LG65EG9600 Curved 4K OLED 3D TV Review
The LG 65EG9600 Curved 4K OLED 3D TV comes in at a hefty $9,000 and is likely to price out a lot of shoppers in the market but if you have the money and are looking to shell out on a top end 4K TV, the LG 65EG9600 Curved 4K TV is a superb choice.
Click here to see what others are saying about the TV.
The Significance of OLED
The LG 65EG9600 Curved 4K TV uses OLED technology which uses organic carbon based materials that does not require a back light and filters (unlike LCD displays). The main benefit from using OLED is that they offer a wide viewing angle and offer much better picture quality and vibrancy in colours. They are also, as a result of the materials from which they are constructed from, are much simpler to make resulting in very thin screens and and more efficient to run.
As compared to LED and LCD TV’s, OLED’s have a much quicker refresh rate which give a more fluid and clearer picture.
Looks
The LG 65EG9600 looks gorgeous and is remarkably thin. I put my iPhone 6 Plus and Samsung Galaxy S6 next the TV to compare thickness and they are amazingly, roughly the same thickness.
The chrome finishing looks great and it comes with a nice stand that makes it, overall, a centre piece for your living room. The curvature makes it look like something from the future and despite the mixed feelings about curved TV’s on the internet, my overall view is that it looks stunning.
Features
The LG65EG9600 has 3 HDMI ports which are 4K ready, USB 3.0, LAN connection, OPTICAL IN and OUT and Antennae.
The SMART functionality is delivered through WebOS 2.0 which works really well. The interface is fast, relaible and fluid, unlike a lot of SMART TV’s. You can quickly get in and out of applications and access your home network making viewing your persoanl media a breeze and accessible very quickly at all times.
There is an inbuilt web browser which is fine and does the job but lacks a flash player. It’s not good enough for heavy browsing but if you needed to check the odd sports results or do a bit of browsing, its their and perfectly usable.
Picture
The curvature surprisingly does not affect the viewing angles. This in large due to OLED technology which, in fact, makes for much wider viewing angles but also because we reviewed the 65″ screen. This TV does come in 55″ which we suspect will have a lesser viewing angle.
Because there is no need for back light, the blacks are deep and look amazing, against the vibrant colours emitted by the OLED display. There are a multitude of modes you can change the LG65EG9600 too such as gaming or sports mode.
Sports mode for example offered deep colours and fluid motioning when watching the NBA. The colours are vivid and the refresh rate makes the picture looks buttery smooth. Gaming mode gave sharp detailed picture quality whilst again also offering a smooth picture. I found it actually disguised some of the frame rate issues the Witcher 3 has on the Xbox One.
You can go deeper and change specific settings within the picture settings though I found that the standard pre-set modes did a good job of giving a mixed set of viewing options.
LG65EG9600 Remote
The magic remote is functional and works fast enough to make navigating the interface, WebOS 2.0 a breeze. But for $9,000, the remote doesn’t look great. Sure it’s built well enough, but for this kind of money, I would have expected a bit more than what looks like a standard TV remote. In any event, if I had to choose, I would prefer a plain looking but very functional remote than one that made any compromises on its functionality.
How does 4K content look?
Netflix is one of the few places where you can get 4K content at the moment. I watched some House of Cards in 4K and it looked amazing. There is so much more on the screen and the colours are rich and deep. The contrast of background and foreground imagery makes the picture come to life.
I found that watching 4K is best done when the lights are off. This emphasises the picture quality and in some scenes, makes the lighting effects stand out. The colours are again very vibrant and the picture is incredibly sharp packing in lots of detail.
4K Gaming
We have 1080P these days and 4K gaming is supposedly the future but it will be a while before we see a full library of games that will make getting 4K dedicated for gaming worthwhile. Nonetheless, we played Call of Duty Advanced Warfare, Bioshock Infinite and Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor all of which looked fantastic. The added resolution of a 4K TV brings out the games world design in fantastic detail. Call of Duty Advanced Warfare was my personal winner because of its silky smooth frame rate that made playing the game even more incredible in 4K.
Audio Quality
The harmon/kardon sound design is LG attempting to give a sound experience that matches the TV’s viewing experience. And it’s not bad. But as ever with thin Flat screen TV’s the sound is not as good as you are going to ever get from a good sound bar. The Sound is perfectly competent but you will certainly want a sound bar if you are seriously thinking of picking one of these up to get that cinematic sound experience. Luckily, Amazon are offering a great deal when buying this TV and they include the LG Electronics LAS950M Soundbar (2015 Model) in a special offer. I wont go into a detailed review of the Sound Bar here but you can see what others are saying about in by clicking here.
If you already have a Sound Bar, Amazon allow you to alternatively select a LG Electronics BP550 Blu-Ray Player with Wi-Fi (2015 Model),
Verdict
The LG65EG9600 4K Curved 3d TV is expensive but worth it. OLED is the way forward and truly brings the picture quality to life with this TV.
I already mentioned that it has a brilliant user interface with WebOS 2.0 and navigating between apps and channels is very quick and fluid. You can easily connect to your home network and its brilliant for sports viewing and gaming.
The remote is functional but lacking in design. The 4K content we tested looked amazing and we feel at this moment in time, pound for pound, this is one of the best 4K TV’s you can get on the market.
Amazon are the best place to purchase at the time of writing because they offer a $500 free gift card with each purchase. See more about the offer below and for full terms click here. For UK readers, Curry’s also have a special offer on them – click here.
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