Tag Archives: LG

New LG CineBeam Projector for Home Movie Viewing at CES 2021

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The newest LG CineBeam 4K UHD Laser projector (model HU810P) from LG Electronics is designed to deliver an authentic movie theater experience to consumers in the comfort of their own homes. The latest innovation in LG’s popular high-resolution projector lineup, this projector offers features and technologies that make it the perfect choice for movie lovers and families who are entertaining at home.

In addition, to its cinematic quality picture, this model offers easy and convenient access to movies released direct to streaming services via compatibility with popular content streaming apps.

LG CineBeam 4K UHD Laser projector delivers sumptuous, 4K (3,840 x 2,160) resolution up to 300 inches (diagonally) with a dazzling 2,700 ANSI lumens of brightness, offering 97 percent of the DCI-P3 color space with its dual laser system. The projector’s laser light source is extremely reliable and durable, with a lifespan of approximately 20,000 hours of brilliance.

In dedicated theater rooms or typically lit living rooms, the projector delivers vibrant, crystal clear images via LG’s new Brightness Optimizer technology. Iris Mode offers two presets – Bright Room Mode and Dark Room Mode – that detects the amount of light in the room to deliver the best picture possible, even delivering a true movie theater environment if desired. And Adaptive Contrast automatically adjusts each frame to achieve the optimal contrast ratio in darker scenes.

With support for Real Cinema Mode and TruMotion Mode, the new LG CineBeam can show movies as their directors originally intended by adjusting the frame rate of the projected image to match the original source at 24Hz. LG’s TruMotion is especially well-suited for action movies, rendering quick movements and fast scenes smoothly and naturally. The projector supports a variety of popular HDR formats, including HDR10 and HLG, as well as Dynamic Tone Mapping.

For maximum convenience, LG CineBeam 4K UHD Laser projector features wireless connectivity with home theater audio systems via Bluetooth. When connecting via HDMI 2.1 with enhanced audio return channel (eARC), the projector delivers 4K images in 10-bit color with nearly lossless audio quality. Positioning the CineBeam anywhere in the room is a cinch thanks to its 1.6X zoom and horizontal and vertical lens shift.

The projector runs LG’s newest webOS 5.0 platform for intuitive control and navigation as well as quick access to popular streaming services such as Disney+ and YouTube. It is compatible with Apple AirPlay 2 and Screen Share, giving viewers the ability to share content from smartphones and tablets at cinematic scale.

“Our new CineBeam projector performs equally well with bright or dark scenes, elevating picture quality and enhancing the viewing experience to a whole new level,” said Jang Ik-hwan, Senior Vice President and Head of the IT Business Unit of LG Electronics Business Solutions Company.

Life In and After Lockdown

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Although many of us still remain in lockdown, there’s light at the end of the pandemic tunnel with a number of countries now easing the restrictions. Painful as it has been for many, it’s also been positive in several respects. I spend more time with my children, there’s no hour long commute and I’ve been taking walks every day. Well, nearly every day…

And it looks like I’m not alone. LG Electronics commissioned research in UK to mark the launch of its latest portable and lightweight laptop range, LG gram, and found that

  • Just over a half of those questioned plan to continue with new habits like listening to podcasts, online fitness classes and regular walking once social distancing restrictions are lifted.
  • Two-fifths feel these new habits are better for their wellbeing.
  • More than one in four have found it easier to relax and keep a better routine.

Video calls have become a way of life and the main way to keep in touch with friends and family. In addition to calling for a chat, 25% have celebrated a birthday, 20% have taken part in a pub quiz and 7% have been to a stag or hen do. Frankly, I’d be asking for a do-over when things are more normal…

The study showed that the average person was spending nearly three hours per week on video calls, with half the nation (48%) expecting to continue with video calls after the lock down is finished. I guess what this shows was how much people felt that video calls were either unnecessary or difficult to do, but once people saw how easy the calls were and got past the initial awkwardness, it’s become ordinary. Thanks Zoom.

The poll of 2,000 conducted by OnePoll showed how integral technology is to our lives with laptops (54%), TV (57%) and mobile phones (64%) playing a key role for work and entertainment during the lockdown, allowing us to continue watching our favourite TV shows (51%), follow at-home workouts (19%), and learn a new skill or language (16%). If you include becoming a home school teacher as “learning a new skill”, then it’s three out of three for me.

