Introduction
Tour & Design
The front of the LG 32LV2500 is relatively standard in its glossy, black bezel. However, the transparent fringe is somewhat sepia toned. This odd color choice is mirrored in the color of the power symbol LED in its front, right corner, in accents at the base of the stand's stem, and the front of the stand.
The back of the 32LV2500 is sheathed in black metal, and includes a cable tie for your cable tying needs. Its ports are housed in a square indentation in the bottom right section. For information about the ports on the back of the LG 32LV2500 see our Connectivity section.
The 32LV2500 has a very narrow profile. As its on-board controls are on the front of the device, the sides are exclusively for secondary ports. These are all on the left side of the screen, and include a port for a composite A/V dongle. If you fancy the silly look, you could plug it in and just let it hang like 30% of a rubberized squid. For information about the ports on the sides of the LG 32LV2500 see our Connectivity section.
The stand is slightly curved, glossy, and black. It has a strange, paraboloid-shaped stem that's silver in color. Both sections havetransparent, sepia-toned plastic accents. Perhaps this model was designed for fans of The Kingdom. Looks aside, the stand does a bang-up job of keeping the display upright. It may also swivel to accommodate new connections.
LG opted for touch-sensitive controls for the 32LV2500, which we prefer not to use. They look nice, but it's hard to find them in the dark, when you're most likely to have misplaced your remote. They don't offer any tactile feedback, either, so you must see them to use them. On this particular screen, we don't even think it looks that great, especially paired with the sepia color of the border and power-symbol-shaped LED.
We loved the feel of this remote control. The directional pad, in particular, offered great clicking feedback. The buttons are made of springy rubber and are laid out in logical sections. A horizontal ridge on the remote's surface and a finger-shaped indentation on its underside mark the upside of the volume and channel rockers. The remote is not universal, but it can be used to control attached devices that support HDMI-CEC.
Out of the box, the LG 32LV2500 is easy to set up. A support must be screwed into the base, then affixed to the TV itself. The display comes with a remote, batteries, cleaning cloth, and manual. It also has a second cable tie, a dongle for the composite A/V port on the side, and a screw for bolting down the stand.
Blacks & Whites
We measured the LG 32LV2500's black level at 0.08 candelas per square meter (cd/m2), which is a great black level—especially for an LCD. A solidly good black level will fall somewhere around 0.10 cd/m2, with anyting over 0.20 cd/m2 looking a bit brighter than it should. Since the 32LV2500's black level lands in "solidly good" territory, we wouldn't expect anything but deep, rich blacks. (More on how we test Black Level.)
The 32LV2500 didn't do quite as good on our peak brightness test. At 257.66 cd/m2, the 32LV2500 offers just enough brightness to clear the recommended 200 cd/m2 minimum. Basically, while you won't run into any problems in a darkened room, you might find the TV getting a bit washed out by ambient light. (More on how we test Peak Brightness.)
With a nice, deep black level and a passable peak brightness, the 32LV2500 wound up with a great overall contrast ratio. Our eyesight hinges on contrast: a low contrast ratio means you'd lose a lot of fine details, resulting in a flat-looking image. (More on how we test Contrast.)
The TV had a fairly consistent black level. While it wasn't 100% stable as the percentage of black onscreen changed, the shifts in luminance were minor to the point of being imperceptible. (More on how we test Tunnel Contrast.)
Again, there really weren't any issues with the screen's content dictating picture quality. The brightness remained constant, regardless of how much white was onscreen. (More on how we test White Falloff.)
A black screen displayed minor flashlighting in the corners, and brightness at the edges. Unfortunately, the narrowness of the viewing angle meant that from up close, different areas of the screen appeared to have different brightness. Additionally, the potency of the black seemed to clip away in rectangular chunks. On a white screen, this effect was not really noticeable, although there was some slight, blotchy dimming at the screen's edges. (More on how we test Uniformity.)
A TV's greyscale gamma can greatly affect picture quality. Greyscale gamma essentially dictates how the middle grays darken to black and brighten to white. Since the TV can only produce so many different shades, they need to be spaced in a very specific way to maintain a smooth gradient: if there's too little difference between alternate shades, you won't be able to perceive any difference and too much difference leads to chunky transitions instead of smooth gradients.
The ideal slope of the greyscale curve should fall around 2.1 or 2.2. We measured the LG 32LV2500 at 2.81, which is a bit aggressive. The curve below should look like a straight diagonal line. The bump towards the dark end is what's throwing the overall slope off: the shallow part on the left means there isn't much differentiation between the darkest blacks, and the steep incline afterwards means there's too much differentiation between shades. (More on how we test Greyscale Gamma.)
Color Accuracy
The LG 32LV2500 had a pretty solid color temperature from peak white all the way down through the greys. Towards the darker shades, however, the color temperature starts getting really, really warm. (More on how we test Color Temperature.)
