It’s been over a year that I’ve been contemplating buying a new TV to replace the 14″ Panasonic Sophia CRT TV in my bedroom. I mean the situation was so bad, I had to literally sit not more than 4 feet from the TV to make sense of what is displayed.

Sample Image thanks to Google. The TV in this picture is 21". I had a 14" TV

It was so bad that the laptop I am using ‘Dell D620′ has got a 14″ wide screen

When I buy gadgets, I make sure it is future-proof by ATLEAST 3 years, so going for another CRT TV was totally out of the question. Plasma TVs start at 42″, which was again too much for my viewing distance of 8 feet.

With my viewing distance of 8 feet, I decided on buying a 32″ LCD panel (Calculated the ideal panel size per viewing distance here)

Had lots of options to choose from, Samsung, Sony, Panasonic, LG, Toshiba, etc. The list is endless.

Sony was too expensive

Samsung was equally expensive – No goodies

Panasonic was too crappy – Picture quality on DVD was bad

Same goes for the Toshiba

LG was my final choice – A well known brand, good customer support (though a tad expensive, but the after-sales is good, per personal experience), relatively cheaper parts, etc.

Next was the decision on the FULL HD or a HD READY TV (Full HD = 1080p; HD Ready = 720p) – Neither really mattered to me since we have Standard Definition signals in India, and no matter how expensive the TV would be, the picture quality on regular cable will be shitty. No second word on that.

My priorities on the decision were:

1. Should fall inside my budget of Rs 35000

2. Should have USB connectivity in the TV supporting DivX formats

3. Freebies ! (who doesn’t like them ?)

4. Respectable sound (Since buying an external home theatre system would overshoot my budget)

After a LOT of R&D (and trust me, a LOT), I decided on getting the LG 32LH80FR (Commonly known as LG Jazz Full HD). It was falling under my budget, had the features and since it was Dassera festival time, there were good deals floating in the newspapers.

LG Jazz - LG 32LH80FR

The prices as of 4-Oct-2009 were as follows from different vendors

1. eZone – Rs. 37500 (No freebies)

2. Croma – Rs. 35500 (No freebies)

3. Reliance Digital – Rs. 42000 (No freebies)

4. Jumbo Electronics – Rs 46000 (No freebies)

5. Vijay Sales – Rs 34,000 (With free LG DV388 DVD Player with USB-DivX support)

Guess which one I chose ?

I picked up the TV from Vijay Sales at Palm Beach Galleria Mall in Vashi for Rs. 34,000 – Since they did not have the DVD player in stock, they promised they will arrange for one this week. Payment was done via EMI with Bajaj Finance, who honestly, have the lousiest ‘customer care’ representatives. Formalities took over an hour to finish and I reached home at 11 pm. Obviously I could not wait to hook up the TV, so I got started off (After the awesome unboxing experience). Took me about 20 minutes to get the TV up and running (All you need is a Philips screwdriver – Would recommend a magnetic one since the screws are quite long)

Unboxing pictures:

LG Jazz Unboxing - Box - Front

LG Jazz - Unboxing - Side

LG Jazz Unboxing - Contents

The contents of the box are as follows:

1. LG 32LH80FR TV (well, like, DUHH !)

2. Base Stand

3. Bracket connecting the TV and the base stand

4. Wall mounting bracket (Not applicable for me, though I did get one)

5. Remote control with 2 AAA Batteries

6. Power Cord

7. Content CD (Haven’t checked what it contains’

8. 8 Screws in total for Base Stand and Bracket

9. Anti-Static wiping cloth (Did they pick it up from Apple ?)

10. User Guide and Warranty card

So, to sum it all up:

Pros:

1. Matte finish screen

2. USB Connectivity with DivX, Audio and Image file playback (AVI for the people who dont know rat about DivX) in the TV

3. Decent Sound quality (It has a woofer at the back, 2 speakers at the side and 1 at the front-bottom of the TV)

4. LOTS of connectivity slots (HDMI, Composite, etc)

5. Absolutely BRILLIANT quality when watching movies over USB

6. The very fact that I have my own LCD TV ! (Shouldn’t this be number 1 on the list ?)

7. Future proof (This one is a FULL HD)

Cons:

1. Wobbly stand (but I can live with it)

2. The remote control is tall as hell ! (I guess every LCD TV now ship with long-ass remotes)

3. Quality loss in SD Signals (regular cable TV for the rest)

I will be posting an extensive review of this TV in a couple of weeks.

Feel free to drop in your comments!