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Review: LG 65EG960T 4K OLED

Introduction and features

When it comes to televisions, there's no finer technology currently available than that of the Organic Light Emitting Diode.

We've all heard the hype about incredible contrast ratios and unsurpassed brightness – but does the fancy-schmancy OLED acronym really improve the television watching experience?

And, more importantly, does it justify the added cost? Add to that the other hyped-about TV tech of the moment, 4K (or Ultra HD), as well as a slightly curved display, and you've got yourself a whole bunch of home cinema buzzwords of the moment – all of which can be used to describe LG's jaw-dropping EG960T series of televisions.

Having spent some time with the 65-inch model, we can honestly say that this is one awesome slab of next-gen tech. As the only television manufacturer currently on the Australian market that can boast both 4K resolutions and OLED technology in its displays at the same time, LG has reached the top-tier of display tech for the here and now.

With that said, with top-of-the-range specs comes top-of-the-range prices – the 65-inch 65EG960T model will set you back $9,999 while the 55-inch 55EG960T model is priced at $5,999.

One of the things that you'll likely notice right away about LG's 4K OLED is just how remarkably slim it is. It has a depth of around 5mm, with a bulge lower down the centre of the TV's chassis on the rear. You don't have to worry about that, though – it's not exactly chunky, and it's kept away from interfering from the slinky sides.

This belter is also curved or contoured – call it what you will – though it's not as severe a feature as it might look.

While the curved vs flat display debate has raged ever since the introduction of the first concave HDTV, the argument is unlikely to get people riled up with regards to the EG960T – its curve is much more subtle than all of the other curved displays we've seen, which lets the set immerse you in the action, without being distracting.

Features

What is this 65-incher's standout feature? It certainly has a few to choose from. You could pick the OLED panel, the curved design or the Ultra HD 4K screen resolution of 3840x2160 on their own and still take the cake from the majority of sets on the market.

Add them all together, and you have a force to be reckoned with. Its user interface is an updated version of webOS (2.0), which is noticeably faster than before, allowing you to browse Netflix and YouTube for stunning 4K content. You'll likely be spending a lot of time in those two apps until 4K content becomes readily available elsewhere.

The EG960T doesn't come in a non-curved model, which is a bit of a shame since not everyone is entirely convinced of the added immersion benefits that these displays provide, though the curve is at least more subtle here than it is on competing sets – you can even wall-mount the EG960T without it looking weird. The addition of a filter also helps cut down on annoying reflections seen on other curved screens.

Its audio is taken care of by an Ultra Surround Sound module by Harman Kardon, which is quite loud, if not particularly bassy or impactful. If you're going to go all out by picking up the most advanced TV on the market, you're likely going to want a proper 7.1 TrueHD or Dolby Atmos setup to go along with it.

As well as Freeview HD digital tuners, WiFi and Harman Kardon speakers, the EG960T is 3D-ready, too, and comes with four pairs of the same passive 3D glasses given out at your local multiplex.

However, if forced to choose the feature that stands above the rest, we'd have to go with its OLED panel. It sports LG's four-colour Pixel WRGB technology, which adds a white subpixel to the usual red, green and blue mix.

Unlike LED and LCD displays, OLED doesn't require a backlight, letting the set's self-lighting pixels do the heavy lifting. Because of this, individual pixels turn off completely during dark scenes, allowing for true blackness on the display.

This isn't that 'almost black' that standard TVs usually get away with, where you can still see that the screen is on – OLED makes your TV look like it's completely switched off during black scenes.

This 'perfect black' makes the bright colours that shine out of the darkness stand out even more, offering unprecedented detail that's made possible due to the EG960T's infinite contrast ratio.

Yes, you read that right: this television doesn't offer a ten trillion-to-one contrast ratio – its self-lighting pixels make the display's contrast ratio literally infinite.

The lack of a backlight means that the EG960T's viewing angles are quite extraordinary. While it's not ideal to view a curved television from the side (another reason why flat screens will always be preferable), you'll be glad to know that there's no backlight leakage to be found on this set, allowing it to maintain exceptional colour, clarity and brightness when viewed from any angle.

Usability

Ins & outs

Just three HDMI 2.0 inputs on the EG960T is a slight cause for concern though elsewhere there are no such shortages.

