We’ve seen this same deal recently, but now TigerDirect has upped the anti a bit and lowered the price a tad more, and who can complain about that. But regardless you’re getting this LG Infinia 55-Inch TV and four pairs of 3D glasses for only $1309.99 total and that includes free delivery! This TV of course has the full 3D support it needs and 1080p High Definition resolution for the best picture quality around. It also sports a 120Hz TruMotion Refresh rate for crystal clear transitions between scenes and that’s topped off by its 6,000,000:1 Dynamic Contrast Ratio which makes every color clear as day. You can even enjoy full Wi-Fi connectivity which offers content from YouTube, Facebook, Netflix, Hulu Plus and much more so you never have to be bored in the livingroom!

$1309.99 with free shipping.  That’s a $10 drop from before.

Newegg is offering some tight savings for this compact 32-Inch TV from LG! This time the price drops to just $300 After the coupon code listed below and it’s definitely worth every penny. This display features a 720p High Definition resolution for some superb color quality, while at the same time being housed in a sleek chassis for easy placement anywhere in the room. Whether for your bedroom or the living room you can definitely get some enjoyment out of this HDTV, and that’s thanks for HDMI inputs which offer it easy expandability along with plenty of features which tweak and perfect the picture quality for you. This includes many self calibration features and picture wizard that makes it easy to setup as well as its intelligent sensor which picks up the light in the room and auto adjusts the brightness accordingly.

Price drop!  Last we posted this set was over $300.  Now you can grab it for $EMCNHNC22 at checkout. Add this coupon and the price will fall.  Free S&H

Now here’s an impressive bundle offer from a combination of TigerDirect and Amazon! For a limited time you can save big and grab this huge 55-Inch LG Infinia TV with full 3D and 1080p HD support along with 4 Pairs of 3D glasses for just $1,319.99! After those savings you can enjoy the latest and greatest that home theater technology has to offer and watch all your favorite movies and shows in the very best quality. The TV also has an 8,000,000:1 Dynamic contrast ratio for showing off the best color transitions and that’s even combined with a 120Hz TruMotion refresh rate which makes the transitions of every scene crystal clear. 4 HDMI inputs are built in for plenty of expansion headroom and with built in Wi-Fi connectivity you can connect online and stream audio and video from many sources including YouTube, Hulu Plus, Netflix, Pandora Radio and much more so you never run out of things to watch on the big screen.

Low price alert!  This bundled deal sells for $1319.99 with free delivery!

T-Mobile’s myTouch is a decent handset, but it came in two models, standard and with a slide-out keyboard. The latter is the myTouch Q, and it shares many of the same traits and specifications, but has two major differences that set it apart: the physical keyboard and a lower-resolution display. Both make a world of difference.

Hardware

With any phone that has a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, the myTouch Q is about twice as thick as the myTouch and can be considered a bulky smartphone. Rounded edges make it comfortable to hold in the hand, and the extra weight makes the Q feel more solid.

Unlike other phones with physical keyboards, like the older myTouch 4G Slide, the myTouch Q is comfortable to type on and is easy to do so at higher typing speeds. The hard buttons are comfortable to type on both with fingertips and finger nails, though the buttons are harder to press than most keyboards. I find harder buttons are better than rubber keys because they keep users from accidentally pressing keys mistakenly.

Besides for the keyboard the myTouch Q looks as typical an Android phone as you can get. A slim power button rests on the top left and is easy to press and find. The display is, unlike the myTouch and most Android smartphones today, a 480×320 display, which is slightly more than half of today’s 800×480, and exactly half of the iPhone’s 960×640. This means not only is the myTouch Q a low-resolution phone, it also isn’t widescreen. It is not a video device.

Also unlike the myTouch, the display is an LCD panel instead of AMOLED, which furthers the not-for-video design. It is easier to see in bright conditions and direct sunlight than the myTouch. The screen is also smaller, 3.5″ instead of 3.8 of the myTouch.

Aside from that the two phones are identical; the same CPU, same amount of RAM, same parts, and even the same battery.

Software

The myTouch Q uses the same Android 2.3 operating system as the myTouch, to the extent that nothing is different. If you held both phones in your hands, they would seem very different externally but identical internally. The only difference between the software is how fast it is, and only because of the difference in screen resolutions. The myTouch Q is actually faster because it doesn’t have to process as much screen data as the myTouch. The benchmarks reveal exactly how much faster it is.

Battery Life

Battery life on the myTouch Q is both better and worse than the myTouch, which means it’s better than the vast majority of smartphones today. I ran two tests on both handsets, with wireless settings on and off (meaning Wi-Fi and 4G active and not active). The myTouch had no difference in time, but the myTouch Q had about an hour difference on both tests. Still, even the lower 9-hours of continuous processing is far better than most phones can handle today.