When it comes to working-from-home this is where I think we will see lasting change. After experiencing working-from-home many will not want to return to long commutes in crowded trains or long traffic jams with the commensurate savings in fares or fuel. A quarter of the people (25%) questioned agreed that they planned on working from home more often after offices reopen. When asked what their ideal space to work from would be in the future, home was the most popular answer (30%) followed by a fixed office (23%) and then outside space (9%).

Hanju Kim, IT Product Director, LG UK said: “It’s both encouraging and uplifting to see some of the positive things coming out of this challenging period. The fact that many people are forming productive and healthy new habits is testament to the nation’s ability to adjust. The nation is working from home and has an appetite to continue working flexibly even after offices reopen. A big part of this can be attributed to technology keeping us connected.”

And so to the product launch….the 2020 range of LG gram laptops is available in the UK now coming in 14” (from £1,199.99), 15” (from £1,299.99) and 17” (from £1,449.99) sizes, featuring a 10th Generation Intel Core processor with Iris Plus graphics and up to 24GB of dual-channel DDR4 memory. With the 14” model weighing under 1 kg and the 15” & 17” models allowing up to 17 hours of battery life, the 2020 range sets a new standard for portable computing. Available from all good UK retailers – Amazon, PC World, Argos and Costco.

LG Velvet Reveal in S Korea

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Another week, another phone launch and it’s LG‘s turn with the new LG Velvet. For those keeping count, the Velvet is really the next iteration of the G8, so think of the Velvet as the G9, though it’s not quite as high-end as might be expected from the G-range. That’s not to say it doesn’t have a couple of tricks up its sleeve. Let’s take a look.

From the front, the Velvet looks like most of today’s smartphones: 6.8-inch 1080 x 2460 OLED screen with a 20.5:9 aspect ratio. No real surprises there, but round the back it’s a little bit different. Instead of a dark cluster of lenses, the Velvet has a raindrop effect, with a larger lens at the top, two smaller lenses below and a flash at the bottom, all spaced out . It’s a good look – check the picture. The cameras themselves are a 48 MP main sensor, an 8 MP ultra-wide camera and a 5 MP depth sensor. It’s a 16 MP selfie shooter on the front. As expected for a phone of this calibre, there’s an in-display fingerprint scanner.

Driving the smartphone is a Snapdragon 765G chipset with 5G support. There’s 8 GB of RAM, 128 GB of storage and a microSD card slot which is always a welcome addition. The 765G might not be top of the range but it’s a strong performer and most people will find it very acceptable.

Keeping the juice flowing is a 4,300 mAh battery, and the Velvet offers both wired fast charging and 10 W wireless charging. I imagine that battery will keep the phone going for over a day. In terms of other features, the Velvet has IP68 rating for dust and water ingress, and there’s a 3.5 mm audio socket for the audio fans.

And for the Velvet’s party tricks…to start with there’s support for LG’s dual screen accessory, which I think is a great idea to increase screen real estate without the risks of a folding screen. But in addition to the dual screen, the Velvet also supports a stylus pen for fine editing and control. That’s something that I’ve only heard of on tablets and it’ll be interesting to see it in action on a phone. It’ll be even more interesting if the dual screen supports the pen too.

For now, the Velvet is only available in South Korea but an announcement is expected in mid-May regarding the rest of the world. Price-wise, it’s going to be ₩899,800 in S Korea, which is around US$730.

Keep The Note 4?

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Motorola Bag PhoneSince the mass adoption of the cell phone happened starting in the 1990’s, like everyone else I’ve gone through a long succession of cell phones. My very first cell phone was a Motorola bag phone. Remember those? Analog cell phones could sound surprisingly good. Of course, in fringe reception areas, the sound quality would often become quite crackly and was prone to dropped calls. Those bag phones could output up to three watts of power, so the reception could be decent depending on the area it was operating in.

The next phone I had was an early analog candy bar style phone with a nickel cadmium battery. It had a terrible standby time of only about 30 minutes. Reception was poor in part because output wattage was cut back to about ½ a watt.

After that, the next one was a more modern Nokia candy bar style phone with better battery life and was both digital and analog. Unfortunately, the digital sound in those days was pretty bad, and the analog reception suffered from vastly diminished ½ watt of power.

