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The 37LE5900 blasted into our test rooms with all guns blazing, packing a slim, sexy design and bags of features for a price that looked remarkably cheap for a TV using today's buzz technology, edge LED.
It also then did a good job of appealing to our inner geek by providing a startlingly extensive suite of picture adjustments - some of them really quite high-end in nature.
Less geeky members of the team were impressed too, though, by how exceptionally easy to use the TV is thanks to a superbly designed front-end.
But by the end of the review, though, the wheels had rather come off in comprehensive fashion. For while the 37LE5900's sound isn't bad, at least in the context of the super-slim TV world, its pictures are a real disappointment thanks to bland standard definition scaling and some of the most severe backlight inconsistency we've seen on an LCD TV to date.
We liked:
The edge LED tech in the 37LE5900 helps it really look the part, with its slim profile and sporty, red-tinged sculpting and finish. It's also better connected and featured than some TVs costing loads more, and can produce some decent picture quality with bright HD sources.
We disliked:
The set's black level response is a mess, thanks mostly to some overt patches of brightness inconsistency. Colours are a bit off-key at times, too, and the set's standard definition pictures are soft and fuzzy. Finally, LG's NetCast online platform is currently miles behind its rivals in terms of content.
Verdict:
We desperately wanted to like the 37LE5900. Everything about it seemed tailor-made to be a hit, from its lovely slender design through its hip edge LED lighting to its willingness to take on board our ever-growing multimedia needs.
But, unfortunately, our hopes came crashing down around our ears when we switched the TV on and clocked its various picture shortcomings, including a backlighting flaw that we ultimately found impossible to ignore and which regularly impaired our enjoyment of films and TV shows.
If this is what edge LED looks like on a budget, we'd rather save up for a few more months to get a more premium example of the technology.
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