LG 55" 1080p G2 Cinema 3D LED Google TV - 55G2

Great picture, Google TV has a long way to go

I was very excited to get this LG 55G2. I got a great price from a large online retailer and I have had the TV for about 3 weeks. For a quick summary I ...Read complete review

I was very excited to get this LG 55G2. I got a great price from a large online retailer and I have had the TV for about 3 weeks. For a quick summary I have to say that I am disappointed in the following: amount of support that Google has given to Google TV, the built in picture wizard, the capability to control the surround sound receiver, and the lack of smart-link HDMI control; I am impressed by the following: the picture, the sound (for an LED tv), and the 3D capability (both 3D content and 3D up conversion) The number of apps available in the Play store is a huge let down. You can greatly increase the number of apps available by downloading them outside of the market and side load them. The biggest let down of them all is a total lack of Hulu+ support. Almost every other Smart TV on the market supports Hulu+ and Google somehow cannot work out an agreement with Hulu to get support through the browser or through an app. As for the TV its self, I was a little concerned at first. I used the built in picture wizard and it resulted in a dull and dim image that was not bright enough to see with the large windows in my TV room. The color also resulted in a picture shifted in the warm direction. After resetting the image back to stock I performed an image setup using a Disney Bluray with the calibration images provided on the disk. After calibrating the image with that, I have a TV with the best picture I have ever seen. The colors appear to be spot on, the brightness is great, and everything looks great in a dark or bright room. The sound from the TV is better than most other LED tv's I have been around. I would say it is the same quality of sound that you get from a Plasma or LCD tv, which have a thicker frame so they can support a larger speaker. The sound from the TV is good enough that I use the TV speakers for most daily watching. This leads me to a disappointing change that occurred after my first update, I originally could control my surround sound volume by using the Fn+. This was very useful because I use the TV speakers most of the time and it allowed me to mute the TV and control the amplifier without any change in settings. After the update, the Fn+ no longer work. The only way to control the surround sound using the TV remote is to change a setting in the TV menu to not use the TV speakers. I would consider using my surround sound all the time, but the TV does not have a setting to turn off/on the surround sound when the TV turns off/on. I am not going to leave the surround sound on all of the time, so it forces me to change the setting each time I want to use the surround sound. Related to controlling the surround sound, I do think that the IR emitters included work very well. It was easy to set up and I use them to control my Dish receiver and my Denon surround sound receiver. The final negative feature that is missing from the TV is a lack of Smart-link, which is a feature that allows you to control components attached through HDMI. On my previous LCD TV I used this feature to control my PS3 with my TV remote. It was a very useful tool that most TV’s in this price range have, and I am disappointed that this TV does not have it. One of the features I have been most impressed with is the 3D feature on the TV. I love the Passive glasses. The 2D to 3D conversion on the TV works great. Watching actual 3D content on the TV is easily the best way to view 3D, and this TV does a great job.