Two things stand out about the 65-inch LG G6 OLED TV right from the off: its stunning design and its eye-watering price.

Our quick take

To see an OLED65G6V is to want one. Its design is so stunning it's almost obscene, while its contrast-rich pictures are often good enough to make grown AV fans weep. Amazingly, thanks to its built-in soundbar, it even manages to sound outstanding despite the screen's ground-breaking slimness.

All of which has probably got you wondering why the mark at the top of this review doesn't read full marks. First of all, while pictures look stellar for much of the time, you can get more spectacular - albeit more messily lit - HDR images from this year's best LCD TVs.

The biggest problem, though, is that the margin of the OLED65G6V's picture and sound superiority over LG's step-down E6 OLED TV is quite small. Yet the price gap between the two TVs, at £1,500, is a far from it. The curved C6, minus the sound bar, is even less still.

As a result, much as we love most things about the LG G6, in the end it's hard to sensibly suggest that anyone for whom money is any sort of object stump up for one when the almost-as-good E6 or curved C6 OLED panels can be had for so much less cash.

LG OLED G6 4K TV - 4.0 / 5

FORAGAINST
  • At times it delivers the best TV pictures we've ever seen
  • enjoys LG’s brilliant webOS smart interface
  • a stunning sound system
  • the most drop-dead gorgeous/incredible design the TV world has seen
  • Struggles at times with the extra brightness HDR content brings
  • no Freeview Play support (strange
  • considering it’s there on LG’s cheaper OLED series)
  • does it fully justify the £6
  • 000 price when the E6 model is similar?

Where the latter is concerned, £6,000 is clearly a massive chunk of cash to consider dropping on a 65-inch TV. But the OLED65G6V's design is so extraordinary that your hand automatically starts creeping towards your wallet as soon as you look at.

Seriously, the sight of the LG G6's screen sitting on a frame that's less than 3mm deep looks like the eighth wonder of the modern world. Especially given that the majority of the sub-3mm panel has been made of glass rather than boring old metal or plastic.

Essentially the OLED65G6V makes you feel like you're watching pictures being conjured out of mid air by some sort of dark AV magic. But is it genuinely worth its asking price?

LG G6 OLED TV review: Design and connections

The OLED65G6V's stunning slenderness is possible because LG has shifted all of the TV's brains and connections into the distinctive desktop stand that juts back behind the screen's bottom edge. This stand can be rotated back behind the screen to form a wall mount if you wish, and also sports a high quality, full-width soundbar attached to its front.

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LG

This soundbar delivers a startling 60W of power across a 4.2-channel speaker configuration, and even goes so far as to build speakers into two of its sides so that it can always deliver forward-firing sound regardless of whether you've wall hung the TV or sat it on a piece of furniture.

The OLED65G6V's connections - mounted rather awkwardly in the edges of the desktop stand - are comprehensive, including four HDMI, three USB and the usual Wi-Fi and wired network options.

The USB ports support recording from the built-in Freeview HD tuner to USB HDD, or playback of multimedia from USB drives, while the network ports support DLNA streaming from compatible devices and access to LG's online features.

LG G6 4K OLED TV review: Apps and OS

These online features are a bit weird. For while you still get good stuff like the subscription streaming services of Amazon and Netflix - both offering native UHD and high dynamic range (HDR) streaming content - as well as Now TV, My5 (Channel 5's catch-up service) and the BBC iPlayer, you don't get the Freeview Play app found on LG's cheaper OLED TVs for 2016. Which means you don't get any support for the ITV Hub or All4 catch-up TV platforms.

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LG

LG's argument for stripping Freeview Play out of the OLED65G6V is that buyers of such a high-end TV will likely have external devices for delivering catch-up TV services. But if you're going to make that argument, you arguably might as well not put any apps on the TV at all!

At least the G6 does still employ LG's excellent webOS smart interface, with its crisp, economical, clean and responsive design.

LG G6 65-inch 4K TV review: Superb OLED panel

The OLED65G6V's use of OLED technology isn't just exciting because it contributes to the set's extraordinary design. The way each OLED pixel produces its own light and colour independent of even its nearest neighbours has also made it the TV technology of choice for many picture quality connoisseurs.

What's more, being able to deliver deep black pixels right alongside bright white ones without any of the light bleeding issues you get with LCD TVs in the same circumstances potentially makes OLED even more exciting in these days of HDR content.

Talking of HDR, the OLED65G6V handily supports both the common so-called "HDR10" format, and the Dolby Vision HDR take. Dolby Vision sources are scarce at the moment: in the UK only Netflix currently supports Dolby Vision HDR right now, on a very limited range of TV shows and movies. But Amazon has promised Dolby Vision support too, and it's possible it will crop up on Ultra HD Blu-ray too, eventually. At any rate, there's surely no harm in LG supporting both HDR formats even when no other UK TV brand currently does.

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LG

The OLED65G6V also plays 3D Blu-rays (extremely well) if 3D is still on your AV radar.

