I bought this set about a week ago and I've ran it through the ringer to test out everything. So far I'm pretty impressed.
The drawbacks aren't very many and they're not too much of a game-changer. One, there are no audio outputs from the tv other than an optical output. If you have a legacy sound system that doesn't have an optical input, it's not the end of the world. For an extra ~$25 or so you can get a stereo adapter that transfers the optical signal to coax or composite RCA analog. $100 to get yourself one that'll do dolby surround (which I had to do). It was a bit off-putting, and I was tempted to just get a new home theater system, but it was necessary for me to get (and save a couple hundred more dollars) who has a ton of extra gaming and video devices that I use. It's easier to just run an audio out from the television to the home theater system and plug everything into the tv to not have to mess with too many settings. I think you'll find audio output sparsity with most newer sets anyway. Digital age is taking over, I suppose.
The 2D to 3D features on this set are, well, hilarious. I have to commend the programmers who designed this set as I'm sure trying to write code to fit every visual situation will have a few coding hiccups, and over all it is a great feature. With very well-defined images, i.e. a strong foreground, a background, a middle ground subject, the forcing of the 3d image from a 2d image works amazingly. It doesn't bring anything towards you, mind, but will definitely push the backgrounds back for a pretty believable and often stunning picture. But, there are times when the image on the screen gets kind of confused and makes an approximation. This happens particularly often with women's shirts with words on them. The face will seem to come forward too far, the neck will be pushed back, the chest... well, let's just use the word I used earlier: hilarious. Slightly exaggerated, yes perhaps, but makes you wonder if the people designing feature did it on purpose? Speculation, probably not true...dirty, dirty coders. It's something I noticed, and others may not, but I think it's worth mentioning. 90% positive on this feature of the set, I'll give it.
Navigation on the set is a little weird if you want to get through the menus. It's designed more for the magic remote (the apps, too) I've found, which is pretty much just like using a Wii remote if you're familiar with that. A traditionalist like myself tried using the regular remote which took a while trying to weed through the often clumped-together features. Plus, I'm all for the progress of technology and all, but calling 240hz TruMotion, or whatever they call it, would be easier to figure out for the laymen in the long run if you put an explanation bubble popup upon hovering over an item in the menus. Also, by not listing the 240hz feature leads to a bit more confusion as the settings on the frame refresh sensitivity go from 1 to 10. They assumed people don't know what a hertz is, I suppose. Figuring out trumotions 1 to 10, I had to guess what I was messing with on screen.
Turning off the 240hz feature might be desirable, too, if you are annoyed at fine letters "crawling" on your screen. There was a feature in there that turned down an edge-refining in the picture which would've solved that problem, I think. I found it once, but I have yet to find it again. Another menu issue.
If you're an avid gamer, like myself, you're going to want to turn off all the nice little features that come along with this set. There is about 1/5 of a second lag on the image with doodads engaged. Halo looked pretty awesome with the forced 3D and Trumotion turned on, but that 1/5 of a second is the difference between a headshot and betrayal(s). It was a very unfortunate game I played that day.
I got a chance to look at the previous model (55LW5500) to test the passive 3D features of the old with the features on this one(55LW6500). There was talk that they would improve the 3D resolution somehow as with passive 3d you're essentially taking a 1080 pixel image down to 540 for each eye. I read talk about improvements to this feature, and I think (comparing a couple days apart) the 3D image is improved. I wouldn't know how they improved it as from what I can tell, the polarizing film on the screen I would have thought was set in stone, and maybe some of my own psychological want for the system to be better is creeping into the review, but I think it's been improved. It's hard to tell without having an active shutter 3D system in front of me with the older and newer models, but I'm pleased with the image. If you want the 3D image without the hassle of the active shutter glasses (which I did), I think this is your set.
The picture is great, the colors are great, LED backlighting works well, lightweight set easy to mount on a wall, picture wizard gives you a pretty good approximation of what you would want for a picture. In a phrase, I'm pleased. LG Infinia 55LW6500 55-Inch Cinema 3D 1080p 240 Hz LED HDTV with Smart TV (Included: Four Pairs of 3D Glasses)
These are my first impressions after a couple of days.
We are totally satisfied and wowed. First of all the angle of view is just as good as plasma. There is absolutely no degradation of the picture from even extreme side angels. The setup was easy and LG's onboard program for adjusting the picture to our preferences was easy.
We haven't even watched 3d source content, but are totally blown away the the up conversion from 2D to 3D. We have watched TV HD sources for the "Oceans" series (lots of underwater shots) and Blu-ray DVDs for arial tours of Italy. Both were amazing. The underwater shots looked liked we were actually looking through the window of a submarine, and the arial shots like we were actually looking through a window of a helicopter. Our hats are off to the LG software developers!
The effect is like looking through a window, however, as all the depth of field is created from the screen to the distance. Nothing jumps out at you into the room, but the effect is very realistic for depth of field.
I have followed the active vs. passive 3D debate and I'm very fussy about my HD viewing. That being said, the 3D viewing is a very slight downgrade, maybe 10%, but the 3D effect more than makes up for it when watching the right programs. No problems with headaches. You can look around the room with the lightweight glasses on and nothing appears any different. 2D viewing is most excellent with no motion blur.
We are more than satisfied with the TV. The price on Amazon was the best we could find and the free delivery two days after ordering was a bonus. This is a large TV and you do not want to lug the box home in you car.'
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