The 32LV2500 had good RGB representation overall. The curves were smooth, indicating an even progression, and peaking in the blue and red channels was minor. (More on how we test RGB Curves.)
To help you compare the LG 32LV2500 to some competing models, we've graphed the above information as gradient strips below. Look for noticeable stripes in the strips: this means adjacent colors are either too similar or too different, both of which mean you're losing some detail.
The LG 32LV2500 seems to have taken quite a few artistic liberties with the Rec. 709 international color standard. As you can see in the color gamut below, the only place where the 32LV2500 comes close to the standard is the red point which, to be fair, is pretty spot on. The green point is close to its mark, shifted slightly towards yellow. The white point is also pretty close—nothing we'd really complain about here. The blue point, however, is pretty far off. It's very overemphasized and shifted towards purple. Unfortunately, this is approximately the range most TVs fall into. (More on how we test Color Gamut.)
The chart below calculates error from the measured point's distance from the Rec. 709 standard.
Motion
Motion on the LG 32LV2500 rendered passably, but not well. Moving, white photos blurred and trailed like Windows cursors. Rectangles skewed into parallelograms as they moved, with an additional stairstepping effect. There was some false coloration on moving black and white images. Overall, it wasn't the worst motion we've ever seen, but neither was it impressive. (More on how we test Motion.)
Even though 24fps is not a native format for this TV, it does an admirable job at converting to a native framerate when in Real Cinema mode. It exhibited very little flicker over moving high-frequency patterns, both in geometric shapes and video. (More on how we test 3:2 Pulldown and 24fps.)
Since you won't always be displaying 720p content with the 32LV2500, we tested it with content in non-native resolutions. (More on how we test Resolution Scaling.)
480p
The TV didn't have many problems here. We saw some blurring in fine patterns and text and there was some overscan, but otherwise performed well.
1080p
The performance here was a bit worse than with 480p content. In addition to the above, fine patterns also showed some moire interference, creating a plaid pattern over what was supposed to be shown.
Viewing Effects
The LG 32LV2500 has a native resolution of 720p, which is a few steps down from the highest HD format available, 1080p. The TV can display 1080p, but it has to do fancy processing to squeeze a 1920 x 1080 picture onto its 1366 x 768 display.
The LG 32LV2500 surprised us with its poor viewing angle. You can only get about 8º off-center before the contrast ratio is reduced to 50% of its maximum. While LCDs typically aren't known for viewing angles over 30º, the 32LV2500's total viewing angle of 16º is about half of the already poor average performance for this display technology. (More on how we test Viewing Angle.)
We didn't see any major issues with the 32LV2500's reflectance. It didn't totally cut out reflections from strong external light sources, but it did a good job diffusing the light. Halos of diffused light and star-shaped rainbow patterns mostly diminished with angling of the light source. (More on how we test Reflectance.)
The LG 32LV2500 has a selection of video processing modes, most of which can be enabled from low to high. The only one we really liked was Noise Reduction, which effectively reduced mosquito crawl. However, there are also a few other modes that elicit a perceptible change.
Calibration
[
](http://www.displaymate.com/)Televisions rarely come calibrated out of the box. Since we want to score each TV at its peak performance, we first calibrate it to our lab setting using the DisplayMate calibration software.
The LG 32LV2500 has a few video modes that you can use to start calibrating your ideal picture. Not all of the settings are available in each mode, so you might want to take a note of that before you get too deep in adjusting things.
Connectivity
The cluster of ports on the back of the TV offer standard connectivity options. You'll find two HDMI ports, two sets of component video inputs with accompanying audio, a composite A/V in, a digital audio in and out, a VGA port, and a RS-232C port.
The side of the TV has a USB port, another HDMI, a 3.5mm audio out, and a composite audio/video port. You'll need to use the enclosed dongle to access this secondary A/V.
Below we've listed the LG 32LV2500's connectivity options, along with the connectivity options you'd find on a few competing models.
The TV has weird port placement, for sure. The cluster of ports on the back is offset pretty far from the side; even after you've swiveled the TV around, it's a bit of an awkward reach. Additionally, the ports on the side are a bit random: just one HDMI, a USB, headphone jack, and a non-standard composite A/V port. Even the spacing between these ports looks like it was randomly determined with a D6.
Audio & Menus
The audio quality of the 32LV2500 was not the best. It sounded muffled and distant, so we tried turning up the volume. Not only did it continue to sound muffled, with very weak bass, but this also revealed the the maximum volume of these speakers is not very loud. There's a surround sound emulation mode, but it failed to do much, as expected of a 32-inch television whose speakers aren't very far apart. You can try fiddling around with the treble, bass, and a Clear Voice II option, but without a true equalizer, you're better off installing external speakers.
The menu interface is stylized, but mostly intuitive. We don't really like the grid layout of the main menu, but it does place the less frequented items on one side, so it's not actually that overwhelming.
