LG 50PG6000 review

We admired this TV a while ago, noting its style and substance, as well as the head-scratchingly low price.

We're pleased to report that little has changed. Despite fresh competition from a plethora of familiar names, this plasma TV has fought hard to hold on to its four-star verdict.

There is one surprise on the inside: it's a 1366 x 768 resolution HD Ready panel. It is, however, capable of displaying 1080p/24fps HD content.

It has an impressive - and unique in this test - four HDMI inputs, plus a USB 2.0 connection, 100Hz picture processing and a digital Freeview tuner.

And all told, it does plenty of very nice things with all this technology. Watching off-air broadcasts first, the picture, while not completely free from noise, is in fact comparatively clean and sharp in this company.

Motion is handled smoothly enough and detail levels are decent too, especially considering once again that low price tag.

Impressive with DVD
We switch to video and enjoy the DVD of There Will Be Blood and again we're suitably impressed. The colour balance is good, with strong colours under-pinned by solid black levels - typical plasma strengths.

Insight is fine too, with a reasonable attention to detail with the withered faces on display, while motion is again fairly smooth if not completely free of judder when really pushed.

As we would expect, sending a 1080p/24fps high definition video to the LG only serves to up the level of performance.

Jumper may not be much of a film but the special effects serve to make the disc a decent one for our purposes and the LG demonstrates plenty of punch and sparkle when required, while delving up admirable detail in both light and dark scenes.

If your budget is tight, you could do a lot worse than investigate this solid all-rounder that's easy on the eye, and the bank balance.