In my real world testing, the long battery life was exceptional. Like with the myTouch and LG Doubleplay before it, I was able to spend over a full day making calls, texting, using GPS navigation, push email, and simple apps without having to worry about battery life. Even under very strenuous conditions I could come home at the end of the day with 20-30% battery life. As with the myTouch however, the myTouch Q suffers from poor battery life with continuous talk time, and I only managed just over three hours.

Benchmarks

As mentioned above, the biggest boon to the myTouch Q’s performance is having less screen to fill. With a small 320×480 display, benchmark scores tended to be higher on the myTouch Q than competing devices. However, it isn’t nearly as powerful as competing devices on more stressful benchmarks like Quadrant Standard. Even then the score is inflated because of the lower resolution, which is why it scored a cool 100 points better.

Other benchmarks I ran, like GLBenchmark, would not even run. To be clear, the myTouch Q is not a powerful phone. It’s fast enough to browse the web well and can run apps better than the myTouch, but don’t expect to be playing high-end games on this device. I tested OnLive’s gaming service on the myTouch Q, and it ran but the low resolution made it very difficult to play because the service is not intended to match such a small screen.

The myTouch Q, like the myTouch, failed my Amazon video test, where I stream video from Amazon Prime.

Camera

The camera is identical to the one on the myTouch, but the myTouch Q does include built-in flash. I tested the camera, as you can see in the sample shots below, and it’s decent but not great. For low-light shots the camera has extreme difficulty focusing, and there is severe oversharpening of images, as you can see in the last one (scroll right). However, in good lighting shots come out clear and colorful, though there is a definite lack of detail when looking at images in their native size.

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Conclusion

The myTouch Q is identical to the myTouch except for two things: a physical slide-out keyboard and a lower display resolution. Slight other differences like how fast it processes information (the Q is slightly faster) and the display panel’s build (the Q is an LCD panel, as opposed to AMOLED) posit that the Q is geared more towards typers and people who read a lot on their phones, not those who want to watch video.

Editor’s Rating:

3 out of 5 stars

Good

Bottom Line: Like the myTouch before it, the myTouch Q is a decent phone with great battery life. It’s very good for typing and web browsing, though suffers when running beefier applications. A solid basic smartphone.

Pros:

• QWERTY is comfortable to type with
• Excellent battery life
• Minimalist hardware and software design

Smartphones today all boast one thing: raw power. But power isn’t everything, and in fact, power has been the biggest hindrance to everyday telephony. That’s why smartphones have such poor battery life. Well, not the T-Mobile myTouch. It has enough power to accomplish everyday tasks and open basic, non-intensive apps, all while maintaining a stunning battery life.

Hardware

The myTouch is a small phone. It has a 3.8″ display, small by today’s smartphone standards (the closest phone in screen size is the iPhone, at 3.5″). The body is tiny too, just slightly bigger and thicker than the iPhone 4S. This makes the myTouch very easy to hold in the hand, very comfortable in the pocket, and of course, very light.

The internals are nothing spectacular: a 1GHz single-core processor and 512MB of RAM power the myTouch, and as you’ll see in the benchmarks below, the relatively weak processing power shows. The display is an AMOLED panel can get very bright, though in direct sunlight reflects fingerprints much more than the display itself. The screen resolution is 800×480, matching the standard Android display.

It’s simplicity in almost perfect form. LG, the maker of the myTouch, has only the bare essentials in this phone. It has 2GB of internal memory (expandable to 32GB), only three Android keys (no search button), a 5MP no-flash camera and a basic VGA front-facing camera. It’s also got a very strong 1500mAh battery, which is why the myTouch has such great battery life (see Battery life). I’m very satisfied with the handset’s build and design, though it’s significantly slower than the myTouch Q, which has a display with half the screen resolution, but identical internal components.

Software

Running Android 2.3, the myTouch has good enough components to run most applications, but tends to lag under the burden of it’s current Android build. It lags when flipping between home pages and slightly in simple apps. As determined in the benchmarks (see Benchmarks), the myTouch is designed for long-term use, not power. Most of the applications required for day-to-day use, like Google Maps, Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, Google Music, etc., ran just fine. They’re not as smooth as on competing smartphones, but they work.

Because the myTouch is T-Mobile’s phone, the software overlay is minimal compared to LG devices like the Marquee. Apps all have a dark hue around them, and the notifications bar has instant settings changes like enabling Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, etc. The overall software design is simple enough for anyone familiar with Android to adjust to, and easy enough for new users to learn the OS.

Battery Life

Battery life on the myTouch is phenomenal. It averaged 10 hours in multiple battery tests, and under normal use lasted around two days of moderate to heavy use. Actual talk time is significantly lower, which is curious. I managed around 4 hours of consecutive talk time, which matches what T-Mobile states. I brought the myTouch with me to CES and it was the only phone that daily didn’t die from constant use. That’s compared to the HTC Vivid, Samsung Epic 4G Touch, Samsung Galaxy Nexus, and iPhone 4S.

