Bought LG 42PQ60R plasma

WHATSINANAME

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Hi,

After much research on this and other forums I finally bought the LG 42PQ60R plasma. I had almost decided on the PV8 but after a side-by side comparison with the PQ60 I went for the LG.

There were a few reasons for my choice:

1.
First and foremost, was the side-by-side compario, as mentioned above. This was at Sony Mony Electronics at Andheri W in Mumbai. Frankly the PQ on this set looked better to me than everything else in the store including the LCDs.

(Interesting thing happened while I was there. The price tag on the set was 44,120 and another customer asked a sales rep there how could an LCD be so cheap? And the rep got very hot and bothered, said there must be some mistake and took out the tag!! It was only when the senior sales guy there told him it was a plasma did he put the tag back. Seems this model only arrived in the store a day or so ago. It was not on display at any of the other stores I checked, though the PV8 was everywhere.)

2.
The USB port plays MP3's, JPEG's, Divx, Xvid, Avi and MPeG. (In fact this is the only major difference between this and the PQ30, whose USB port only plays Mp3 and Jpeg, so for a 1000 or so bucks more, better to go for the PQ60 {there is another difference - PQ30 has one less HDMI port}).

I took some downloaded movies from my computer to the TV, and it played them pretty well. I also downloaded a short HD clip to test it out, but the USB port won't play HD content - only SD.

3.
The reviews were pretty good on the international sites (in some countries the PQ60 is called the PQ6000) Cnet.uk gives a rating of 8.6 on 10. Apart from the critics even some people on avforums seemed to like this better than the Pana PZ800) The review on tech2, however, did not like the PQ60, mainly coz of the black levels. The reviewer does not mention that there is a setting where you can set just the black level to high or low.

4.
This pulls only 200W of power compared to 335W on the PV8 and 380W on the slightly older LG PG61UR. So this means a lot less electricity consumed, and a lot more eco-friendly as well.

5.
Aesthetically this set looks a lot better. The edge to edge glass is nice, though I don't know why some people were saying that when the TV is off you can't tell where the screen ends and the bezel begins. It's all too obvious - the bezel is black and the screen is gray!

You can't see the speakers - they are downward facing. I was not too impressed with the audio quality, but since I am attaching external speakers that is not a big issue. It does however have a feature called clear voice II - to hear the dialog better in movies.

It's also thinner - 76.8mm vs 92.5mm for the pv8.

6.
The LG service - I've had products from all of the electronic brands over the years and frankly the Korean cos beat everyone in this area by a gigantic margin. After sales from the indian cos like Videocon etc is PATHETIC, and the Jap cos do only a little better. I have a LG washing machine and a Samsung fridge, and the service on both has been really good. The Samsung guys even changed the door on the fridge TWICE - just because it had a teeny-weeny scratch on it!! I also have a Hyundai car and even here the Korean service ethic shines.

7.
The price - now I heard all kinds of prices quoted for the PQ60 - 55k at Ezone, Oberoi mall even though the LG website itself mentions the MRP as 49990. The sales person there initially didn't even know there was such a model.

Vijay sales, Borivali said the PQ60 was not available, but the PQ30 would be arriving for display in two days time. Vijay Sales, The Hub had a PQ30 on display for 46k, but both said they would not be stocking the PQ60. Croma Malad said they had already sold their stock of PQ60's and would not be ordering more! Strange, since this model has only launched in March-April 09.

Most other places did not even know there was such a model, and I heard the usual 'plasma is a dead tech, so we don't stock' line quite a few times. In fact overall I'm amazed at how generally ignorant the sales guys are at even the big mass retail outlets, and they expect the customer to be even more clueless than they are, to swallow some of the stuff they dish out! At one place I saw a '1080p Full HD' sticker pasted on top of a set, even though the graphic embossed on the set itself - JUST BELOW the sticker - said it was only HD ready!

