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LG’s 37LF7700 is one of the cheapest TVs we’ve seen with integrated Freesat HD. There’s a network port (a mandatory requirement of Freesat) but LG hasn’t made use of this capability to offer media streaming or internet services. There’s no memory card slot, but a USB port and a built-in media player lets you watch photo slideshows or listen to MP3s – or watch a slideshow with background music. However in our tests, the LG didn’t recognise our FAT32 USB flash drive, instead reading files from an NTFS-formatted external hard disk. The number of inputs is a little thin on the ground – three HDMI ports could prove limiting if you have a lot of modern AV kit. The remote control is fairly easy to use, although we found the leatherette finish a bit tacky. We’re big fans of LG’s menu system, which has big, clear icons for each section and intuitive settings. There are a number of preset image quality settings, including an Intelligent Sensor preset that automatically adjusts the picture based on ambient lighting. It also turns on Energy Saving mode by default, which makes the picture much too dark. The Vivid preset made colours oversaturated and led to visible artefacts from over-sharpening. Instead we chose to customise the Standard preset, turning the backlight and contrast up. Colours were vibrant but flesh tones weren’t natural, so we increased the colour setting. Some settings had little or no effect, such as Real Cinema and Film Mode which are meant to reduce judder in movies. DVD playback was good, with a minimum of jagged lines and hardly any evidence of ghosting. Connecting to a PC was hassle-free, with the aspect ratio changing automatically to Just Scan. We found that setting the Black Level to High helped to reduce saturation for PC use. Colours were impressive in Windows applications – some of the best we saw in our side-by-side tests. LG’s noise reduction technology failed to completely remove the blocky effect that low-quality Freeview channels bring, but we didn’t see any blocky compression artefacts either. Unlike the main menu system, the EPG is a mess. Seven channels are shown at once (other TVs allow you to see more) and we didn’t like the dull monochrome colours. You can’t filter the main view by genre; instead there’s a search function for filtering results. You can view up to eight days ahead, and thankfully there’s a shortcut to jump back to the current time. The internal speakers produced a clear sound with a decent level of bass, but volume levels weren’t impressive. We had to turn it up to at least 75 per cent to feel immersed in our test movies, and only at 100 per cent was it loud enough to fill our labs area with sound. SRS TruSurround XT allows you to tweak the sound, but it’s not a magic bullet and merely added a little bite to the soundtrack.
The inclusion of a Freesat HD receiver is a bonus, but if you’re after the best image quality you’re better off with Toshiba’s 37RV635D and a separate Freesat box. However if you’re on a strict sub-£500 budget and want Freesat, the 37LF700 represents excellent value for money and wins our Budget Buy award.
