Colours are startlingly vibrant, yet, unlike LG TVs of old, this colour intensity doesn't come at the expense of natural tones, even when watching standard-definition pictures. In fact, standard-definition pictures are very watchable in general, with decent sharpness and well-suppressed noise complementing the excellent colours.
The 42SL8000 rises strongly to the challenge of rendering the detail and clarity of HD sources, especially since the 200Hz engine does a stand-up job of limiting the amount of motion blur and judder.
As we mentioned earlier, the 200Hz engine comes with one or two strings attached. For instance, if you leave the system active while watching a sport that features a fairly small ball, like football or, especially, cricket, sometimes the scanning backlight can cause ghostly second or even third balls to appear around the real one. Fine details can occasionally flicker, too, and shimmering halos can appear around large moving objects as they pass across the screen.
You can easily minimise these side effects, though, by switching the 200Hz engine to its low setting, or even turning the system off completely if it really annoys you with any particular source type. In fact, provided you put some effort into it, the 42SL8000's 200Hz engine gets far more things right than wrong.
Even the 42SL8000's audio is surprisingly decent for such a slender TV, with an open, engaging, clear and detailed sound stage that even manages to offer a modicum of bass. Only a tendency to sound slightly harsh with extremely high-pitched sounds takes some gloss off the set's audio performance.
Conclusion
The LG 42SL8000 looks gorgeous, has more connections than you'll ever need, is bursting with features and options, offers pictures that are a joy to behold 99 per cent of the time, and, at £1000, isn't expensive at all considering what it offers. What's not to like?
Edited by Charles Kloet
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