LG 15LC1RB review

We certainly can't accuse this LCD TV of lacking instant impact. There's its bolshy, all-black livery, offset by a daring, blue neon strip that ensures it leaves its mark on any room.

There's innovation in the set's design too, as the attached desktop stand cunningly angles up behind the screen to become a wall mount.

Connections are standard, as you get pretty much only the basics such as one RGB Scart, an S-video input, a PC jack, a composite video input and an RF input for the analogue tuner. Even though the screen enjoys a hi-def resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels, no HD video inputs are provided.

You'll struggle to read the quite ludicrously small onscreen menus from more than a couple of feet away. These are so tiny you wonder if anyone at LG actually spent time with this TV before releasing it. After close scrutiny, however, they prove to contain precious few features, with only the absolute basics such as auto tuning and a sleep timer to be found.

In many ways the 15LC1RB is a perfectly affable performer. Colours, for instance, are impressively vivid, thanks to good saturation levels and plenty of backlight brightness. Colour tones are likeably natural too for the vast majority of the time.

Black levels, get sufficiently deep to give images a fair sense of snap, and the picture is also strikingly free of any sort of noise.

Sharp screen

The picture is quite sharp by 15-inch LCD standards too, and the general level of crispness is only rarely spoiled by the sort of motion smearing issues so common at the budget end of the LCD market.

There are problems, though. Most stupidly, there's no aspect ratio support for anamorphic widescreen sources. Secondly, there's a bit too much backlight seepage in the picture's edges for comfort. Thirdly, skin tones have a tendency to look waxy and, finally, the image can look bleached out during very bright shots.

The 15LC1RB's sonics get the job done, with enough power to keep voices sounding clear and achieve some pretty loud volumes. But distortions and lack of bass are apparent during action scenes.