HD PICTURE QUALITY HD picture quality fell short, overall. Reproduction of fine HD image detail was Excellent. Color accuracy was Excellent, so colors, especially flesh tones, look very natural and lifelike. However, contrast—the difference between the darkest blacks and brightest whites—was Good, so images had some depth, but it was not the best. Black levels were overly bright, unfortunately, worse than many TVs. LG's vertical-edge-lit local-dimming feature didn't help much. Image brightness was Good (with the Panel Brightness backlight control turned up), making it a suitable choice for all but the sunniest rooms. There was slight display non-uniformity in our test sample—it appeared as brighter cloudy areas which were most noticeable on very dark scenes (or in the black bars of a letterboxed movie)—the severity can vary from model to model. Its reproduction of smooth edges on image content for "up-converted" HD-to-UHD images fell short with some visible "jaggies" (jagged edges) however, deinterlacing of 1080i video, and film mode detection from 1080i content were both Excellent.
4K UHD PICTURE QUALITY Overall 4K UHD picture quality was decent, overall. In our UHD testing, we played native-4K movies and test videos (non HDR) thru the TV's HDMI input, and found their image detail was all there. For color, contrast and black level, the TV performed similarly to its HD picture quality.
HIGH DYNAMIC RANGE (HDR) PERFORMANCE HDR performance had limited effectiveness. In our tests, the display's lack of high peak brightness capability (by HDR standards) limited its ability to show the benefits of our HDR 4K content. It excellently revealed the contrast between moderately bright and very bright highlights, while the brightness levels in the mid-to-lower tones, like those in an indoor scene, were much dimmer than expected. It did a good job reproducing a greater range of nuanced shadow detail, from black to white, with no obvious banding within the gradually shaded areas. There was no visible loss of detail within the highlights of the brightest areas. Brightly colored objects remained nicely saturated.
VIEWING ANGLE This LG model has a wide viewing angle overall, better than that of most TVs. It will provide fairly consistent picture quality, with fewer problems than most TVs, for typical viewing conditions—say, if your family is seated across a long sectional or in chairs off to the sides. Our examination at various viewing angles indicated reasonably good consistency. In our tests, the picture did show moderate dimming from the sides. With dark scenes this model doesn't fare quite as well. When viewed from the sides, the depth of black levels varied depending on our vertical position. As we moved closer to the screen this limitation became even more apparent, especially if seated on the floor looking upward where black levels brightened significantly. Halo effects around objects in darker scenes (a side effect of the local dimming feature) also become more prominent at off angles.
