LG BD570 review

Sitting at a very reasonable £190, this LG Blu-ray spinner certainly does much right, but in a highly competitive market that's just not enough Tested at £190.00

What Hi-Fi? Verdict

Not much wrong with Blu-ray images, but this isn’t the all-rounder some rivals are

Pros

  • +

    Lovely, lustrous Blu-ray pictures

  • +

    decent spec, good build, nice looks

Cons

  • -

    Not the best DVD upscaler around and strangely inhibited sound

Why you can trust What Hi-Fi? Our expert team reviews products in dedicated test rooms, to help you make the best choice for your budget. Find out more about how we test.

The inexorable downward trajectory of the price of a decent Blu-ray player continues apace.

After some strenuous testing our new favourite player is the £170 Sony BDP-S370, but already it's got brand-new competition in the shape of this LG BD570.

And it's quite a nice shape, too. The flappy front panel has to stay open if you want to use USB memory to access BD-Live facilities, as the BD570 does without any internal flash memory, but otherwise it's a good-looking machine with plenty going on, specification-wise.

Wireless connectivity
Wireless DNLA compliancy, for use with any PC or DNLA server attached to your home network is a particular highlight. On-screen menus are logical and concise, and these are words that apply equally to the remote control.

Blu-ray discs load decently quickly (even the interminable Terminator 2) and look alluring. The LG draws from a wide-ranging colour palette to deliver natural, high-contrast images – it has a notable facility with textures of all types, and handles motion well.

Detail levels are high, black levels agreeable and picture noise repressed well in all but the most trying circumstances (that slow pan in the first scene of The Dark Knight, for example).

The downside of upscaling
The BD570's success is slightly more qualified when upscaling DVDs. Colours, contrasts and detail levels remain impressive, but there's picture noise in evidence more often than not.

Sound from any source is, by prevailing standards, on the diffident side. It's nicely balanced at all times, certainly, and is commendably detailed, but there's no denying the lack of dynamic oomph.

In a sector as competitive as this, that's not quite good enough.

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What Hi-Fi?

What Hi-Fi?, founded in 1976, is the world's leading independent guide to buying and owning hi-fi and home entertainment products. Our comprehensive tests help you buy the very best for your money, with our advice sections giving you step-by-step information on how to get even more from your music and movies. Everything is tested by our dedicated team of in-house reviewers in our custom-built test rooms in London, Reading and Bath. Our coveted five-star rating and Awards are recognised all over the world as the ultimate seal of approval, so you can buy with absolute confidence.

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