comments ASAP.
 
Dan Gleebitz said:
Hi Deano,
I really like this telly but still not sure about LG. I read somewhere that Philips' LCD panels are all made by LG, is this true? Why would someone spend so much more money on a Philips if they're technically the same?

There's a lot more to it than just the actual panel -- connectivity, electronics that are driving it, brand name etc.
 
Went to see the RZ37LZ31 again after work and there was no one around so I got to have a good play around with the settingc etc. That XD engine really does make a difference doesn't it?

I couldn't quite get it as sharp as the 32" version beside it, but then I took a couple of steps back and understood how these screens are suppose to be viewed. You shouldn't get too close to anything over 32" because the picture looks slightly fuzzy. Stand back a bit and the RZ37LZ31 looks stunning. I thought the picture looked far sharper and brighter than any of the 42" plasmas surrounding it.

Anouther question for Deano or anyone else with a 37" screen... They don't look 'massive' in the shops but these things never do. Just wondering if, when you got it home it seemed a lot bigger than when you saw it in the shop?
 
Compared to the 32" LCD I had it looks so much bigger and a hell of a lot nicer, footprint of the set is not too different but the extra inches around the screen really looks the biz images from my Sky + box are clean and crisp, no problems watching sport and dvd playback is excellent.
 
Im a little confused regarding PIP on this set so if someone has this or a LG with similar connections can you let me know how the setup of PIP works as i only seem to have 2 options for PIP RGB PC or DVI.
 
pip usually requires independent sources, so tuner, scart, pc, hdmi/dvi can usually be PIP'd together but say 2 channels on the tuner cannot as they both depend on the same input source so in-fact you would need 2 tuners to PIP BBC1 and BBC2 at the same time. Of course if you have freeview and analogue tuner you could PIP BBC1 and BBC2 at the same time, as they would be from different sources.

Any clearer?

Don't have an LG, so I don't know if that set is more restrictive on PIP options, but the 40" samsung does work in the way described above.
 
Ha as mud :D According to the oh not so well written manual i should be able to select sources from AV1 AV2 Component 1 Component 2 RGB PC or DVI but it appears i can only select the last two, knowing how this tv seems to work i think it may have something to do with AV1 being connected (still really can't give an answer to my theory but it's a hunch) or I could be just talking utter b****x, i :eek: may attempt to pop to currys and ask for some assistance in this matter.
 
Deano, maybe you can only select the PIP sources if you have something plugged into that port (if you see what I mean?). E.g you may have to have a DVD player connected to component 2 to be able to select it in the PIP settings. Just a thought...

Oh btw, don't expect Currys to be that helpful. :)
 
Ha not expecting anything from Currys did all my reasearch via the web then bought the set from them, got a good deal as my girlfriends parents wanted a set so we bought 2 and got £300 knocked off ea :D I have my RDXS32 connected to component 2 and the HD850 on DVI and sky running on AV1(scart) so i thought i would see something in the PIP menu, I have rang LG and got put through to there help desk they will ring me tonight once im in front of the t.v.
 
A bit more investigation last night i thinks its due to it's a analogue tuner, I connected my laptop to the PC input port and selected PIP and yup I now have the choice of selecting TV AV1 AV2 Component 1 Component 2 DVI , so it's looking like a single tuner................waste of space if you ask me i don't think I'll have my laptop connected to the set that often.
 

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