Finally I saw a PQ60 on display at Sony Mony, right alongside a pv8. The tag said they were offering a discount on the list price of 49k, which came to 44,120. Exchanging my old 29"CRT would take it down by a further 3k, bringing it to 41,120. Now they have a Summer Fiesta or something going on, which means they give everyone a scratch card with further discounts of upto 51%! The sales guy said you will probably get 3to5 percent off on the scrach card, which will bring the price below 40k. That was the clincher. I took a scratch card, got a further 5% off, and finally paid Rs. 39000 for the set. At first they kept saying they will only deliver the next day, but after some persuasion they agreed to deliver on the same day. I paid at about 6.30pm, and they delivered by 9pm as promised.

So far I am quite happy with the features and PQ, though I have set everything to low for the run-in period.
 
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:thumbsup: Congrats on the buy and Thanks for the initial review. Yes, the 2009 LG plasma models look to be impressive with lower power consumption. Pls post some pics and a review after using it.
 
congrats, the PQ60 has got good reviews and is said to be comparable to the panasonics and the samsungs, and this seems like a very good price. Enjoy the viewing :), and welcome to the plasma family.
 
Congrats friend on your new buy, do post some pics pls. I am also planning to go for a LG plasma very soon.... I heard from somewhere that Plasma TVs will perform better when it completes 100 hours of running.. is this correct?
 
they are more resistant to image retention and burn-in after 100 hours or so ....pure performance should not see any difference....

Congrats friend on your new buy, do post some pics pls. I am also planning to go for a LG plasma very soon.... I heard from somewhere that Plasma TVs will perform better when it completes 100 hours of running.. is this correct?
 
:clapping::clapping::clapping:
Congrats from other LG owner 9 I've 42 inch Full HD LCD & Microwave frm LG
What you say about service is spot on. Post purchase LG started calling me for installation. the timing was fixed and their service engineer came 15 minuts BEFORE agreed time. A courteous guy tried to help me with AV and laptop connections.

Also I received a post installation call wheter I am satisfied or not. I was of course satisfied but there was some miscommunication - so the same engineer called me PERSONALLY to check.

In case of my microwave to AFTER the warentee period their was a failure due to power fluctuation in Vashi. The service person arrived on agreed time , carried possible replacement parts and when he realised that different part has gone he got that part on agreed time.

Now this is what I called a good service!!

Wish you happy viewing!!!:clapping::clapping::clapping:
 
:thumbsup: Congrats on the buy and Thanks for the initial review. Yes, the 2009 LG plasma models look to be impressive with lower power consumption. Pls post some pics and a review after using it.

congrats, the PQ60 has got good reviews and is said to be comparable to the panasonics and the samsungs, and this seems like a very good price. Enjoy the viewing :), and welcome to the plasma family.

Congrats friend on your new buy, do post some pics pls. I am also planning to go for a LG plasma very soon.... I heard from somewhere that Plasma TVs will perform better when it completes 100 hours of running.. is this correct?

Like psychotropic said, it won't perform better, it's just that you'll be taking out a little insurance against image retention and burn in. Though I have to mention that the LG guy who came for the demo today said there is no such thing as a run-in required. I'll err on the safe side in any case, and moreover I'll probably run through 100 hours in a week.

:clapping:
Congrats from other LG owner 9 I've 42 inch Full HD LCD & Microwave frm LG
What you say about service is spot on. Post purchase LG started calling me for installation. the timing was fixed and their service engineer came 15 minuts BEFORE agreed time. A courteous guy tried to help me with AV and laptop connections.

Also I received a post installation call wheter I am satisfied or not. I was of course satisfied but there was some miscommunication - so the same engineer called me PERSONALLY to check.

In case of my microwave to AFTER the warentee period their was a failure due to power fluctuation in Vashi. The service person arrived on agreed time , carried possible replacement parts and when he realised that different part has gone he got that part on agreed time.

Now this is what I called a good service!!

Wish you happy viewing!!!:clapping:

Thank you all (including anm, reju & suprateep). I've had the set for only 3 days now. I'll post a more detailed review after I've done the run in of a 100 hours.