The next one was an updated version of the Nokia candy bar phone. It offered somewhat better performance, and a few more bells and whistles.

Cell phone number five was a folding LG camera phone that included a color LCD and was my first phone with an integrated 640 x 480 camera. The phone also had a USB port. I was able to figure out how to plug the phone into a computer and go through a very clunky process of transferring the photos from the phone’s built-in memory to the computer’s hard drive, a process that required some hacky third party software I downloaded from the Internet. Even after I replaced this phone I continued to use it for several years as an alarm clock, a function that worked quite well.

Next came my first smart phone. It was a Windows Mobile phone from HTC with a 3.5” pressure sensitive touchscreen with WiFi and 3G EVDO. It included a storable stylus and a slide-out keyboard, features I found of little practical use.

My second smartphone was another HTC phone running Windows Mobile, this time without the slide-out keyboard. It still had a 3.5” pressure-sensitive touchscreen, WiFi and 3G EVDO.

Smartphone number three was my first Android device, a Sprint Evo also manufactured by HTC. The HTC Evo  included a 4.3 inch capacitive touchscreen and the 8 megapixel rear camera was able to record 720p 30fps video, though the video sound quality suffered compared with newer devices. The HTC Evo’s biggest problem was that it had awful battery life.

Smartphone number four was a Samsung Galaxy S3. It had a 4.8 inch touchscreen and was a better performer than the Evo while offering somewhat better battery life.

Smartphone number five was a Samsung Galaxy Note 3. The Note 3 had a 5.7” 1080p touchscreen and offered great battery life. The Note 3 can record 4k video. The Note 3 has great stereo video sound. Many Note 3’s remain in use today.

The next, and my current smartphone is a Samsung Galaxy Note 4. I really like the Note 4. It has great battery life, fantastic performance and a Quad HD 5.7” touchscreen.

With cell phone number eleven, I find myself in a bit of a quandary regarding where do I go from the Note 4? Three of the Note 4 features I find extremely important, besides the 5.7” screen size, are the integrated Micro SD Card slot, the ability to do fast charging, and the user replaceable battery.

The fast charging feature is game-changing. If I have forgotten to plug the phone in or I find the battery is low, I can plug the phone in and quickly goose the battery. The Note 4 will charge from zero up to fifty percent in only thirty minutes which is incredibly handy. Even a quick 10 or 15 minute charge can be extremely useful in pushing the battery percentage back up to a higher level.

I recently experienced a suddenly failing battery in my Note 4. I was able to buy a high-quality replacement battery via Amazon and I’m back in business. If I had a phone such as the Note 5 with a non-user-replaceable battery, I would be forced to make an inconvenient trip to my phone provider.

I am inclined to simply keep the Note 4 that I have indefinitely. After all, it has everything that I demand. There’s nothing to be gained by switching to the Note 5 or later, and the user-replaceable battery to be lost.

LG Tone Infinim Headset Updated for CES

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LG logoLG Electronics (LG) will unveil the latest iteration of the LG Tone Infinim at CES 2016 this year. For those who haven’t seen the Tone Infinim before, this style of Bluetooth headset is in a contemporary design and is worn around the neck. It certainly looks very different from the usual style of in-ear headset while still being convenient to use.

Tone Infinum

As an upgraded successor of the popular HBS-900, the new Tone Infinim (HBS-910) inherits the previous model’s main strengths such as metallic body, wire retractable earbuds, long-lasting battery and Harmon/Kardon audio quality. With its upgraded Quad-Layer Speaker Technology, the new Tone Infinim delivers a great audio experience with better balance across all sound ranges and enhancing the frequency response ratio for richer bass and crisper high notes. Dealing with noisy environments such as crowded subways or city streets are an easy challenge for the new Tone Infinim with dual noise-cancelling microphones.

“The original Tone Infinim set a new standard for wireless headset design,” said Chung Sue-hyun, Vice President of Innovative Personal Devices at LG Electronics Mobile Communications Company. “We delivered an audio solution that offered days of battery life, a comfortable fit that didn’t fall off the neck when unused and most importantly, fantastic sound. It’s no wonder the LG Tone Infinim series is the most copied design in this product category.”

LG Tone Infinim Bluetooth Headset

The new Tone Infinim will be available in the United States from February with other parts of Asia and Europe to follow soon after. Pricing is not available at the moment.

