Technology has done it again! This time the exciting news is coming from LG. Everyone nowadays wants a big beautiful TV screen since more and more people are staying home and watching their movies on the not so big screen in their family room. The problem is that big plasma systems are energy hogs. Generally I tell everyone to put their TV and cable boxes on power strips so that they can be turned completely off when not actually being used but that can be difficult with the larger flat screen TV’s. The majority of people are mounting them directly to the wall and then plugging them into special plugs directly behind the TV which makes adding a power strip almost impossible. You may also hardwire a switch to the outlet but this option may require opening up the wall which could be costly.
LG has come out with a much better TV solution that solves the power hog issue. LG has created the LG 47LH90 47” LCD TV.
The major difference with this LCD TV is the source of the back lighting. With current LCD TV’s the backlighting is done with a type of fluorescent bulb. Because it is fluorescent it requires a ballast that needs to have current flowing to it all the time to keep the bulb warmed up and ready to go. LCD’s with fluorescents are still a better solution to the big TV
problem than plasma’s, but this innovation is even better. With the LG TV, the back lighting source is LED’s( light emitting diodes ). Since LED’s use so much less energy, in some cases one tenth the amount of a fluorescent
bulb, and last so much longer than fluorescents, they are a much more energy efficient choice for a TV. They also don’t have to stay warmed up because LED’s do not require a warm up period and turn on immediately. I know, you’re wondering how well does this puppy perform. I checked out the reviews for TV’s on CNET, a top reviewer for technical
gadgets. Reviews don’t get much better than this https://reviews.cnet.com/flat-panel-tvs/samsung-ln-t4681f/4505-6482_7-32514516.html . The reviewers at CNET loved the picture, they had some
issues with how the set came configured out of the box, but after tweaking the settings for optimum performance they raved about the quality of the picture. If you are a true videophile, check out the review for yourself to get all the geeky details. The part I liked most about their review came at the very end though. They added a juicebox at the end which totaled up how much energy or juice this system used. The final tally was that these new LG’s use less than one third of the power of the standard plasma TV. And the best part is that when you turn of an LED TV, it’s really off, no
power strip required.