I was also impressed with using the myTouch alone for all of my needs. Like LG’s Doubleplay, the strong battery life made it easy for me not to worry about how much I used the phone because the battery wasn’t going to die. Use the GPS, instant messaging, calls, and anything else and if you’re lucky at the end of the day the battery will be mostly depleted. Unless you spend a lot of time talking on the phone, in which case the myTouch fares about as well as most competing devices.

Benchmarks

Even though the myTouch isn’t very powerful, it does surprisingly well in the Sunspider Javascript benchmark, scoring higher than any other smartphone currently tested. It’s impressive, and the only explanation I can give is that the browser is very finely tuned and the Android software and T-Mobile’s overlay don’t interfere with Java processing.

The Browsermark score is also impressive, though the Quadrant Standard test shows the true limitations of the myTouch, with one of the lowest scores I’ve ever had. The low-end internal parts are the likely cause of such poor performance. Several other benchmarks used were also on the low side, and a few failed to run entirely. Finally, Amazon’s Instant Videos ran on the myTouch, but regularly crashed and the video performance was extremely poor.

Camera

As mentioned earlier, the myTouch has a 5MP camera and a 720p camcorder. The camera itself is nothing special, but manages decent quality photos. It has no flash. What is particularly annoying about the camera is that no videos or photos can be taken without an SD card, even if the included 2GB of data is empty. Why, I don’t know. It’s ludicrous that users cannot take pictures without an SD card. And even with an SD card, shots are saved to the phone directly.

Picture quality is decent. Focus tends to be the biggest issue with moving objects, and very close objects. Colors are oversaturated and in bright conditions are washed out entirely. In low-light, the colors are even more oversaturated, seemingly to compensate for the lack of light. That said, there are plenty of opportunities with the myTouch to take excellent shots if proper focus is set and the phone is held steadily. Thanks to the small body and light weight, that’s very easy to do.

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Low-light photography is fair to poor. The lens isn’t fast enough to capture light without serious blur. Video quality is fairly good, struggling most with quickly changing focus. Sudden changes to the ambient light are very quick, but there is a very noticeable framerate drop and slowness in even moderate lighting. Walking down a well lit hallway with no lights on (lit by daylight from other rooms) still didn’t provide enough light for the camera.

Conclusion

The myTouch is a decent phone. By no means is it anything special, and only excels in battery life. For heavy web browser users however, the myTouch is also an excellent device. If you’re the kind of person who needs a phone that can handle a lot of activity but not necessarily a lot of calls, the myTouch is great. It’s small, lasts awhile, and convenient.

Editor’s Rating:

3 out of 5 stars

Good

Bottom Line: The myTouch is a solid smartphone that runs built-in applications well and maintains a great battery life. It handles web pages excellently, but don’t expect to play games on it, or get a lot of talk time.

Pros:

• Great size, build and design
• Simple software that doesn’t get in the way
• Excellent battery life…

Buydig has some extra savings and even some freebies to throw in with this powerful home theater TV. This LG 42-Inch comes to you for only $579 which is 27% off the normal price and included is a free Wall Mount and 6 foot HDMI cable so you can set it up with your other equipment right out of the box. Of course this TV sports a full 1080p High Definition resolution for viewing content in the best quality around, but in addition to that you get a plethora of other features which tweak and perfect the color for the best viewing experience possible. That comes in the form of a 100,000:1 Dynamic Contrast Ratio and 120Hz TruMotion refresh rate which smooths out the action in even the most intense and speedy scenes. It’s also only 1.8-Inches thin and that makes it easy to place anywhere in the room (Especially when combined with the included VESA wall mount)

Get this bundle for $579 with free S&H!

Our Marathon of home theater equipment continues with this lovely discount straight from Newegg. Dropping the price down by a third you can now get this LG 140 Watt Soundbar system for only $100 (Rather than the $150 it was at before). When you’re looking for a sound system that’s not too complicated or elaborate or just need something that is sleek and compact you can get that accomplished right here with the bar. This soundbar gives you big sound in a small package, perfect for just about any placement in the room on a table, or even mounted on the wall above the TV. It provides easy connectivity which includes 2 optical inputs and even has Bluetooth connectivity for streaming music from smartphones or other devices. A great system overall, and now you can grab it at a whole new low price.

Usually this soundbar sells for $150, but Newegg has it, with no shipping, for $99.99.

Finding a TV with many of the features we want, or may want for years to come, is hard. They’re available, but expensive. The LG 47LW5600 comes with all of the latest bells and whistles, including 3D, built-in apps and wireless connectivity, all for a decent price of $1,100. But at this price point, for a 47″ TV, does the quality suffer? Read on to find out.

Picture and Sound Quality

The 47LW5600 provides a sharp, clear image, and has good contrast, even at extreme angles. There is minimal blur that is sometimes found on lower quality televisions. Overall, the contrast was better than expected but blacks were not as deep as I’d have liked. See the image below.