The Curve Continues at CES with the LG G Flex2

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LG LogoLG today announced at CES the second iteration of its curved smartphone, the G Flex2. Building on the innovation and success of the first generation G Flex, the Flex2 arrives with a more advanced design, faster performance and most importantly, greater convenience.

The G Flex2 goes beyond its predecessor’s ground-breaking curved profile. The new smartphone incorporates a range of curves from a radius of 400mm to 700mm across the front, back, sides and top-to-bottom edges. The curved layers deliver a sleeker and more dynamic appearance to the G Flex2. It does look good.

LG G Flex2
Spec-wise, the LG G Flex 2 sports a 5.5″ full HD curved P-OLED screen at 1080 x 1920 pixels (403 ppi) driven by a Qualcomm Adreno 430 GPU. The phone itself is powered by a 2.0 GHz octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 with 2 GB of RAM and 16 GB RAM, running Android Lollipop out of the box. Usefully, there’s a micro SD slot to expand the storage if needed.

Other features include a rear 13 MP camera that has optical image stabilisation (OIS+) and uniquely in smartphones, a laser auto-focus. The front camera is 2.1 MP cameras which is less than some other smartphones but I think that’s fine for a selfie or video call. As expected, it’s a 4G / LTE unit with Wi-Fi 802.11ac and Apt-X capable Bluetooth. Best of all, the battery doesn’t skimp at a sizeable 3,000 mAh. There’s also a fast charge feature that will boost the battery up to 50 percent in under 40 minutes.

Seasoned GNC readers may remember the original G Flex came with a self-healing back, which keeps the phone looking new even through the nicks and scratches from normal everyday use. This has also been improved with significantly faster healing time, reducing the time from about three minutes to around ten seconds at room temperature.

“The original G Flex demonstrated LG’s pioneering spirit and with the G Flex2 we have refined the curved form factor, staying true to our philosophy of innovation for a better life,” said Juno Cho, president and CEO of the LG Electronics Mobile Communications Company. “The G Flex2 not only has the stunning looks, it also has the powerful guts to be at the cutting edge of current smartphone technology. Simply put, it’s a true head-turner in every sense of the word.”

The LG G Flex2 will be available starting at the end of the month in Korea to be followed by additional global markets, including the UK at the end of February. Price was not disclosed.

Visitors to LG’s booth at CES 2015 (Las Vegas Convention Center, Central Hall #8204) can experience LG’s newest mobile devices, including the G Flex2.

LG Showcases at Pop-up Cinema

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LG LogoIncredibly, it’s been 21 years since the first commercial SMS text message was sent, and appropriately the message was, “Merry Christmas”. It was sent from Neil Papworth to Richard Jarvis on 3 December 1992 but it was a little one sided as Richard’s phone didn’t have a keyboard to reply on. I know how Neil must have felt as I never get a reply from my parents when I text them either….

To celebrate the amazing advances in technology since then, LG are showcasing their latest mobile devices at a pop-up cinema this weekend at Westfield London, UK. Instead of the silver screen, cinema-goers will be able to watch the latest films on LG’s G2 smartphone and the G Pad 8.3 tablet. Between 13th-15th December, the pop-up cinema will feature luxury seats, buckets of popcorn and the latest films in the palm of your hand.

LG Pop Up Cinema

Now showing is LG’s premier smartphone, the G2, featuring a 5.2″ full HD screen and tiny 2.65 mm bezel, giving owners a larger screen in the same overall dimensions.(Don’t you love the juxtaposition of imperial and metric units?) The IPS display keeps colours accurate and clear, perfect for the latest blockbuster.

But if that’s too small, the new G Pad 8.3 is step up from the usual 7″ tablet fare, with an 8.3″ screen to enhance the cinematic experience. The 1920 x 1200 WUXGA goes beyond full HD and the 1.7 GHz quad core processor makes sure that the G Pad keeps up with the action.

LG have partnered with Sky TV, to bring Now TV to their range of Smart devices and visitors to the cinema will be able to view a selection of the latest films using the Now TV app, which is available from Google Play.

If you are still wondering what to get your loved one and you are near Westfield London, pop round and munch some popcorn at the LG pop-up cinema. Apparently it’s near the Disney store….that’ll keep the kids quiet for 10 mins.