Gadgetory

hi David Katz Meyer here with CNET and this is the LG la 8600 this is a 55 inch LED LCD TV there's also a 6 th member of the series which is LG's best for 2013 that's neither 4k nor OLED it's a standard 1080p LED TV with all the bells and whistles the LG can throw this year one of the coolest bells and whistles is something Savelle on step down LG's as well that's the remote control LG's remote is sort of like a Nintendo Wii controller and that you kind of wave it at the screen you can have the cursor move around this here has been improved and I found it more precise than ever it's excellent for moving around the menus navigating a whole bunch of icons even using the web browser and it works with pretty much everything although there's some apps that are not supported but majority of them are LG smart TV suites also been improved this year to include the ability to show you live current television programming that's right you put in your zip code and your cable or satellite provider and it'll show you upcoming TV shows I will also allow you to sort those shows and show a bunch of different thumbnails at once you can sort of by genre as well as whether they're SD or HD and all totally found the system worked really well it's such a little bit better than Samsung similar system this year it's called on TV on the LG and it's available on this 8600 as well as a couple of other step-down TVs but not every smart LG TV TV also builds in cable box control so when you select one of those programs that change the channel on your cable box you can also call it the virtual remote again it's pretty easy to use that virtual remote when you use the motion control systems you can reach those buttons on the remote pretty easily compared to a system where I have to drive around like Samsung's and try to activate those buttons using a standard cursor arrangement all told however I did appreciate using a standard universal remote a little bit better than this one especially for heavy DVR users other features on this LG include a pop up camera it's really only for Skype however Skype is included as one of the apps but Stevie doesn't support the gesture control and facial recognition found on Samsung's high-end camera equipped television one of the real strengths of the LA 8600 is external design this is one of the nicest looking TVs on the market the edge around the screen is extremely thin it's got a little silver trim here there's also a little thicker area along the bottom the stand is really slick looking - it doesn't allow it to swivel but the U shape is pretty distinctive and it gets the nice and high although it's not quite as low-profile and aggressive looking as some of the other TVs out there of course as an LED TV it's also really sliver thin when seen from the side around back there's four HDMI ports as well as three USB ports and a couple of her visions for analog LG's also known for its passive 3d system as TV includes four pairs of the lighter unpowered glasses that are really comfortable to wear the main downside on the 8600 is picture quality in 2d it just doesn't measure up to the high price the TV's black levels are a little bit lighter and less realistic than some of the other high-end TVs on the market there's also a couple of hot spots on the screen so picture uniformity isn't quite up to snuff on the other hand the color accuracy is excellent a video processing is very good but despite those strengths the picture quality 8600 isn't quite as lovely to expect for its high price that's a quick look at LG's la 8600 series LED based LCD I'm David Katz my receipt