The 47LW5600 features local dimming, which enables and disables the backlight for certain segments of the display to provide a darker black. A common issue with local dimming is the potential for light bleed between different segments of the screen, and the 47LW5600 has that exact problem. It isn’t obvious in most cases, but it is very noticeable when the image is very dark, such as the above image.

I tested a variety of different movies and television shows, including Blu-ray discs, DVDs, digital content streamed from my computer to my Apple TV and over-the-air television shows. When I watched Jurassic Park on Blu-ray, it looked excellent. The color was accurate and the sound was rich and full. The speakers produced loud, clear audio with little distortion.

Settings

One of my biggest complaints about modern televisions is that they come with all sorts of bells and whistles turned on. Usually they make a product stand out, but in the case of most televisions, it’s marketing and, unfortunately, doesn’t actually improve video quality whatsoever.

The LG 47LW5600 has a default set for TruMotion, which is LG’s proprietary image smoothing technology, which was very popular at last year’s CES and, I believe, makes the picture too fluid. There is no reason for this feature to be enabled by default, and I don’t doubt for a second that potential customers will find the picture quality weird and uncomfortable. Adjusting the setting itself was a chore because the menu system is very poor and cumbersome. It took me, a fairly technical person, a few minutes of patient searching to find and disable TruMotion.

Connectivity & LG Apps

As expected at this price range, the 47LW5600 has a ton of inputs. It has 4 HDMI inputs, a VGA input, a pair of USB ports, a coaxial input, a component input and a composite input. It also has an ethernet port if you don’t have a wireless network to connect to (although a wireless adapter is included with the television). However, wireless will prove much better for most people who don’t need cables stretching across their media centers.

The television also offers a decent selection of apps, including some rudimentary games and a quite a few video and music streaming apps, including Netflix and Hulu Plus. Once up and running, both were easy to use and responded quickly to commands issued via the remote control. The picture quality of Hulu Plus content is as good as broadcast television, but the content on Netflix is hit and miss. Video through Netflix was always good enough, but their video compression has seen better days, especially on this set.

3D

I invited a friend over and we tested out the 3D by watching a Blu-ray copy of Piranha 3D (side note: There are two versions of the Blu-ray, a 2D and 3D version. We watched the 3D version). 3D quality was good, with a good amount of depth and minimal pop-out. It was almost on par with seeing the movie in the theater. My friend concurred with my assessment, saying that it was much better than she was expecting and that she would definitely watch more movies in 3D on the television.

This is partially because LG uses passive 3D glasses, which are similar to the glasses worn in movie theaters, as opposed to active shutter glasses which are bulkier and must be charged. The only real problem with watching 3D is that the picture quality changes drastically if you move. The picture isn’t static based on your location, so if you move right or left the image will do the same. This also means that everyone watching sees a slightly different image, which is not good for picture accuracy.

Conclusion

While the black levels aren’t as good as I’d like, watching picture quality was very good for such an inexpensive display. The few available apps are good enough to start, and 3D is very watchable. However, TV prices have been dropping in the last few months and while the 47LW5600 is at a great price point for its size, the overall quality of the TV is just good. It doesn’t have any stand-out features, but you will certainly get a decent TV experience out of this LG. After, of course, adjusting the settings to your liking.

Editors’s Rating:

3.5 out of 5 stars

Good

The Bottom Line: A solid TV with good color quality but less than average black and white contrast. 3D picture quality is good but the 3D itself is wobbly. Settings are a mess. Enough ports for a full media center and a number of worthwhile apps freely available.

The Good:

• Good color reproduction
• Large assortment of input options
• Decent selection of apps

The Bad:

• Black levels could be better
• Comes with too many features turned on

Edited by James Pikover

The LG Nitro HD feels like a phone from the future. That future being about six or seven months from now, when most high-end phones are light and thin, have huge screens, and boast ultra-fast data connections. If you want a phone that won’t go obsolete overnight, this is your guy.

The Nitro costs $200 with a two-year contract and is one of AT&T’s first 4G LTE phones. LTE stands for long-term evolution, and it’s currently the fastest network speed you can get on a mobile device outside of a Wi-Fi hotspot. Verizon was the first of the major carriers to debut an LTE network in the U.S. late 2010, with AT&T following in fall 2011. Sprint has announced it’ll begin rolling out LTE in mid 2012.

AT&T’s LTE network is coming online slowly, though, and it wasn’t available in our market when we had the Nitro HD, so we weren’t able to test the LTE connection. Nevertheless, 3G data service was very good, running so fast at times it felt like 4G. That was thanks to AT&T’s HSPA+ 21 network, which the carrier also considers 4G. It was also probably helped by the 1.5GHz dual-core processor that powers the Nitro — fairly state-of-the-art as far as current smartphones.

