Organic light emitting diodes (OLED) is still considered the pinnacle of TV technology, and LG is the undisputed industry leader in OLED. The secret of the rich colours and inky solid blacks lies in the way the picture is created. Unlike other TVs that shine light from the back of the TV through coloured layers to make up the picture, the OLED uses no backlighting. Instead, each pixel can be turned on or off individually, which allows for pure black and a lot more precise colours since no light is ‘leaking’ through in dark-picture areas. Without backlighting, the screen can also be far thinner, or as thin as a sheet of glass in this case, although the electronics, chips and ports are packed into the thicker base section of the TV. Until now, OLED TVs have been seriously pricey but they’re now much more affordable than ever.
This is the movie lovers TV through and through. This is certainly not the TV for watching amateur YouTube clips or old, low-resolution downloads. Picture quality is, quite simply, breathtakingly good. Much of that is the benefits of 100 million self-lit sub pixels shining through in the OLED technology, but the LG has also loaded this TV with image-processing smarts including using the Alpha 9 main processor for AI picture enhancements and various HDR protocols including Dolby Vision.
The Filmmaker Mode tries to render the film exactly as the director intended and is particularly interesting to movie buffs. The audio system also has many options and tweaks, including accentuating dialogue over sound effects, and Bluetooth for connecting headphones or even speakers. Gamers also score big here. In gaming mode, the panel runs at a blistering 120 Hz with 1 ms response time. That’s better than most gaming monitors, and there is FreeSync built in.
Beyond the multimedia quality, there is very little this TV does not offer, and digging into the settings allows you to set up shortcuts and many customisations. The WebOS operating system is a little intimidating but extremely powerful once you get the hang of it. You can customise the menus and even create your own dashboard. LG’s Magic Remote has a unique scrolling wheel, which is ideal for browsing through big libraries of video. Unfortunately, we found it was just too easy to apply too much pressure on the wheel and click to select by accident. It also features a mouse-like pointer on the screen, which moves as you wave the remote around, but we got over this quirky novelty quite quickly.
55” OLED UHD, 100 Hz refresh, HDR10 Pro/Dolby vision, 40 W audio, Dolby Atmos, LAN/WiFi/Bluetooth, 4× HDMI 2.0, 2× USB, WebOS, R25 000
