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LG's Cinema Screen TVs get real thin, feature-packed

LG announces its range of Cinema Screens, which feature 5mm thin bezels and a wealth of features including passive 3D and an upgraded smart remote.

Ty Pendlebury Editor
Ty Pendlebury is a journalism graduate of RMIT Melbourne, and has worked at CNET since 2006. He lives in New York City where he writes about streaming and home audio.
Expertise Ty has worked for radio, print, and online publications, and has been writing about home entertainment since 2004. He majored in Cinema Studies when studying at RMIT. He is an avid record collector and streaming music enthusiast. Credentials
  • Ty was nominated for Best New Journalist at the Australian IT Journalism awards, but he has only ever won one thing. As a youth, he was awarded a free session for the photography studio at a local supermarket.
Ty Pendlebury
2 min read
The LG LM6700 is the company's least-expensive to feature the new 5mm-thin bezel. LG

LAS VEGAS--Apart from the Swiss Army knife that is LG's new Magic Motion remote, the company's next best trick is its thin-bezelled range of televisions under the banner Cinema Screen.

The LED-based TVs all offer bezels under 5mm in width. There's a war on, it's no longer whose TV is biggest, but who can get their frames thinnest for that nearly all-picture look. Samsung fired the first salvo last year and we loved it, giving the UND8000 a "10" in Design by virtue of its 0.2-inch bezel. It's no coincidence that LG's 5mm claim works out to even less than 0.2 inches (0.197 to be precise), making it the new thinnest bezel--by the thinnest of margins.

Although Cinema Screen is found on the LM9600 and LM8600, the LM7600 and the LM6700 detailed here will be less expensive and likely more popular. Look at that LM6700 above: pretty isn't it? Finally, LG has released TVs with design worthy of its ambition to be the world's number one.

These two series of TVs offer a mix of features that land them the upper middle of the LG 2012 TV lineup: Cinema 3D (aka passive 3D) is there along with Dual Play, improved better 2D-to-3D conversion and a 3D depth control with 20 steps. New for 2012, LG includes six pairs of passive 3D glasses.

The TVs also glean the new step-down, 3-mode Magic Motion which misses out on voice control found on the upper-crust models. An upgraded Smart TV package has Netflix, Hulu Plus, VUDU and a new 3D Zone. The onboard web browser is designed to offer an enhanced Web browsing experience with support for HTML 5 and Flash. Like many of this year's TVs the new models include onboard wi-fi.

Both ranges come in 47-inch and 55-inch, and we await word from LG as to the differentiating factors between the two: likely motion compensation (120Hz vs. 240Hz). We asked about whether these sets preserved the matte screen and local dimming we liked on the 2011 LW5600, but weren't told by press time.

LG LM7600 and LM6700 features:

  • edge-lit LED-based LCD TV
  • Cinema Design with 5mm bezel
  • Passive Cinema 3D with Dual Play
  • 3-mode Magic Motion remote
  • Onboard wi-fi
  • Smart TV

LG LM7600 series models:

  • LG 47LM7600 47-inch, available Feb/March, $TBD
  • LG 55LM7600 55-inch, available Feb/March, $TBD

LG LM6700 series models:

  • LG 47LM6700 47-inch, available Feb/March, $TBD
  • LG 55LM6700 55-inch, available Feb/March, $TBD