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LG 65EG960T review - A 4K OLED TV with blacks to die for

By Ng Chong Seng - 28 Feb 2016
Launch SRP: S$10999

LG 65EG960T review - A 4K OLED TV with blacks to die for

This article first appeared in the February 2016 issue of HWM.

The LG EG960T is a curved 4K UHD TV using OLED technology. Unlike most other TVs that use LCD and which requires a light source made up of tiny LEDs, OLED is an emissive tech whereby each pixel is able to produce its own light. The result: infinite contrast with blacks to die for. In the last few years, LG has produced quite a number of 1080p OLED TVs already. But now, by merging 4K with OLED on the EG960T, it has (on paper) attained the holy grail of TVs.

If you ignore the section that houses the ports, the EG960T is a pencil-thin TV with super-thin bezels. To create a floating TV effect, the panel is propped by a piece of see-through acrylic with a silver metallic base. The space saved from not having a backlight unit is probably one reason why LG chose to keep all the hardware components in the chasis, unlike Samsung's flagship 4K TVs that use a breakout box to house the main chips and ports. Of course, both implementations have their pros and cons. In Samsung's case, you can sort of half-upgrade the TV down the road by just replacing the box.

Connections-wise, you get three HDMI inputs, three USB ports (two USB 2.0, one USB 3.0), and one headphone output on the side. Considering that this is a very expensive TV, I was hoping to see at least one more HDMI port; because you're only left with two when one of them is used for ARC (audio return channel). Other features like support for wired and wireless connectivity, HEVC decoding, HDMI 2.0 with HDCP 2.2 are par for the course for TVs of this class. On the software side of things, the TV's WebOS 2.0-driven interface is definitely pretty looking. Aided by a quad-core CPU and 3GB of RAM, it was noticeably faster than earlier WebOS 1.0-based models.

It's easy to switch back and forth between apps and TV shows with the WebOS 2.0 interface. (Image source: LG.)

You can click, point, scroll, or use voice commands on the LG Magic Remote.

Picture quality is exceptional on the EG960T. The only TV that can stand up to it is the Samsung JS9500, an LCD TV using quantum dot technology. In my tests, in areas of screen uniformity, brightness, and motion resolution, the Samsung TV fared better. But the EG960T had better viewing angles, gave a more enjoyable 3D performance (high resolution with no crosstalk), and possessed a chart-topping black-level response. In a way, the vastly superior black levels more than compensated the areas it was weak in. Even for non-technical users I spoke to during a side by side comparison preferred what they saw on the EG960T most of the time. The infinite contrast, the perfect blacks just made everything looked that bit better.

Really, if you're willing to pay for the best picture quality (the 55-inch version costs S$6,999, the 65-inch S$10,999), there's no better choice than the LG EG960T. This is also why the TV tops our Tech Awards 2016 category for the best 4K TV. If you aren't bothered by the lack of Harmon Kardon branding for the speakers, the cheaper EG920T is a good alternative, though only the 55-inch version (S$5,499) is available in Singapore.

For high-end users looking for the latest and greatest, or those looking to get a 4K TV to watch HDR content, LG's 2016 OLED TVs that meet the Ultra HD Premium specs are expected to hit our shores later this year.

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