Design and Build

In an era of slim and lightweight TVs, the LK616 features a standard plastic frame design. Its broader and blocky design consumes space if wall-mounted or even if placed on a flat surface. The stand bundled with this TV is a two-piece, Y-shaped design one. It is strong and easy to install. The edges are slightly curved and this TV has broader bezels, holding the screen firmly. The lower side of the bezel at the front has a LG logo carved on it.

The back panel of the TV has the connectivity ports, all placed on the left outer side making them easy to reach. The remote of this TV features a curvy design with support for both, motion and voice control. Towards the center of the remote are four navigation keys with a scroll wheel in between. This helps in easily navigating through the TV interface. Also, there are two hot keys for Netflix and Amazon Prime Video.       

 

Features

 

The LG LK616 is a 32-inch Smart TV running on a native 1366 x 768 (HD) resolution. The feature set of this TV is better than most entry-level 32-inch TVs. The UI of this TV is kept minimal, which has a tile of menus and settings neatly organized. This latest version of the operating system has received a webOS Notify feature that works like the notification feature on our phones. You can view notifications right from messages, incoming calls, e-mails to software updates. The most interesting feature of the LG LK616 is the AI ThinQ feature. This TV has integrated AI functions, which LG claims will support more than 800 voice search commands. This means, besides controlling the TV, you can do things like ordering food, online shopping and much more with simple voice commands. This is something that LG had announced for its OLED line-up of TVs and has started rolling out on their budget set of TVs.

The LG LK616 supports another demanding feature, called Active HDR that promises to offer improved picture quality. It supports multi-HDR formats that work in the favour to get the razor-sharp picture quality with clearer details. There are a number of pre-installed apps to satisfy your entertainment hunger. For more apps, you can choose to browse through a wide collection of apps from LG’s app store. If you have content downloaded on your smartphone, you can stream music it to the TV with the help of a two-way Bluetooth connection. The LG LK616 connects devices in no time. Other connectivity options include one USB and three HDMI ports, including one HDMI ARC (Audio Return Channel). This feature performs two-way communications between the TV and other ARC compatible devices such as a soundbar and a home theatre system, over a single HDMI connection. This helps in reducing wire clutter. There is WiFi and in addition, also a LAN port for internet connectivity.

Some of the additional features include multi-tasking that let you continue watching the TV, while surfing the internet simultaneously. Screen sharing and controlling the TV is possible using a single “LG TV Plus” app. This app is available for smartphones and tablets. In terms of audio capability, this 32-inch LK616 is equipped with two channel speakers powered at 20W. This should be loud enough to fill up the room with sound.  

Performance

The picture quality of the 32-inch LK616 Smart TV was decent without any picture tweaks. To get the picture quality appear to ideal, we had to explore the picture settings. We started with the eight picture modes. These included Vivid, Standard and couple of other expert modes. We changed the picture mode to Standard at first and started browsing through a collection of HD photos and videos. On this mode, photos appeared bright with good details. There was a good mix of natural colours, but with added sharpness. We got it to look right, but only after tweaking the settings.

On switching to a Vivid picture mode, photos and videos got brighter and saturated. Our preference was to watch TV using the Standard mode rather than the Vivid mode. If you are someone who like brighter picture, you can use it as a default setting. Other picture modes include Cinema, Cricket, Game, HDR effect, which are picture enhancing options. As far as additional picture settings goes, most of them were kept default. We had a sample HDR clip and the TV detected it in no time. On the HDR effect picture setting, the picture had a balanced image quality. We tried other test videos and listening to MP3 tracks and LK616 can easily fill the room with just 15 percent of the volume. There are several audio presets to choose from. We didn’t notice major differences between them.

After using this TV for a while and shuffling between the home screen and the settings menu, the interface showed signs of slowdown. The magic remote of this TV is a highlight and it also acts as a motion remote. This is helpful for scrolling through different menus and pages rather than the traditional remote. The Menu button on this remote takes us to the home screen of the TV, while the Settings button slides down quick settings menu on the screen. The dedicated voice button on the remote makes it easy to bring up the prompt. The operating range of the magic remote is quite strong and it can operate even from a distance of 25 feet, without any issue.

Verdict

While one might expect the 32-inch LG LK616 TV to be an entry-level TV, it’s filled to the brim with premium features. You will rarely find features such as AI ThinQ, HDR, and a motion remote on budget TVs or any other similarly priced TV models. If you were planning to upgrade to a Smart TV, the LG LK616 makes a serious contender, offering serious value for money with decent picture and audio quality.