Featured Television Reviews

While the 55", 4k, glasses-free 3d, back lit LED display stole the show, Toshiba is looking to catch the attention of those without $10,000 burning a hole in their pocket with their new LED lineup. The edge lit displays should impress with their thin profile, the back lit LED with its deep blacks, and the new Aero Family aesthetics and Audyssey Sound Enhancement features should give consumers reason enough to give Toshiba another look. While none of the features of the LED line up are all that spectacular (120Hz, no 3d, etc.), if the prices are right, they may be big sellers. We'll have a wait a few months to find out.

LG finally jumped into the Google TV bandwagon at CES 2012, bringing the familiarity of Google's Android OS to the convenience and tiled interface of its 3D and Smart TVs. Together, the combination offers consumers a new and attractive home entertainment option, not to mention a ton of streaming media and online content options. Possibly the nicest aspect of LG's implementation of Google TV is the mixing of its Android-based user interface with the Magic Remote Qwerty. LG's Google TV user interface and main screen have been designed for convenient browsing and content selection and the latest iteration allows for multitasking, so search, social networking and TV functions can be run simultaneously. The user interface can be directly accessed using the Magic Remote Qwerty which, as the name implies, combines the user-friendly benefits of LG’s Magic Remote with a QWERTY keyboard.

LG Electronics is touting its new Cinema Screen design at the 2012 CES and it is, in a word: fabulous. I don't think I've ever used that word in a sentence before, but I don't know how else to describe a 1mm thin bezel that truly gives a flat panel LED backlit TV the appearance of a true edge-to-edge display. This is something really new and it's got people all riled up and really interested. What's really exciting is that several of LG's high end 2012 Cinema Screen Smart TV models are going to look like this. In fact, so far there are three models that include the 1mm thin bezel, but more are certain to come. All of these TVs are 3D and the company has also released new Cinema 3D glasses for 2012. There are three models and they are 20 percent lighter than previous Iterations. Now if only they could "lighten" the obligatory 3D headaches...

LG Electronics unveiled "the future of home entertainment" - and you know what, we'd have to agree. I know, OLED has been rearing its head for years, but both LG and Samsung have all but promised large-format models that will come out this year. The 2012 CES was where LG chose to reveal (literally at the very end of their press event) their new 55EM9600 55-inch OLED HDTV. The new TV is incredibly thin - just 4mm, in fact and is powered by LG’s TRIPLE XD Engine. Picture quality has been pretty advanced with LED backlit TVs - and it's only been getting better, but OLED ups the ante, with self-lighted organic pixels. This means that OLED TVs can exhibit precise color, absolute contrast and blazing clarity. LG gives the 55EM9600 OLED TV a contrast ratio of over 100,000,000:1, claiming it is fifty times greater than that of LED/LCD display panels. Honestly, the point is that the pixels, when of are, well... OFF. So the contrast ration is actually infinite - in which case they might as say the ratio is a google-to-one (I mean, why not?)

OLED is here... well, almost here. Samsung and LG have both released new OLED televisions. Of course, since LG released OLED, Samsung has released/announced "Super OLED". That's super better than plain-old OLED, we suppose. The OLED TV will be produced from a single pane of glass and uses Samsung’s Super OLED technology to deliver the ultimate in picture quality and thinness. And it is super thin - just around 1/4" thin at it's smallest point. In all seriousness, there is an element to the "Super" designation in Super OLED. Samsung's version has apparently eliminated the need for a color filter as the OLED pixel unit comprises self-emitting RGB sub-pixels laid directly on the display panel.

For the past few years we've started asking ourselves "What's important in a TV?" Is it the black levels? How thin it is? Color accuracy? Media streaming? Apps? I mean, what is it that people look for in a new flat panel? And more importantly, what should YOU look for? Well, honestly we can't answer the question. Some want one thing over another, but some people want it all. And I guess that's what Samsung had in mind with its new D8000 Series plasma TVs. It really does seem to have it all. The TV is first and foremost, a plasma - so it's got excellent black levels. But Samsung also figured out a way to make it incredibly thin. The TV is 1-1/2" at its thickest point, but most of the TV is right around 1". For a plasma this is incredibly impressive - it's kinda like a supermodel.

Most of the television antenna's we've installed in the past few years have been larger outdoor units, set up specifically to capture all of the available stations in our local area. Where we live, smack dab between two major cities, we don't have the easy access to broadcast towers enjoyed by people who happen to live in the cities where these signals originate. Now, when Antennas Direct claimed to have developed a new Clearstream indoor model that was capable of hitting some pretty impressive numbers, well that was rather difficult to imagine. So, with our interest piqued, we grabbed it and hooked it up.

Silicon Image took some time at CEDIA, through manufacturing partner DVDO and others, to show off its latest innovation: InstaPrevue. This technology will be featured in Silicon Image digital TV (DTV) and audio/video receiver (AVR) port processors and provides a real-time picture-in-picture preview of what is happening on every HDMI input connected to a television or A/V receiver. That means that rather than cycling through inputs or scrolling through an ambiguous numbered list of inputs, users can now see what's actually connected to their TVs in real-time. Using this "live preview" they can select the correct input desired, be it a Blu-ray Disc player, set-top box, game console, media player or any other device connected via HDMI.

Pioneer did an excellent and convincing demo of their new Elite PRO-X5FD series LED backlit TVs in 60" & 70" sizes. Pioneer is (openly) partnering with Sharp and these new TVs make use of the company's 10th generation LCD panels. They were awarded both 2D and 3D THX certification (meaning they paid money to THX and got some tweaks and a logo). The new televisions include Smart TV functionality with Netflix, VUDU, Blockbuster (yeah, they'll be around long!), Skype and more (there was no mention as to the methodology for acquiring a compatible camera). The demo placed a lot of emphasis on black levels and contrast ratio - both of which were designed to specifically take on and surpass the Kuro look, which was the starting point for these TVs. The Kuro was the best TV I'd ever seen. These TVs were very bit as good as I remembered those being.