As for my LG G5 55' TV review.
First of all I was coming from LG C1 48 which i bought like 3-4 years ago:
- I was expecting bigger jump brightness wise. It is definitely brighter just not what I imagined it to be. I thought it would sear my eyes but it is hardly so bright that i need to squint or something. I think nits and our eyes follow logarithmic law where 2000 nits isn't twice brighter than 1000nits to our eyes or something. I think we are hitting the limit of our eyes where it just accommodates to handle bright stuff. Don't even consider switching on HGIG because it cuts in half brightness and shit isn't used by almost any game aside from 1-2.
- That being said, the biggest change is in living room conditions with light in room. You can definitely feel the difference there. So if you game in living room rather like me in "gaming room" which is dark then this is definitely must have.
- I think a lot of not bright enough issues are caused actually by games poor HDR implementations. Meaning that they are calibrated to maybe 1000nits brightness. For example Diablo 2 Resurrected brightness scale only goes to 2k nits, while some other game it goes to 1000nits. Some don't even have nits settings.
- By far the best difference was with Cyberpunk 2077. It was already glorious HDR game even with default non modded settings but with G5 HDR just pops the fuck out in your eyes. That's where i felt the most difference in display from my C1. I think that this TV actually exceeds most of games capabilities to deliver HDR as those games never imagined such bright tvs. So modding is needed to improve HDR in them.
- Color wise it is definitely improvement over C1, and imo biggest improvement. C1 had tendency to shift toward more desaturated colors if you hit those 400-500nits on 20-40% window while G5 colors stay saturated up to the limit of nits so you had to lower max brightness for it not to shift. Some of the scenes in Cyberpunk2077 like the red corridor when you rescue Evelyn just bathe room is this amazing shade of red... Neon lights pop in those intense colors etc.
- 165hz vs 120hz. Another thing i looked forward to was jump to higher Hz. Much like with me changing from 60 to 120hz i didn't feel much of it until few months later i started to play my friends console to discover i actually feel now how 60hz is sluggish right now I too can't feel 165hz at all. I guess it will take time to get used to it. It is not huge jump either way and finally it gave my 5090 some stretching at 4k as most of the time i played locked 120.
- Movies, barely any difference. Most of movies are mastered up to 1000nits so G5 mostly matters on bright scenes to sustain peak brightness muuuuch better than C1 but that's pretty much all there was to it. Movies and TV shows in general from my experience are just in shitty place where they have some shitty ideas about "filmaker vision" and don't allow for much "pop", i changed to dynamic tonemapping and it improves stuff but it can't really do that much if source material tries to limit nits in HDR.
- Filmmaker mode on my C1 was more or less logical as C1 max brightness was more or less similar to filmmaker mode brightness. On G5 fimmaker mode is ridiculous. Pretty much cuts in half brightness back to C1 level. IT is not the issue with TV but with "vision" of people who make movies and tv shows. They always lived in alternate reality where they always lusted for better cameras, better computers and cgi but somehow managed to produce backward caste of idiots at the end where they artificially limit quality or introduce shitty colorist "vision" to their movies. Obviously not even talking about 24fps ancient tech that was just economical choice at start and now it is still used because "movie magic". Same movie magic that doesn't work anymore on proper screens because our screens are too sharp and too fast without smearing that produce jitter and shit is unwatchable.
- No Black Frame Insertion in game mode. I think LG G5 would be perfect for it. BFI cuts brightness in half due to how it works but G5 has plenty of power to push it bright even with BFI. Missed opportunity.
- Didn't test live tv, apps or other smartshittv features as i am not interested in them, didn't even connect this tv to internet.
- Didn't see any issues with banding in HDR. I think they fixed it like a month ago. Though I think there is some weird color pulsing or shimmer though i haven't tested it properly So far i noticed it only in Cyberpunk2077 which could be just how game rendering works. That being said effect was hard to notice in the first place and without looking for it, i wouldn't find it. I was trying to look for color banding to see if it was fixed on my firmware.
- LG webos is fucking disaster. 5 new generations from my C1 and it is still sluggish piece of crap that needs sometimes 10 seconds to load menu piece. You would think that on top end tv they would fix it but nooo, still the same crappy sluggish ui. Feels like using Windows 11 on HardDiskDrive lol.
- For some stupid reason they moved energy saving settings to general which can't be accessed quickly. Instead they moved OLED brightness to quick settings. I liked switching my C1 to auto to save my eyes from tiring during long working sessions. G5's brigness in theory is the same thing but much more annoying. And G5 auto is just way to bright for my liking during the night.
- I had some sporadic split second switching off/on HDR in windows 11 out of nowhere. IDK what is the cause but i didn't have it on C1, i think it is a bug. So far it happened like 3-4 times over course of 2 days. Probably some firmware bug with standbymode or something.
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Overall for gaming:
I think G5 is great upgrade over C1, Just don't expect blazing sun like some reviews are trying to describe it as. I think this TV hardware is just much more capable than content allows for and you need to tinker with mods to fix HDR in games to take full advantage of it. The color especially is huge upgrade but again, to see it you need proper content like Cyberpunk2077, Stuff like KingdomCome doesn't have bright colors due to natural palette used which limits "pop".
Overall for tvshows/movies:
Unless you need to fix living room daylight killing your OLED brightness pop i wouldn't reccomend switching from your older oled. Content just isn't there to take advantage of it.
Now for $$$. I am rather wealthy now so it wasn't big purchase for me. If I was short on budget i would avoid buying it and maybe wait 2-3 more generations. I think proper switch from C1 would happen with something that goes to 1000nits 100% field and maybe 4k peak nits. That should properly sear eyes.
Rivdoric
After a few days tinkering going between GO and FMM, I've found a solution to get the best of both worlds. GO disables LG's Colour boost function, which is why FMM appears richer in colour, however, If using HDR in Game Optimizer you can achieve virtually the same effect by setting the Expression Enhacer to "Brightness".
I currently have a qdoled and it's showing signs of burn in already in under a year so for people to say burn in is a thing of the past it's complete BS, I just wish the picture wasn't so damn good or I would've been switched too.
after hearing its just a myth. Lets see how long it takes for my Philips oled809 to burn in.