I saw my first DVD on it today, and the blacks in the picture looked really fantastic! It was a dark movie anyway (content-wise) comprising mostly grays and blacks (cinematography-wise), and the blacks looked inky and rich. To be fair I'm comparing this mostly against the CRT I had earlier and what I remember of the LCD's and plasmas I saw in stores.

However the black bands on the top and bottom on some channels do look a little grayish (I zoomed them out in any case, since supposedly you have to be careful with these black bands during run-in) But if you see the black bands across the top and bottom and think becoz they look gray that the black levels are not good, you think too soon. Take time to view the black levels within the picture.

There is some pixelation on text if viewed from less than 5-6 feet. Maybe its something to do with my eyes or becoz of the low contrast, brightness settings its on currently, but the pixelation is most apparent when the text is in red!

I was really scared about the IR issues with older LG plasmas (lots of horror stories around the internet:eek:) and was keeping an eye peeled, but am pleased to report no issues so far. :yahoo: There is also no trace of image tracking even with the bouncing "No Signal" logo on a black screen.

BTW is there a way (besides guessimating) to find out the number of hours the TV has been viewed?

I've seen on this forum that there are some codes given for other brands, can someone tell me the code for LG plasmas? Or is there a different code for different models?

EDIT:
To answer my own question - and this might save some of you a couple hours searching through the internet! - the way to find out hours viewed is:

The total hours used figure can be obtained by accessing the hidden service menu.

PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK

Hold down the menu button on both the remote control and the TV. After about 5 seconds or so

Input password will appear. Release both menu buttons and input 0000 as the password.
The service menu will now appear. The hours used is the number following UTT.
Press return to exit the Service Menu.

DO NOT ALTER ANY SETTINGS WHILE IN THE SERVICE MENU UNLESS YOU REALLY KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING AND

ACCEPT THAT YOU COULD DAMAGE YOUR TV

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

I have tried this and the UTT showed 66 hours used. Now I was expecting this to be around 25-30 hours or so! Don't know if the testing time at the factory is included in this figure.
 
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Hi,

congrats on your purchase...
I am also planning to buy LG42PQ30 or PQ60, but it's not available in stock in bangalore. No idea why they are not stocking a new model like this. May be demand for plasma is very less :(

One dealer in hosur gave me a quote of 37500 for PQ30, but he is also not having stock or not able to tell when he can get it..

BTW, can you post some pictures of ur plasma here or in web albums ? i really appreciate it if u wud do that..
\
cheers
vinay..
 
Hi,

Vijay sales, Borivali said the PQ60 was not available, but the PQ30 would be arriving for display in two days time. Vijay Sales, The Hub had a PQ30 on display for 46k, but both said they would not be stocking the PQ60. Croma Malad said they had already sold their stock of PQ60's and would not be ordering more! Strange, since this model has only launched in March-April 09.

Hey,
how do you compare LG PQ30 Vs LG PQ60? Can I have your opinion on LG PQ30. I am also planing to buy plasma. Thanks in advance.
 
Hey,
how do you compare LG PQ30 Vs LG PQ60? Can I have your opinion on LG PQ30. I am also planing to buy plasma. Thanks in advance.

There are very minor differences.
1. The USB port on PQ60 plays xvid, divx, mpeg, avi video files, apart from Jpeg and mp3. On the PQ30 the USB port will only play Jpeg photos and mp3 music files.
2. PQ30 does not have the edge-to-edge front glass treatment (purely cosmetic)
3. PQ30 has one less HDMI and one less composite input.

If you have a USB drive on your DVD player that plays video files, or you're not going to use this feature at all, you can go for the PQ30. I think very few people have need for 3 HDMI ports at this time.

An interesting thing is that there are a few people on AVforums who have hacked the PQ30 to play video files through the USB port, so this advantage of the PQ60 is negated!! But this involves going into the service menu, so it is not advisable.

If you are planning to buy a plasma, I would say the three main choices among the 2009 models are - Panasonic x10 (launching soon), LG PQ60/PQ30, and the Samsung B450.
 
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