I knew I would buy a Plasma TV. The LG 50PC55 fitted most of my requirements, and when I confirmed it would play nice with my Apple MacBook Pro I decided to stomp up the £700 (look around - at the time I couldn’t get it for under £600 as i had hoped) and £100 delivery charge to get one.

It’s awesome. I’m not an aficionado, I just wanted a big telly with decent sound with plenty of connectivity. Got it delivered and it was connected to my Cable box in seconds and up and running seconds later. Carbon footprint? Yeah, I guess I’ll need to recycle a bit more to offset this!

As I said I’m no Plasma TV Expert, but this seemed to fit my needs as far as picture went. I’m very surprised at the quality. Pixelation? OK I’ve not got the best eyes in the world, but I don’t see any from where I sit in the room.

LG LG 50PC55 Television Picture Quality

• High Definition Ready.
• Integrated digital (freeview).
• 50in (127cm) widescreen TV with 125.7cm visible screen size.
• Resolution 1366 x 768 pixels.
• Brightness 1500cd/m2.
• Contrast ratio 15000:1.
• XD engine image enhancement feature.
• Progressive scan.

As I said, now that I’ve connected it to my Mac Book Pro, I know how easy it was. All I bought was a HDMI to DVI cable (from the Apple store) ad plugged them together. The MacBook Pro automatically discovered the device when i selected HDMI1 on the LG remote. Bingo! The Mac Screen was on my TV. Shortly later I was watching a 790mb AVI film…. and the results where amazing. Amazing picture quality and sound. I knew I’d made the right choice.

A few seconds later, I had Itunes and CoverFlow strutting their stuff.

LG 50PC55 Connectivity

• 2 HDMI sockets.
• 2 SCART sockets.
• PC input socket.
• Component video socket.
• Composite.
• Optical connection.
• S-video.
• Side AV socket.
• Rear DC socket.

Sound quality is good, but when there’s a crashing noise on the telly, the left speaker seems to make a crackling sound. Not sure about that, maybe it’s up just too loud, and I’ll need to check this out with LG, but I send my sound via my Apple Laptop to my Stereo anyway.

Sound Quality

• Surround max sound.
• 2 x 10w RMS power output.
• Digital sound processor.

Yup it’s got Freeview, but as I have Cable TV, it’s rather redundant at the moment.

Freeview Features

• Digitally interactive.
• Digital text.
• Digital video broadcasting (DVB) subtitles available.
• Auto setup.
• Auto scan for new channels.
• Now and next electronic programme guide.
• 8 day electronic programme guide.
• Top up TV compatible.

More redundant features for me. Actually I’ve not even got the TV configured yet. I bought it to plug my mac into it and play my music and DVDs etc. And it works perfectly.

Additional Features

• Teletext.
• Fastext.
• UHF tuner.
• Auto setup.
• Auto search tuner.
• Auto search sorting.
• Auto search labelling.
• Sleep timer.
• Child lock.
• NTSC compatible.
• Clear filter Pro.
• Remote control requires 2 x AA batteries (supplied).
• 230v AC mains operation.
• Complete with tabletop stand.
• Size of TV (H)82.72, (W)124.2, (D)8.8cm.
• Size with stand (H)88.76, (W)124.2, (D)24.9cm.
• Weight of TV 34.6kg.
• Weight of stand 39.3kg.
• Suitable for wall mounting (brackets not supplied).

Review Summary

OK. I love it. Best £900 I’ve spent in ages. Should you buy one? Hell I don’t care. There might be better TVs out there but I don’t know about them, and this one delivers everything I wanted. So I’m happy.

PS - All my mates love it too, and yours probably will too.

Having a fucking massive tv might not win you any more friends, but if you have one, who cares if you’ve got friends!

PS - Just had the boys round watching Scotland hump Ukraine 3-1 in the Euro qualifiers. Hurray! The picture on the LG was superb.

PPS - Did I tell you Halo on the XBox 360 was, as you could probably imagine, the most religious experience I’m going to have this year (I hope).