Huge screen, very sharp, beautiful 4K pictures, slim bezel
Huge price tag, not great with less-than-HD material, very little 4K content currently available to justify the price
Unlike most things in the electronics industry, when it comes to TVs, bigger is better. And they certainly don't come much bigger than the LG 84LM960V, an 84-inch monster telly with an eye-searingly "Ultra-HD" 4K pixel count of 3,840x2,160 -- but with an eye-watering price tag to match.
It's on sale now for £22,500 (though you do get a stand, two remotes and seven pairs of passive 3D glasses for that).
Design
It's a given that the 84LM960V is a monster of a telly, but considering the size of the screen, it's not quite as big as it might have been -- it measures 102x190x4cm. That's due in part to its relatively slim bezel, which lets the screen get close to the edge of the TV and helps give the impression of an overwhelmingly immersive picture.
This is very much a TV for the home, rather than a monitor for the office reception, with a fairly standard range of input options, including four HDMI plus composite, component and even Scart inputs, as well as USB.
4K video quality
With the right content, it looks genuinely stunning. It's just begging to show off your 4K video content, if you can get some, and the travelogue demo we saw it easily draws you into its world with its smooth motion, rich colours and pin-sharp detail.
With standard HD material the sheer size still impresses, and it didn't drop the ball in terms of backlighting deficiencies or picture noise. That said, scenes with rapid movement could occasionally generate some judder -- nothing terrible, but enough to show that this isn't quite a perfect set.
Upscaling and web video
With less impressive content such as videos on YouTube, the inherent upscaling has a lot of work to do and struggles noticeably, but it still made a decent fist of making online material viewable at this size, even if it can't eliminate blur.
With 3D the content suffers from the usual issues -- it can look stunning, but depending on the original processing, it can still suffer from the layering effect.
As you'd expect, it has Smart TV functionality and it's a pleasure to see a well laid out menu with a fair range of online apps including BBC iPlayer, YouTube, Skype and film servers including LoveFilm, Acetrax, Netflix, Blinkbox and Knowhow.
The "2.2" speaker system isn't bad either, with small speakers along the bottom edge and a brace of subwoofers on the back. It's equivalent to the kind of pump you'd expect from a decent sound bar, but if you're going to shell out this amount of wonga on a telly, it's likely you'll want to spend a bit more on at least a decent 5.1 system.
Conclusion
The LG 84LM960V is big, and mostly beautiful. It looks terrific, doesn't disappoint in terms of sharpness and colour, and it certainly fills a room. Whether the extra inches justify a leap in price from the £2,500 of the 55-inch LG 55LM620S is open to speculation, but if you just have to have the biggest, at least for this week, there really isn't any other choice.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