Its specifications when it comes to contrast, brightness and colour join with its native Ultra HD resolution to earn the TV the AV industry's Ultra HD Premium badge of HDR performance honour.

Actually, the OLED65G6V's claimed ability to deliver 96-98 per cent of the digital cinema DCI-P3 standard's colour range and maximum brightness output of between 650- and 700-nits both comfortably exceed the Ultra HD Premium requirements.

In action the OLED65G6V is at times - often, even - so good it's almost silly.

LG OLED65G6V review: Blacker than black

With standard dynamic range (SDR) content of the sort most of us still watch for the majority of the time, the G6 is positively imperious. This set combines the best reproduction of black we've seen on a flat TV with dazzlingly rich colours, remarkable amounts of shadow detail in dark areas, and much improved brightness from the company's 2015 OLED screens.

LG seems to have improved its colour management this year too, resulting in more consistently natural and accurate tones as well as enhanced subtlety when it comes to rendering even the tiniest tonal shift in 4K-resolution colour blends.

Also a treat to behold is the uniformity of the OLED65G6V's lighting when handling dark scenes. The pixel-for-pixel light control of its OLED panel completely avoids the sort of light clouds, halos and stripes you get during dark scenes with LCD TVs.

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LG

LG has even managed to almost completely remove the light banding problem (where light levels reduce in intensity in clear "steps" as your eye tracks the image from the centre out) that plagued 2015's otherwise excellent OLED TVs.

You still have to be careful not to set the OLED65G6V's brightness too high (stick to between the 49 and 52 settings) if you don't want the screen's normally stellar black level performance to take a bath.

Some slightly awkward motion handling can reduce the TV's sharpness with action-packed 4K sources too. Overall, though, we say the OLED65G6V produces the best standard dynamic range pictures the TV world currently offers.

LG 65-inch 4K OLED TV review: HDR magic and misfires

The set's stunning black level performance and pixel-level light control also give it leg up over the LCD competition with HDR content. Seeing bright HDR objects sitting amid near-black backdrops with no light pollution around them is a sight that never gets old. In fact, for many AV enthusiasts it's a sight that's enough in itself to make OLED irresistible.

The OLED65G6V also does a terrific job of delivering the wide colour gamuts associated with HDR sources, combining OLED's natural colour strength with the extra vibrancy made possible by having such deep, immaculate black colours to bounce off. The old SDR pictures we've been living with for so many decades look drab by comparison.

While the OLED65G6V can look mesmerising with HDR, though, it can struggle at other times - especially when watching HDR10 content rather than Dolby Vision.

The issues are all connected with the fact that even though its near-700 nits of brightness is a significant improvement on previous OLED TV generations, it still falls way short of the 1000-nits most HDR content is mastered at - and even further short of the 4000-nits some HDR content is mastered at.

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LG

That, ultimately, is the decision you make when buying an OLED TV: they're always going to be darker than an LCD equivalent, but deliver better black levels.

Even so, the LG G6 can't deliver HDR's bright peaks with as much intensity as the brightest HDR-capable LCD TVs this year - especially Samsung's KS9500 and KS9000 models. The KS9500 is actually capable of reaching brightness peaks twice as high as those you can get from the OLED65G6V, and these help make HDR content look both more dramatic and more like the intense light of the real world.

The OLED65G6V also struggles to resolve subtle colour and light tone differences when showing bright HDR whites and colours, leaving them looking monotone and low-res versus the rest of the 4K image.

Finally, in shots containing particularly extreme contrasts between bright and dark areas, the dark areas can draw your eye too strongly. This seems to be because some shadow detailing has gone AWOL, leaving the darkest areas looking rather hollow and one-dimensional.

LG G6 65-inch 4K TV review: Dolby delights

Dolby's take on HDR interestingly works more successfully overall on the OLED65G6V than LG's delivery of HDR10 - seemingly because it takes the limitations of the OLED panel into better account. There's far less detail loss in bright areas, colours look both richer and more subtly delineated, and there's a better sense of depth in dark areas.

There is an important trade-off for these improvements in the form of a lower overall brightness level. However, while this inevitably reduces the impact of HDR's extra brightness, Dolby Vision HDR still looks much more impressive overall on the OLED65G6V than HDR10.

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LG

The sound performance from the OLED65G6V's speaker bar is exceptional, too. It plays music and movies alike with almost hi-fi levels of clarity, detail and precision, as well as having enough power and dynamic range to slide effortlessly through the sound mix gears of a good action film.

Bass extension goes much deeper than you usually hear with an integrated TV sound system, and voices are always clear and well rounded. The soundstage spreads comfortably beyond the physical confines of the screen, too, without becoming incoherent.

To recap

As a result, much as we love most things about the G6, in the end it's hard to sensibly suggest that anyone for whom money is any sort of object stump up for one when the almost-as-good E6 or curved C6 can be had for so much less cash.