Joining that trio on an outwards facing side-panel are three USB slots, a headphones jack and a Common Interface slot, while below are feeds for the TV tuners, a Scart, a component/composite video adaptor, an optical digital audio output and an Ethernet LAN slot.

Usability

The EG960T uses LG's Magic Remote, a Wii remote-style pointer that lets you pick options on the screen rather than navigate through they with your remote's directional pad. The TV's interface is built around this kind of control method, so while you can just use the D-pad to get around, it doesn't feel as natural as just pointing at stuff and pressing 'OK'.

The main pop-up taskbar is a carousel of colourful tabs that starts on the left with a pile of screen-grabs from the live input or current live app that can be flicked through.

This is how you reach Netflix, YouTube, ABC iView, SBS On Demand and other Web OS 2.0 apps. There's also a My Programmes tab that, when pressed, expands to show the last eight TV channels you watched.

Click a right-hand tab and it brings up smaller icons for all of those apps plus a few of the TVs internal options, such as live TV, a connected Blu-ray player, LG's Content Store, or whatever you've recently been watching.

You can also use the pointer to switch between content sources. This brings us to one of the TV's only notable faults – we found on a couple of occasions that the TV would get stuck when trying to switch between content sources or apps.

We'd point and click at the Netflix or Blu-ray player tab, and nothing would happen. Turning the TV off and on again fixed the problem immediately (thanks, IT Crowd), though it was a slight annoyance. It's not a deal-breaker, though – the issue is sure to be addressed in a future firmware update.

Performance

Performance

It's been said that Marvel's Daredevil series on Netflix was shot in a way that could only be viewed as originally envisioned on a 4K OLED TV. The series' director of photography, Matt Lloyd, has stated that his creative team shot scenes that were "irresponsibly dark", and that he was able to film things differently because of OLED screens.

Naturally, we took this as an opportunity to go straight to the show-stopping, single-shot hallway fight scene from the second episode of Daredevil, booted up in the EG960T's Cinema mode, as recommended by TV's accompanying paperwork, and, in this case, the show's cinematographer.

Immediately, the scene's dank and dingy hallway is rendered with complete clarity, with dark areas and shadows disappearing gradually into complete blackness.

Daredevil walks into the frame, dressed head-to-toe in black, his dark-side appearing like a silhouette against a grimy green and (off)white wall. Meanwhile, the light on his back gives a good indication of how naturally the pixels fade from light to dark.

This is due to LG's 10-bit colour depth, producing over a billion colours and providing spectacular shading that eliminates that weird wavy effect that sometimes emanates from light sources on LED/LCD televisions.

As mentioned earlier, clarity is absolutely exceptional. Watching the show in its native 4K resolution (thanks to the TV's Netflix app), there was not a single instance of aliasing present.

Picture quality is to die for – bright primary colours of red and blue rip through inky black backgrounds, displaying in exquisite detail. If colour is convincing across the spectrum, so is the response time; even frenetic movement is silky smooth, and we didn't notice any motion blur or sped-up framerate spiking.

Occasionally, Netflix would drop down to 1080p during high-traffic periods (through no fault of the TV itself) and it still looked great, benefitting greatly from the OLED's perfect black technology and 6-step upscaling capabilities.

Which brings us to the performance of 1080p Blu-ray and video game content on the EG960T. We opted to test a range of Blu-ray discs or varying quality on the television, as well as Wii-U and PlayStation 4 consoles.

We began with Gravity. There was a fade-to-black moment mid-way through the film – the room didn't just darken, it disappeared. Every single pixel switched off and left no residual trace of any light. It was incredibly impressive, to say the least.

How can a TV go completely dead, and for such a brief moment? What's more, when a bright, white object is shown in the centre of the screen, the background is so black that it appears to stretch far beyond the edges of the screen itself, almost as if the entire room becomes the backdrop.

On the EG960T, light is produced by passing electricity through a thin layer of carbon-based organic dyes at a pixel level, not at a backlight level as with LED. LG also has its own take on OLED tech, producing a white pixel as well as the usual red, green and blue.

Gravity on 2D Blu-ray puts those insane black levels to good use, providing a completely convincing and involving night sky dotted with white, bright stars. Likewise, a Blu-ray viewing of Interstellar showed us the remarkable depths of space in a way we hadn't experienced since the film's initial IMAX presentation.

