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Wednesday 17 August 2016

A technical review of LG 32LF650V smart tv 3d series

This new post describes my experiences regarding the use of the 32 inch  LG 32LF650V smart tv. More or less the contents of the other post concerning the LG 32 LB 650 still apply, but there are some news as well.
On the bright side, the refresh rate has been increased to 900 Hz offering a clearer high definition view then the predecessor, especially during satellite reception.  The initial assembly is also simplified and that might explain the brevity of the printed owner's manual. By the way, the manual authors have spent almost two pages describing the functions of the magic remote which is to be purchased separately for around 50€. Although Adobe flash player is still missing, one could experiment starting up some third party  software, such as the nova player, and attempt to update it. Hopefully the built in internet browser will be able to play online streaming content full screen, as provided by internet broadcasting services such as filmon.    Regular manual updating of the WebOS might also help, please bear in mind that auto updating does not always work!
On the dark side, the menu structure, browser,  the tv operation via the remote control remain as good, or bad, as before. A convenient and cheaper alternative to buying the magic remote, is connecting a wheel mouse to the usb port of the tv. Sadly connecting a microsoft natural keyboard for entering text, did not work for me! Moreover, some people claimed that the plastic stands are of moderate to low quality and that the tv does not allow to switch off entirely.  However, one can disable the standby led light by changing the settings in order to save energy. Another regular complaint is the so often "Out of memory error" appearing while browsing the internet. Hopefully the updates will solve that problem too. After several updates the situation worsened: some streaming providers such as dw.com, which functioned well, just ceased to work!
All in all, the software quality of the linux open source based WebOS remains disputable, I 'd rather have android installed instead. For a price of 369€ it seems to be worth the money, only for people having access to a satellite dish. Watching online streaming is still troublesome, since the broadband lines are still too slow and unreliable.The smart tv browser is so bad, that streaming is almost out of question, some web sites can not display correctly either. What is worse is the memory errors thrown often when a web page is big. Allowing to install another open source browser such as Tor, firefox or opera might help. Only the standard tv functions well, but if one has paid a high price for a smart tv, not only a plain one, that is purely a waste of money!