If you’re not used to phones with big screens, you’re in for a treat as soon as you unbox the Nitro HD. The screen measures a relatively massive 4.5 inches (diagonal), with a screen resolution of 1,280 x 720 pixels. That equates to a pixel density of 329 ppi (pixels per inch) — which matches the so-called “retina” display of the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S. However, I found the Nitro’s LCD screen to be not quite as eye-poppingly bright as today’s AMOLED phones, like the one on the Samsung Galaxy S II.

Still, the big, crisp screen is much appreciated when using the 8-megapixel camera. The Nitro’s built-in camera is performs extremely well in low light. However, it also has an annoying shutter lag when you snap a pic. (Perhaps that can be fixed with a software update.) Although the screen is 720p, the camera can can capture full HD in 1080p format. Regardless, videos look great on the big screen.

The Nitro’s implementation of Android (version 2.3 “Gingerbread”) is pretty straightforward, and will be familiar to anyone who’s used one of the Google OS-based handsets before. The Nitro neatly groups downloaded apps below the several that come preloaded. The bloatware is pretty annoying — it would be nice to be able to delete some of the pre-installed clutter or create folders. There may be ways to do this through other apps, but for the average Android user, it’s not obvious.

Benchmarks

Although it’s not specific to this phone, Google’s integration of its cloud services is getting better and better. First-time Android users will be thankful for the automatic cloud uploading of pics and videos, making them easy to share via Google+ or some other service. And it goes without saying cloud-based email and calendars sync seamlessly — even ones from non-Google services (Hotmail, for example).

Did I forget something? Oh, yes, phone calls. As a phone, the LG Nitro is unremarkable, though it’s served very well by the slim form factor. I must say, it’s impressive to see 4G LTE connectivity built into such a thin and light device. We thought customers might not see phones like this until later in 2012, when the combined LTE chipsets would become available, but engineers have found ways to innovate with design, and it shows in the Nitro.

The Nitro is an excellent modern smartphone, and it should keep its owners in the cutting-edge of mobile tech for at least a few months, and then keep them satisfied for a lot longer. It would have been nice to test the 4G LTE connection, but that’s because the phone is such a good vehicle for it. With a gorgeous screen, slim design and powerful processor, the Nitro is ready for anything you want to throw at it — even the future.

Editor’s Rating:

4 out of 5 stars

Great

Bottom line: The LG Nitro HD is a cutting-edge smartphone, with an big, high-res display that looks amazing. If you like — or are thinking about — Android, and LTE is in your area, you can’t lose.

Pros

• Huge screen
• Very light and thin
• Fast connection, fast processor. Did we mention it’s fast?

Cons

• Plenty of bloatware
• Camera has frustrating shutter lag
• LTE not in all areas

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Amazon is also offering extra savings on this LG 42LK450 42-Inch LCD TV!

Well there’s nothing better than a price drop and Amazon has surely delivered on that inherent desire with this large 42-Inch LG TV! This TV of course delivers a full 1080p High Definition viewing experience for the best quality in all your content. That is matched up nicely with its 100,000:1 Dynamic Contrast Ratio and Intelligent sensor technology which automatically adjusts the brightness based on the rooms lighting. Because of that you can get the best color experience at any time, so you can kick back and enjoy your favorite movies and shows. In addition it’s certified with Energy Star for superior savings in energy and therefore more money you save and has 3 HDMI inputs for easy connectivity with other equipment.

Price drop since our last posting!  You can now get it for $459.99, which is $25 off the last posting, though this doesn’t include a wall mount.  Free S&H.

Amazon is also offering savings on this LG BD630 Network Blu-ray Disc Player!

If you’re in need of some HD content for your new home theater TV than look no further than this slick and discounted Blu-Ray Player from LG! This player offers up all the features you need to truly enjoy the best HD content around, most notably the fast booting and quick disc loading times that give you access to your movies and shows the moment you sit back down. You can of course enjoy full 1080p Playback of all your discs and that includes upscaling your older DVD collection so even they can stay in the loop. Network connectivity is also available here and that gives you the ability to expand and stream content from places like YouTube, Netflix, Vudu and much more for limitless things to watch.

Once again, Amazon sells this Blu-ray player for $59.99 with free shipping.

OLED displays have long been associated with the likes of myth and illusion.  Okay, we’re exaggerating, but hopefully you’re picking up what we’re laying down.  Said another way, OLED tech has long been relegated to the small screen, such as smartphones and monitors, which are anything but practical for home theater viewing. However, that is about to change thanks to LG.

Today, the company announced the world’s largest OLED TV.  The 55EM9600 measures 55-inches from corner to corner and boasts a 100,000,000:1, contrast ratio.  That’s 50 times greater than the next best LED TV on the market today.  It’s actually a pretty silly number in real world terms, but it does provide some perspective to just how powerful this set is.  Images are said to be beyond life like and it doesn’t hurt that it’s 3D capable as well, though you’ll still need to sport a pair of glasses to take advantage of the extra dimension.

