BEST SMART TV | LG OLED65C9PUA | BEST SMART TV 2020 REVIEW | LG SMART TV
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BEST SMART TV
LG OLED65C9PUA
PROS
Perfect black levels and wonderful contrast. Wide color reach. Powerful smart TV platform with Google Assistant.
CONS
Expensive. Colors are slightly cool out of the box. Limited selection of streaming services.
BOTTOM LINE
LG's OLEDC9 series of OLED TVs offer fantastic contrast with perfect black levels and vivid colors, in a remarkably thin and attractive design.
Organic light-emitting diode (OLED) TVs are some of the best you can buy, in both style and performance. The technology enables the panels to be incredibly thin while producing perfect black levels and a wide range of color.
It's also very expensive, which is why even LG's "lower-end" OLEDC9 line costs more than its flagship Super UHD LCD TVs. The 65-inch OLEDC9 we tested goes for $3,499.99, so it's not for budget-minded buyers.
That said, it's the most affordable OLED TV we've seen, and it offers one of the best pictures you can get, earning it our Editors' Choice.
Design
The C9 is one of LG's most simply and conventionally designed OLED TVs, but it still looks attractive thanks to its completely bezel-less design. The entire front of the TV is simply a pane of glass containing the OLED panel, with a flush black border measuring only 0.3 inches between the active part of the screen and the edge.
The panel is framed by a tiny strip of rounded gunmetal aluminum, too small to be seen against the border of the screen unless you get very close to the TV. The back of the C9 is brushed gunmetal aluminum, providing some support structure to the OLED panel while keeping it only a tenth of an inch thick (not too much support; be very careful when setting up the TV because the bezel-less design makes it vulnerable to bending when you pick it up).
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The lower half of the C9 bulges out another 1.7 inches in the middle to accommodate the plastic enclosure that holds all of the TV's electronics besides the OLED panel. Aside from the power connector on the right side, all ports sit on the left side of the back of the TV in two recesses.
Three HDMI ports and a USB port face left in the leftmost recess. A fourth HDMI port, two USB ports, an Ethernet port, an antenna/cable connector, an optical audio output, and 3.5mm ports for audio, composite video, and RS-232C control systems face directly back in the second recess.
The included Magic Remote is now-standard LG fare for its smart TVs. It's a curved, glossy black plastic wand covered in buttons and dominated by a circular navigation pad with a clickable scroll wheel in the middle.
A number pad and volume and channel rockers sit above the navigation pad, while simple playback controls and dedicated service buttons for Amazon Prime Video and Netflix sit below it.
A pinhole microphone near the top lets you use the TV's voice search and Google Assistant. And, like all Magic Remotes, this one also serves as an air mouse for controlling an on-screen pointer.
WebOS
LG's WebOS smart TV platform powers the C9's features and apps. It's a functional, easy-to-use interface that arranges your most common content, whether apps, channels (live TV or even YouTube channels), or inputs, in a row of parallelograms that pop up on the bottom of the screen. It's an attractive menu system that's easy to customize.
Most major streaming services are here, including Amazon Prime Video, Google Play Movies & TV, Hulu, Netflix, Sling TV, and YouTube for video and iHeartRadio, SiriusXM, and Spotify for music. It isn't the biggest selection, and the hundred-odd entertainment apps don't go nearly into the regional or topic-focused niches that the thousands of apps on more open smart TV platforms like Roku TV and Amazon Fire TV go into.
It incorporates Google Assistant on top of LG's own voice-based content search, so you can speak into the remote to get the same information and smart home control features you would find on a Google Home. This isn't an Android TV or Google Cast device, though, and for most media-based voice assistant features the TV uses LG's WebOS-based service first.
Alexa is also planned to be added as an option to WebOS later this month, letting you choose which major voice assistant you want to use with the TV.
WebOS has several built-in features outside of streaming apps. A channel guide shows you what's on TV, either OTA with an antenna or cable or satellite with a connected box. The LG Channels feature adds free streaming Internet TV channels like Shout! TV and Mashable, all of which can be integrated into the guide alongside the conventional channels.
A web browser loads websites on the TV, and is fairly easy to use thanks to the air mouse function of the Magic Remote. The C9 also supports screen sharing over Miracast, and offers a Gallery mode that rotates works of art or photos on the screen.
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Performance
The LG OLEDC9 series is a 4K TV
that supports high dynamic range
(HDR) content in HDR10, Dolby
Vision, and Hybrid Log Gamma.
See How We
Test TVs
We test TVs using a Klein K-10A
colorimeter, a Murideo SIX-G signal
generator, and Portrait Displays'
CalMAN software with testing
methodology based on Imaging
Science Foundation's calibration
techniques. The C9 shows excellent
contrast and color range,
unsurprising considering the TV's
OLED panel and premium price.
In
Technicolor (Expert) picture mode
using an 18-percent white field, the
TV shows a peak brightness of
667.89cd/m 2. This is slightly
brighter than the LG OLEDE9P
(633.56cd/m 2), which uses the
same OLED panel as the C9, but not
so much brighter that slight
variation can't account for it.
