Further to our announcement of last week that we had drawn the winner for the LG 42″ TV, I can now announce the winner is D. Shore of Suffolk, who will hopefully be receiving the TV shortly.  It’s been great fun running a competition, and I’m hoping to be able to offer more competitions in 2010, although the prizes might not always be as fantastic as this first competition!

Well, it was nice to have the LG 42″ LED-Backlit LCD TV for review for a week, before it nows gets boxed back up, and shipped onto our competition winner.  We’ll be inviting the winner to write up a review of the TV again in a while once they have really got used to all the features, but for now, here’s a brief review from me…

The screen is nice and bright, and even though one of the first things I did was to turn on the Auto Energy Saving feature, the device still offered a nice bright image at all times.  The 2 SCART sockets and 4 HDMI sockets offer more options than most people could need, but I guess allows for future options too.  The setup of the device was nice and easy, with an auto-setup running when the TV first powered on.  In fact, a small minor point, but my current LCD TV has a power button on the front (as well as a little button on the side; whereas the LG TV only has the button on the side), and it was amazing how much the family and I missed the easy to use front power button.

However, one thing I really liked was the fact the TV ships with 2 remotes.  Yes, two remotes.  I loved the main remote with the ability to illuminate the keys, and having full access to control the TV at all times, but you know what; I liked the smaller, simpler remote even more.  With a much smaller selection of buttons (power, input selection, channel and volume controls, and not much more!) this remote was easier to let the kids lose with knowing they could not get to the menus and accidentally make changes to the settings.  Whether in the long term this second remote is actually useful I don’t know, but for a short trial, is was certainly useful.

Less useful was the lack of auto-SCART selection I’m used to from my current TV, and I had some issues with the headphone socket not providing sound if a cable was plugged into the headphone socket on power on.  The second wasn’t a major issue, but the first did seem strange, and may have been a configuration setting that I missed.

On top of the ability to play TV / video information from SCART and HDMI sockets, the TV also features the ability to play media from USB devices and from Bluetooth devices too.  The Bluetooth can also be used to play back the audio via Bluetooth Headphones without disturbing others, which is a nice touch too.

I mentioned the “frameless design” when the TV first launched (see here); in fact, it’s more of a seamless design, in that there is no bezel where the TV image finishes and the black surround starts, but the main thing about this TV that does stand out is how slim it is; at 2.9cm it’s obviously crying out to be wall mounted (something I was unable to do, but maybe our competition winner will…); and I did feel that if the device was being placed on a TV stand, the extra cost of buying a slimmer device may seem excessive; although the power saving and image quality the LED backlighting offered did seem to me a worthwhile expenditure even without wall mounting the TV.

When not wall mounting the TV, it stands on a very nice square base, which is smaller than many of the normal bases, presumably due to the thinner nature of the screen.

Will I miss this TV?  Well, yes, in a way; the extra little technology (eg Bluetooth) and the sheer quality and brightness of the image will be missed, but for me, it’s not actually a great improvement over my current TV to warrant an upgrade right now; but if you are looking to increase your screen size, or move up to your first LCD TV, then this Full HD TV should at least be on the shortlist; the power savings and brightness of the LED Backlighting may not be obvious in store (where most TVs will be set to maximum brightness irrespective of the power draw), but are well worth factoring into the long term costs of the TV.

As to our competition winner; we’re in the process of contacting them, and arranging with LG for the TV to be shipped on to them, and we’ll announce who won later this week, and will look forward to seeing their review of the device in due course.

Thanks yet again to LG and The LG Blog for offering this competition prize, and thanks to everyone who entered.

Don’t forget our competition for the LG 42″ TV finishes today at 5pm; see here for the details on how to enter…

Don’t forget, there are still a few days to enter our competition to win an LG 42″ LED-Backlit LCD TV.  For more information head to here.

Yes, that’s right, for our first ever competition we’re starting with a rather impressive prize; a Super Slim 42″ LG LED-Backlit LCD TV (SL9000). If you want to know more about the TV, read our article here when this range was announced a few months back.

The competition is quite simple; you simply have to email your answer (and your details) to the following question to info@gadgeteer.org.uk before 5pm Friday 4th December 2009.

Unfortunately, as with many competitions, there are a few rules we have had to impose; no UK Gadgeteer or LG staff (nor anyone living at the same address), you must be over 18 years old, you can only enter the competition once, and the TV will only be shipped to a UK address.  The winner will be selected by random from the correct entries. You will need to provide your name, address and contact telephone number, which will not be used for any marketing activities, although the winner will be expected to:

• Take part in some limited marketing activities, and your name will be revealed.
• Provide some feedback on the TV, in terms of a review with pictures and/or video of how the TV has fitted into your lifestyle.

That last point is key, but should not be too onerous!

Just to show this is real, here’s a picture of the TV (still in the box; more pictures next week of it out of the box…) and we’ll be providing a review of this very TV next week too, before it’s boxed back up and ready to be sent off to the winner.

So, to win, all you need to do is email info@gadgeteer.org.uk your name, address and contact telephone number, along with the answer to this question:

What are the screen sizes of the two models in the SL9xxx range:

a. 32″ and 42″

b. 42″ and 47″

c. 32″ and 47″

The winner will be contacted and announced soon after (likely to be the following week).

Good luck!

Thanks to LG and the LG Blog for offering this fantastic prize.

Standby for UK Gadgeteer’s first competition; yes, if everything goes to plan, we’ll be announcing our first UK Gadgeteer competition tomorrow.  This competition will be open to UK residents only (sorry, but this is a UK based website!) and will (in our opinion) feature a prize worth winning, especially in the run up to Christmas.

However, if you win, we’d like you to write a short article on how the item has changed the way you live, either with a few pictures or maybe a short video, so be prepared to get involved once it arrives.

More details tomorrow…