LG has opted for White OLED (WOLED) as a light source and Oxide TFT is the panel text, which replaces Amorphous Silicon with Oxide, which is cheaper.  This is all packed into a 4mm, yes 4 millimeter thick body.

LG hasn’t announced a price or launch date, but hopefully we’ll see a production model emerge by the end of 2012.  It’s complete conjecture, but we expect the price to be well north of $10,000.

LG Mobile and Verizon announced the arrival of its Spectrum smartphone at CES, which will be a Verizon exclusive beginning January 19 for $199.99 with a new two-year customer agreement. The Spectrum is being touted as the first smartphone for Verizon to have a 4.5-inch True HD In-Plane Switching (IPS) display, which is the same technology used in LG HD TVs. Adding to the Spectrum’s HD capabilities is HD exclusive access to the ESPN ScoreCenter application, including ScoreCenter stats, images and videos in 720p HD.

The new smartphone will support 1280 x 720 resolution and provides bright and sharp images with its 500-nit display luminance and Real-Stripe RGB pixels that allows clear viewing direct sunlight and accurate true-to-life color rendering. A Qualcomm 1.5 GHz dual-core processor will power the LG Spectrum, while Verizon’s 4G LTE connectivity provides robust power, multitasking and download speeds. It’ll run on Android 2.3 Gingerbread (it’ll upgrade to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich when available) and is preloaded with a variety of apps like Netflix, Gmail, YouTube, Google Talk and more. It has an internal 16 GB microSD, but can be upgraded to 32 GB and a boasts a 8-megapixel rear-facing autofocus camera with LED flash and 1080p video capture, along with a front-facing 1.3-megapixel camera for video chat.

Warning: Spoiler alert.  We suggest you watch the above video then read this post since the below gives away the kicker.

How slim (or safe) is LG’s thinnest LCD TV?  Seriuosly thin, as this commericial proves.  It’s difficult to say if the perpertrator really has the TV under his arm during the entire commercial, but if LG has any moral integretity it’s there the entire time.  We aint gonna lie though, the commerical is a little long and slow, but well worth the one minute wait.  But if you want, you can skip to the last :40 seconds if you want to get the abbreviated version.

LG has provided details on its Z330 and Z430 Super Ultrabooks even though the Ultrabooks are still pretty new. The Z330 model features a  13.3-inch 1366 x 768 LED-backit display, the choice of Intel Core i3, i5 or i7 processors, 4GB of DDR3 memory and HD 3000 graphics, either a 120GB or 256GB SSD, 10/100 ethernet, WiFi b/g/n and Bluetooth 3.0+HS. The LG Z430 is a bit larger than the Z330 and comes with a 14-inch display, 8GB of RAM, and 500GB HDD paired with optional 16GB or 128GB of SSD storage. Both models include: a multi-format memory card reader, single USB 3.0, two USB 2.0 and HDMI, 1.3-megapixel webcam and a 4-cell battery. There’s still no word on pricing yet, but info will probably be released after CES.

A cutting-edge Android phone like the LG Nitro HD is capable of some pretty amazing stuff. With 4G LTE connectivity, a high-def 720p display that measures a huge 4.5 inches, and a dual-core 1.5GHz processor, this handset has all you need to showcase the best Android has to offer. But finding the best material from the estimated 500,000+ Android apps out there can be a challenge. Here are some essential apps that will upgrade your mobile life AND help you get the most out of your phone.

Pandora (Android Market, free)

Pandora Internet radio is a must for anyone who wants music on the go and doesn’t want to spend vast epochs of their life syncing tracks. Sure, Spotify is more hip, but it also costs money to stream on your phone — Pandora is free. Creating your personalized station is as quick as searching for your favorite artist, and the service automatically remembers all your searches, further personalizing your music every time you tap thumbs-up or thumbs-down. With a battery that’s capable of 7 hours of talk time, the Nitro has juice to keep you rocking all day and all night.

Speed Forge 3D (Android Market, $2.90)

You’re going to need a game to keep yourself occupied on those long commutes or when you’re waiting in the doctor’s office with hopelessly out-of-date magazines. Speed Forge 3D is the perfect choice, for several reasons: 1) It looks gorgeous on the Nitro’s HD screen, with brilliant colors popping from the Real RGB striped pixels. 2) It’s incredibly simple — anyone who’s even seen a racing game will know how to play, and the accelerometer-based controls are perfectly intuitive. 3) It’s wildly addictive. Watch out when you lend your phone for friends to have a try.

BOX (Android Market, free)

You want an easy way to access all your stuff when you’re on the go? It doesn’t get much simpler than Box: Just drag and drop files onto the Box site on the desktop browser, download the app on your Nitro, and now you can see those documents wherever you are. You can even play videos that you’ve stored, and the 4G LTE connection will ensure that you’re watching within seconds of tapping (just watch out for those data charges).  And right now, until March 31, 2012 LG has a promotion running and if you download Box from your Android device you get 50GB of lifetime secure storage and file sharing for FREE. This is an LG exclusive deal.

