HD PICTURE QUALITY. HD picture quality was very good. It did an excellent job displaying the fine detail of HD content though some added edge enhancement processing was noted, but wasn't distracting. Color accuracy was excellent, so colors, especially flesh tones, looked very natural and lifelike. Contrast—the difference between the darkest blacks and brightest whites—was good, so images had depth and dimension, typical of most models we test. The brightness level was good, making it a suitable choice for most rooms. The model had fairly deep black levels, just shy of the best models, which gave dark scenes better depth (though quality does degrade as you move to the sides - see viewing angle). There was visible banding (unnatural contours) on scenes with subtly shaded light-to-dark areas, such as a sky during sunset, rather than smooth transitions. Film mode operation for HD film-based content was excellent, with no visible jaggies along the edges of objects during motion scenes. Deinterlacing on the other hand was only good, with some jaggies visible when converting 1080i video content, such as from cable, to the display's native resolution.
VIEWING ANGLE. This LG has a narrow viewing angle overall, below-average performance among TVs for this attribute. Only those seated directly in front of the screen will see the best picture quality. When we viewed the TV from the sides image quality degraded significantly. The picture showed a strong loss of color, so flesh tones looked very washed out. Black levels visibly brightened, reducing contrast especially on dark scenes. When viewing the image from above or below eye level to the screen, the vertical viewing angle was very good. The picture showed minimal change in color, contrast, and black level.