The submenus have a more traditional look, with a column of category icons on the left and their sub-settings dropping down to the right. We would prefer if the main menu started out here instead of the grid overview, so we wouldn't have to press "back" an extra time to go back to TV-watching.
Overall, we liked the menu system. It's not the most attractive, but it has some nice touches. For example, holding down the left or right button on a slider that goes from 0 to 100 accelerates over time. As a result, you don't have to keep pressing for half a minute while the bar creeps uniformly along.
The manual for the 32LV2500 is comprehensive, overwhelming, and poorly translated. As an example, it describes the HDMI Black Level feature as, "The reflection of the screen gets darker." While this makes no sense, it's not usually so bad. Additionally, the manual is written for over 30 different television models, so references features not available to this one.
The instruction manual can't be downloaded from LG's web site, but it is available in English, French, and Spanish PDF documents on a CD that comes with the TV.
Power Consumption
We've tested TVs that advertise the use of their LEDs as power-saving, then drain more power than similar models that are still using CCFLs. The LG 32LV2500 is not one of these. Its LED backlighting really is energy-efficient. Even at full backlight, you'll only spend a little over $10 per year on this TV. (More on how we test Power Consumption.)
Below we've stacked the 32LV2500 up against some competing models. As small LCDs, they're all fairly inexpensive, but the 32LV2500 manages to undercut all of them with its LED backlight.
Vs Samsung LN32D450
Value Comparison Summary
While the LG costs about $70 more than the Samsung if you get it online, we tend to think it's worth the extra money. If you'd rather opt for the budget option, the Samsung isn't a bad TV per se: it just didn't perform as well as this LG.
Blacks & Whites
The Samsung didn't have as deep a black as the LG and wasn't as bright. The LG had a higher overall contrast ratio.
Color Accuracy
Both TVs get a bit warm towards the dark end of the spectrum, but the LG's warm spike was a bit more noticeable than the Samsung's. Both displays had comparable RGB curves.
Motion
The LG had slightly better motion performance. Both these TVs perform about averagely at this task.
Viewing Effects
The Samsung has a slightly wider viewing angle, though neither of these screens does particularly well. LCDs are not known for their wide viewing angles, but the Samsung beats out the LG by about 9 degrees on each side.
Connectivity
The Samsung has one fewer HDMI and one fewer analog video input, giving it the inferior port selection.
Vs Sony KDL-40EX400
Value Comparison Summary
The Sony's main selling point over the LG is its size. The Sony is eight inches larger than the LG, which is a sizeable difference. If you can find the 32LV2500 online for cheaper, the LG could be a good budget buy with similar performance. If you have room for a 40-inch screen, though, the Sony is a good value at its size.
Blacks & Whites
The Sony was a bit brighter than the LG, and wound up with a slightly higher contrast ratio. The LG had a marginally deeper black level. For all intents and purposes, the two TVs performed the same on this test.
Color Accuracy
The Sony had a slightly better color temperature. Although both TVs had a visible color shift towards the dark end of the spectrum, the Sony's wasn't as visible as the LG's.
Motion
Both TVs had roughly the same motion performance.
Viewing Effects
The Sony had a decent viewing angle for an LCD. It was significantly wider than the 32LV2500, whose viewing angle is among the worst.
Connectivity
The Sony has an extra HDMI slot, but has fewer connectivity options overall.
Vs LG 32LD450
Value Comparison Summary
This is an easy match-up from our perspective: the 32LV2500 is better than the 32LD450 in just about every way. It doesn't have a native 1080p resolution, but it performed better and costs less. And on a 32 inch screen, the difference in resolution isn't really noticeable.
Blacks & Whites
The 32LD450 had a much, much deeper black level. Even though it wasn't as bright as the 32LD450, it still ended up with a significantly higher contrast ratio.
Color Accuracy
The 32LV2500 had a bit of a push towards warm in the dark end of the spectrum. The 32LD450 had a few warm spikes just before then, but none of them were as noticeable. Their performance in RGB curves was about the same, so the 32LD450 actually had better scores in color accuracy.
Motion
The 32LV2500 had slightly better motion performance than the 32LD450.
Viewing Effects
The 32LD450 had a much wider viewing angle than the 32LV2500, but it still wasn't very good.
Connectivity
The 32LV2500 has an extra HDMI and Composite video input, but otherwise offers the same connectivity options as the 32LD450.
Conclusion
Series Comparison
xxLV2500 Series
The LV2500 series is an entry-level series that has three sizes: 22, 26, and 32 inches. Their small screens and 720p resolution seem to implicate them for kitchens and small bedrooms, so they don't have any extras beyond USB media playback. However, for their cost, the picture on these LED-backlit units is sure to impress.
Meet the tester
Jackie Lee is a valued contributor to the Reviewed.com family of sites.
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