TED Air (Android Market, free)

The TED (Technology Entertainment Design) conference is an incredible meeting of geniuses, with some of the most insightful keynote lectures ever. With this app, they’re all on your phone, and they look glorious on the 720p screen, and most use the widescreen 16:9 aspect ratio. You can save videos for watching when you’re offline, or share via Twitter, Facebook, or Google+. Plus now you’ve got an app to fire up when there’s a pretty young thing sitting next to you who you want to impress with your brain.

Google Currents (Android Market, free)

Calling Google Currents a news reader is really underselling it. It’s the best and most feature-rich story and site aggregator on Android, bar none. Imported feeds look like they’ve been tailor-made for the app, with well organized sections and clean article layouts that look straight out of a magazine. Best of all: photos look gloriously sharp and crisp on the Nitro’s ultra-dense display.

What makes LG Nitro’s True HD IPS Display so amazing?

A 16:9 Aspect ratio for widescreen entertainment, sharper, crisper images, amazingly accurate colors, 329 pixels per inch and did we mentioned 720p resolution!  And if that isn’t enough bang for your buck, the battery is good for up to 7 hours of talk time.

The Nitro HD is exclusively available on AT&T’s 4G LTE network.  Find out more at the official LG Nitro site.

*This post is sponsored by LG – see our sponsored post policy

Amazon has an astounding discount for this LG 42LW5300 42-Inch 3D LED-LCD HDTV with 3D Blu-ray Player and Four Pairs of 3D Glasses bundle!

Now this is one hell of a deal! Thanks to the holiday generosity that Amazon is providing you not only can grab this 42-Inch LG 3D TV for a discounted price but an LG 3D Blu-Ray Player and a whopping 4 pairs of 3D shutter glasses to go along with it! Enhance your entertainment experience like never before and bask in the greatness of full 3D and 1080p High Definition. This TV even provides you with a 120Hz TruMotion refresh rate for extra smooth scene transitions along with a high level of contrast which pushes color quality to new heights. With plenty of HD inputs at your disposal as well this can be your new best friend in technology for the holidays.

Get this TV and Blu-ray player for $689.99.  Free S&H with free returns.  That’s over $500 off the retail price

Amazon has some new savings to share on for this LG 42LV4400 42-Inch LCD TV!

Here’s another TV to indulge your senses with at a whole new low price to boot. This 42-Inch TV from LG provides you with all the HD prowess you need, starting with a full 1080p High Definition resolution for the best picture quality around. LG’s LED technology also provides you with realistic imagery and soft brightness for exceptional clarity of detail not to mention superior energy savings with Energy Star and a super slim design easy to place anywhere in the room. This TV even boasts a 120Hz TruMotion Refresh rate which eliminates motion blur from even the most intense scenes so you can see what you’ve been missing from your content.

Amazon continues to sell this TV for $499.99  Shipping both ways is free!

As Android phones become more and more prevalent in the marketplace, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that there is fragmentation of the operating system, in terms of device power. On the one hand there are high-end devices like the Galaxy S II, and on the other hand there are lower-end handsets like the LG Doubleplay. The Marquee is in the latter group.

The Marquee, besides for having an interesting name with an extra “E”, is a low-power smartphone for Sprint running Android 2.3.4, a 1GHz CPU, 512MB of RAM, and a 5MP camera. It’s one of the few Sprint handsets you can buy today that can’t access 4G, and is a 3G-only phone, which for other cell providers would be OK but considering Sprint’s unlimited plans, this is highly irregular.

Sprint customers already have access to 4G (but not LTE), and Sprint offers the best (and only) unlimited plan in the US. So the Marquee, without access to 4G speeds (unless they aren’t available in your area whatsoever), is almost wasted because it isn’t equipped for the 4G network.

Hardware

The Marquee is a simple, small handset. It has a 4″ display with a screen resolution of 480×800, the standard for Android smartphones today. The screen uses what LG has dubbed NOVA technology, which makes the display bright enough to use in direct sunlight. Why NOVA is important is questionable – plenty of smartphones (though not enough) are visible in direct sunlight and use standard LCD displays – but it works. The screen isn’t easily to use in direct sunlight, but it’s readable, media is watchable, and you won’t be squinting or blocking the light to see what it says.

That said, watching video and viewing media in general on the Marquee is a surprisingly good experience. Color and light contrast is very high, the screen can get very bright and uniformly very dark. It isn’t quite as good as some of the OLED displays I’ve tested, like on the Epic 4G Touch, but as an LCD display the NOVA technology is exceptional.

Aside from the screen, the Marquee has a typical smartphone look, with a lock button on top, volume rocker on the left side, and a MicroUSB connector on the top. There’s an additional quick-launch key below the volume rocker, which is convenient for opening any application instantly…almost (see Software).