The film's wormhole scene provided us with a view of what seemed like a limitless supply of stars. Whenever the film cut to a full-frame IMAX shot, which is often, you'd have no way of knowing that what you're watching isn't 4K.

Quite frankly, we didn't even think this kind of detail was possible on a regular Blu-ray disc. That's either thanks to the TV's OLED technology tapping into the format's full potential, or some seriously great upscaling.

We also checked out Lawrence of Arabia on Blu-ray, in an effort to see how an older film (50+ years) would look (albeit, one remastered from a 4K scan), and the results were also impressive. With that said, picture quality was not quite as mind-blowing as something like Interstellar, which was shot on modern film stock and digitally processed. The TV's upscaling efforts were a little more evident here.

The same can be said about our turn playing the Wii-U game, Mario Kart 8. While the game itself is incredibly vibrant, silky smooth and known for being one of Nintendo's more visually impressive efforts, when viewed on a 4K television, the (admittedly older) Wii-U hardware's limitations became more evident.

That's not to say that it looked bad, far from it, but it's clear that the system wasn't designed to look fantastic on a 65-inch 4K set.

The PS4 however, fared much better. The console's newer, more powerful hardware made Batman: Arkham Knight absolutely sing on the EG960T, taking full advantage of the TV's OLED display to wow us with its deep blacks, vibrant colours and immense detail.

The lights and rain of Gotham City benefitted from the EG960T's self-lighting pixels in the same way that Interstellar did, looking like there was extra detail present that wasn't as noticeable on a regular Full HD LED/LCD display.

Turn to the 3D version of Gravity and the EG960T's passive/Cinema 3D system Offers a surprisingly detailed pictures that don't suffer from any flicker or dips in brightness.

Because of how passive 3D works, what we're seeing is half of the set's 4K resolution in each eye, which equates to two (albeit upscaled) Full HD images spliced together.

Verdict

Put simply, 4K OLED is the future of television. With incredible clarity and deep, perfect black levels that help make the make bright colours stand out even more, we can finally experience entertainment as it's meant to be seen.

While the amount of content that is readily available is currently limited, to say the least, standard Full HD content upscales fantastically on the EG960T. And, with its HDMI 2.0 ports, you'll be ready for any 4K-enabled devices that are sure to come in the future.

We liked
The EG960T's self-lighting pixels are mind-blowing, providing perfect blacks, bright, pure whites and stunningly vibrant images.

While the TV's picture quality looks best when displaying 4K content, detail is still wonderful with upscaled 1080p content. And while the EG960T's pixels may look fantastic when displaying bright, colourful imagery, they truly shine (in a figurative sense) when they're switched off completely, giving us unrivalled (and unbeatable) black levels.

You've heard of ludicrously high contrast ratio numbers in the past? Well, even they can't beat infinite.

Its native 10-bit colour depth also makes the display capable of producing over a billion colours, making shading better than it has ever been before.

We disliked
While the TV's curved display is much more subtle that competing 4K sets, we do wish that completely flat option was available to purchase. The curve wasn't too bothersome here, but we're still not entirely sold on the need for a curve at all.

We also wish that a few more HDMI ports had been included, to truly future-proof this set.

Finally, the combination of OLED and 4K technologies on large screens has made purchasing an EG960T a costly endeavour. Chances are, some of you will want to wait a while before picking one up.

Final Verdict
There's no other way to put this: EG960T is hands-down the best television currently on the market.

It uses those self-lighting pixels exceptionally well, achieving outstanding images where light becomes a magical medium – can we praise it any higher?

Motion artefacts are few when watching the fluid action sequences, with film judder forgotten, too.

However, what we liked most about the EG960T was its equal treatment of various different sources. Native 4K footage from Netflix 4K looks stunning, of course, but so do Blu-ray discs and HDTV channels. Black levels and viewing angles, in particular, are light years ahead of anything else on the market.

And while price will obviously be an issue for many people, when you consider that the EG960T includes both OLED and 4K (which are still new technologies that are expensive to produce, especially at these screen sizes) and boasts market-leading specs, the price doesn't seem so exorbitant.

Yes, there's no denying that LG's EG960T will cost you a hefty chunk of change, but if you have the money to spend, you're not going to find a better TV at the moment – this is the current pinnacle in televisions.

from TechRadar: Technology reviews http://ift.tt/1LQKWOS