It’s round 2 for the 4K OLEDs and with a price tag that has finally slipped into the realms of the mortal man, could we all be about to reap the benefits of the best style of TV to date?
It comes as a surprise to none that when you want the best quality of anything in life, you’re going to need a premium product. It’s the same wherever you go, if you’re buying a new carpet, bed, car or indeed TV. We marvelled at the new variety of OLED screens (that’s Organic LED to you and I), thanks mainly due to their ability to take contrasts and black levels far beyond what a normal LED backlit TV can do and their incredible motion processing.
There were some hiccups at first with the very first generation of OLEDs having a few issues with the greyscaling and occasional jitter that drove many to the point of giving up all together.
Now however there has been a totally new system placed in the field and LG (who is the main player in the OLED market at the moment) have finally managed to crack the manufacturing process for these ultra thin panels, meaning that we will finally see the next generation of OLED screens falling into a budget that’s much more widely affordable. We managed to get our hands on the 55EG920V, which is the entry level 4K model for the 2015 range. However upon closer inspection there is nothing to suggest that the ‘entry level’ label does it justice.
The 55EG920V features an enveloping curved design.
The packaging itself is a sign of what quality awaits in the box. After stripping off the outer sleeve and fixing the main panel onto its elegantly crafted curved stand, we set about running the initial setup.
The new webOS 2.0 software is really the easiest of the operating systems this year, with a cool little penguin and team of animated visual aids the TV was ready to use in no time.
We immediately plugged in some 4K material via the USB 3.0 mount on the side and were greeted by a visual spectacle that is still going to be hard to beat in a few years time. The blacks are indeed a true thing of beauty, the demo video showed a time lapse of the night sky, producing a more pure black than we have ever seen on screen, even when compared to some of the mighty plasma models of old. There was also no noticeable blurring of the lines and edges were spectacularly sharp.
The colour pallet is also vast. It uses LG’s Colour Prime system that is akin to the Nano-Crystal technology on the SUHD range from Samsung but something was just slightly more enhanced than those TVs. The LG seemed to glow a little brighter and gave a greater sense of realism, which is hard to achieve.
Next stop was a Blu-ray disc and whilst many would expect a pretty vast drop in the clarity at ¼ the resolution of its native desire, the EG920 was spot on the money with an award-worthy great picture. There was no motion jitter at this resolution at all. Our copy of ‘Avengers : Age of Ultron’ gave some of the most dynamic action sequences we’ve ever laid eyes on. Again the colour temperature was spot on, there was no noise jitter, the blacks and edges were as sharp and deep as ever and the addition of a depth enhancement engine on this TV meant that the bigger cityscape shots seemed to stretch off into the distance. A great movie and the TV lapped it up and left us wanting more.
When it gets to the HD ready picture again we were not disappointed. Sure, we expected that things weren’t going to look absolutely amazing as with 4K but even standing about 3 metres from the 55″ screen there was a great feeling of clarity for regular programming. The upscaler was doing a phenomenal job at keeping everything smooth and focussed. The colour seemed to drop away slightly but then that’s mainly due to the limitations of what we were watching and not the TV’s inability to extract the most out of it (it was a re-run of a ‘Top Gear’ episode from many years gone by).
Standard definition is again much the same story. It’s watchable but then these TVs really are designed to give their absolute best at the top rather than focus all their energy at the lowest resolution currently available. It was still very clear while watching a Koenigsegg going round the Top Gear test track but there was the odd motion bump.
One thing that is worth mentioning is that whilst this TV is wafer thin at just 49mm (without stand) the speakers that are housed within it boast the ability to produce a surround sound effect and is not your usual audio brawler. I personally would partner something like this with either a premium soundbar or indeed a fully separate speaker system and amp to really get the best overall sensation for your viewing experience.
The usual connections are nicely fitted into the back including HDMI (all of which are 2.0 certified), 3 USB ports (one of which is USB 3.0 for 4K video playback) and digital audio outputs. ARC is supported here as well as MHL (mobile high definition link) giving you the ability to play what’s on your smart device to your TV. That’s right, 4K iPad gaming is just a quick click away.
My overall review for this TV is simple. This is what the next generation of televisions should aspire to for picture quality. The design is beautiful, the sound is pretty good, the blacks are gorgeous and the picture overall is simply the best bar none… except for its bigger brother, which has even more bells and whistles to play with.
To find out more about the LG 55EG920V, click here.
Author – Andrew, Weybridge Store