The rear cover is glossy and reflective, thus highly prone to collecting fingerprints. It is easy to take off, and the design and look will appeal to some, though it’s excessive for me. There is 4GB of included memory, which is expandable by MicroSD cards to a maximum of 38GB (with a 32GB card). Overall build quality is sturdy, and it feels good to hold in the hand and light in the pocket.

Software & Battery Life

There isn’t much different in the software than from what you’ll find in most Android 2.3 devices. LG’s overlay is minimalist, and is mostly visible in simple graphic tones, like when trying to scroll too far a yellow bar will appear to indicate you can’t scroll anymore. I really like what LG has done with their overlay, though it’s too minimalist. The notifications bar is completely barren, and included widgets are scarce. I’d rather have less in the case of Android software additions, but there is a middle ground to reach.

The only trouble with the software isn’t so much a software problem as it is a hardware problem. The single-core CPU should be fast enough to properly navigate menus, browse the web, and handle basic applications without lag, but the Marquee doesn’t. Almost everything has a delay, even just going back and forth between apps pages. This makes doing almost everything on the Marquee a slower process. That’s not to say it can’t handle simple tasks; it just stalls frequently while doing so.

Even the quick-launch key, which is a great idea and should work well for a phone of this caliber, is a waste. It only works when the phone is active (meaning if it’s locked, holding down the key won’t open the application you want), and still requires holding the button down for two seconds before activating the app. I set it for the camera, and it’s two seconds slower than just opening the camera app button on my homepage. So what’s the point?

Battery life on the Marquee is pretty good, which doesn’t come as much of a surprise considering the power of the phone. It will last a full day and then some. It’s not as good on battery life as the Doubleplay, but it is above and beyond what today’s high-end Android smartphones can endure.

Benchmarks

Because of how the Marquee performed before any benchmarks, my expectations were not high. As you can see below, no surprises here.

The final benchmark I ran was streaming flash video from Amazon Prime. The Marquee can do it, but only barely. Most smartphones are incapable of streaming 720p flash (directly from the web; most apps with HD content do not stream flash video), but can handle 480p. The Marquee sputters, stalls, and has low-image quality and a lot of video fragments when streaming video, and that’s over an excellent Wi-Fi connection. It can’t stream over 3G, nor can it stream 720p video without crashing the web browser or simply not loading altogether.

Camera

With a 5MP shooter, the Marquee is okay at best, and a constant blur at worst. The camera has no manual focusv, is slow to shoot, and because it takes so long pictures all too often come out with significant motion blur. I took shots with the Marquee at the LA Auto Show, and don’t even need to block out people’s faces because they are so blurry in some shots.

When I stood perfectly still, pictures could come out clear. Colors are a little off and lighting is exaggerated, and light contrast isn’t quite up to snuff. In bright conditions colors are dull and lack vibrancy. Take a look at the shots below.

12►

Conclusion

The Marquee is, at best, a decent handset. It has a solid build and reasonable internal hardware, and fairly good minimalist software, but in both real-world testing and benchmarks, the Marquee is weak beyond belief. In every benchmark I ran, both shown above and the ones I left out, the Marquee is consistently at the end, generally by fairly large margins. That, combined with a poor camera and a lack of 4G on Sprint makes the Marquee a questionable buy at best.

The LG Marquee beside the Samsung Galaxy S II

There’s only two things that stand out for the Marquee: the beautiful and bright NOVA display, and its long battery life. Both of these are important components to a great smartphone, but only two pieces of a much larger whole. The Marquee is severely lacking as a smartphone. The few highlights of the phone are massively outweighed by pitiful processing power, poor performance and only an only mediocre camera.

But hey, it does work as a phone. If you’re on Sprint, then be smart and get a 4G-ready phone and take advantage of that unlimited data plan. The Epic 4G Touch is a great handset to consider.

Editor’s Rating:

2.5 out of 5 stars

Fair

Bottom Line: LG brings one major innovation, NOVA, to light with the Marquee, but falls short in every other area. It’s slow, small, and lacks the main feature Sprint touts on it’s smartphones today: free unlimited 4G connectivity.

Pros:

• The NOVA display technology gives the Marquee one of the brightest screens I’ve ever tested
• Excellent battery life for an Android smartphone

Amazon is offering an incredible low price on this LG BD630 Network Blu-ray Disc Player!

With all the TV’s we’ve seen on sale lately it’s great to have options for connectivity with them. Thanks to this super low price on this LG Blu-Ray Player there’s no reason not to indulge in the capability to not only play full 1080p High Definition movies and TV shows but full 3D ones as well. Dolby TrueHD Digital Plus technology is also built-in, providing for the best in audio coming from each and every disc you play. Wi-Fi connectivity comes built-in as well and allows you to stream content from the Internet including popular locations like YouTube, Netflix and much more. Don’t miss out on these impressive savings!

Amazon steals the deal today with this Blu-ray player that usually sells for $119.99.  They’ve got it for $59.98!