Both TVs are quite bright for OLEDs,
though they can't reach the blazing
brightness of high-end LED-backlit
LCD TVs like the Sony Master Series
Z9F and its 1,677.49cd/m 2 peak
brightness with the same 18-
percent field.
Of course, LCDs still
can't reach the perfect black levels
of either OLED TV, which give both
the C9 and E9P "infinite" contrast.
The C9's colors are very impressive,
but not perfect.
The above chart
shows DCI-P3 color levels as boxes
and measured color levels out of
the box, in the TV's Technicolor
(Expert) picture mode, as dots. The
TV shows a very wide range of
color, covering 93.4 percent of the
DCI-P3 color space. However,
whites run a bit cool, pulling yellows
a bit toward green and magentas a
bit toward blue. It isn't nearly as
accurate as the Samsung Q9FN ,
which still impresses us with its
color performance.
Professional calibration can be an
expensive service, often running a
few hundred dollars, but we
recommend it for users willing to
spend several thousand dollars on
their TV. The LG C9 (and E9P,
which shows nearly identical color
performance) supports CalMan's
AutoCal feature, which automates
the calibration process to make far
more individual adjustments in
minutes rather than hours.
It
probably won't make the service
much cheaper, since it requires
expensive equipment and software,
but it will make the calibration
much faster and convenient.
Unsurprisingly, the C9's excellent
contrast and strong color
performance make an excellent
picture. BBC's Planet Earth II looks
excellent on the OLED panel. The
greens of plants and blues of water
in the "Islands" episode look vivid
and natural, though the slightly cool
colors of the TV out of the box are
a bit apparent in the whites and
grays of sloth fur and tree bark.
They don't look overly blue or
otherwise distractingly inaccurate,
just a touch cooler than TVs like the
Q9FN and Z9F.
Details in both
bright sunlight and shade come
through clearly, with fine textures
easily discernible in dark parts of
the frame without appearing
remotely faded or washed-out. Even
cheetah fur backlit by the sun,
which normally would be almost
invisible or blown out with
overcompensation, can be seen
clearly against the bright light
behind it.
Deadpool also looks very good on
the C9. While the TV's whites are
slightly cool, its reds hit the DCI-P3
color value spot-on, which makes
Deadpool's red costume look
balanced and well-saturated even
under the overcast lighting of the
opening scene. The burning lab fight
is also full of detail, even in the very
dark shadows cast by the bright
oranges and yellows of the flames.
The Great Gatsby really stands out
on the C9 thanks to its superlative
contrast. In the party scenes, the
whites of the lights, balloons, and
shirts look bright and neutral while
fine details like the cuts and
textures of black suits in the same
frame come through clearly. Skin
tones appear natural, if very slightly
cool at times. Throughout the
scenes, dark blacks never look
muddy or washed-out, and bright
whites never clip or lose any
contours in the highlights.
Input Lag
Input lag is the amount of time
between when a TV receives a
signal and the screen updates.
Using the HDFury 4K Diva 18Gbps
HDMI matrix's lag tester, the
OLED65C9 shows an extremely high
input lag of 92.2 milliseconds in
Technicolor (Expert) picture mode.
However, switching to the Game
picture mode and disabling the
Super Resolution feature improves
input lag at the slight expense of
picture quality, dropping that
number to an extremely low
13.5ms. That easily puts it under
our 20ms threshold to consider the
C9 one of the best TVs for gaming.
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OLED Greatness
LG's OLEDC9 series of OLED TVs
offer a fantastic picture in an
incredibly slim frame. It's hardly
surprising, considering LG's OLEDs
consistently impress us with their
performance year after year. It
doesn't have the most accurate
color out of the box, and is pricey
enough that we'd recommend a
professional calibration if you plan
to make such an expensive
investment for your home theater,
but even untouched it looks
excellent and shows some of the
best contrast you can find in a
consumer TV.
If money is no object
and your first priority is picture
quality, it's an excellent choice.
LG's other OLED TVs use very
similar panels to the C9, and based
on the OLED65E9PUA we tested,
don't offer any significant
improvement in picture quality.
For
these models, you're paying extra
primarily for the industrial design,
like an additional $800 for the
floating glass look of the 65-inch
OLED65E9PUA and several
thousand more for the ultra-thin
panel-only design and single-wire-
attached Dolby Atmos soundbar for
the Signature OLEDW9P series (the
latest version of the LG Signature
OLEDW7P TV we tested two years
ago).
When it comes to just picture
quality and features, the C9 line
stands alongside its more
expensive siblings, and is our
Editors' Choice for high-end TVs.
If
you're not quite ready to spend
multiple thousands on a new TV,
the TCL 6-Series remains our
favorite budget model, with a 65-
inch version available for less than
$1,000. You won't get the
superlative contrast or ultra-thin
design you get with an OLED panel
(or Google Assistant), but you'll
spend much, much less.
Click on →See Price
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