“Four stars! With LG OLED!?” That was the reaction of many people when we published our first review of the LG G6 over a month ago.
As reviewers, we remain neutral, but we get why the star rating has caused such a kerfuffle.
LG’s OLEDs have been among the best for many years, as the number of What Hi-Fi? Shows the awards they won. So we are all used to them being good, almost by default.
Seeing a four-star LG OLED, especially this year, when Sony isn’t expected to unveil a new OLED and Panasonic is set to launch a single, more affordable OLED, isn’t good for anyone in the market for a new OLED TV.
In fact, I would go so far as to argue that there has never been a worse time for the G series to stumble. Especially, when the problems we encountered with its slightly gray black level and very aggressive peaks made it difficult to recommend, with the now cheaper LG G5, not to mention the Product of the Year-winning, Sony Bravia 8 II from last year.
As we said in our review: “LG seems to be sticking to the idea that brightness (and color) is better with the G6. […] But this new focus brings new weaknesses, especially in the dark and realism of the cinema.
“The raw materials are clearly here and, with more thoughtful processing, the G6 could be among the best in the class. However, as it stands, this feels like one step forward and another step back for LG’s OLED flagship.”
No one likes to be the bearer of bad news, but that was the truth, that’s why we can recommend it to anyone after the TV experience “as the director intended”.
And while we are yet to test the Samsung S95H or the Philips OLED911, based on our experience with previous sets, which have shown that the developers have a clear ability when it comes to tuning, this mistake by LG could leave a big hole in the market.
Thankfully, there is a silver lining.
Since our review was published, LG has been in touch, promising that the problems we encountered were caused by software issues – problems that are said to have been fixed in the new version. So, understandably, LG wants us to check it out.
That’s why, right now, we have the new LG G6 sitting in our test rooms, next to our reference LG G5 and Bravia 8 II, complete with new software, ready for testing.
Next week, TV and AV editor Tom Parsons and I will be doing a Groundhog Day (or a Palm Springsif you like), retesting the G6, to see if the new software really fixes the problems we found.
So watch this space. And if you’re thinking of buying a new flagship OLED, wait a while to see if the LG series can once again shine five stars.
We’ll be updating our review with our latest findings once we’ve finished running the new review unit through our rigorous benchmarking process. It is not guaranteed that we will see any improvement but we are always willing to check and make sure.
If you have any questions before we review the G6, leave a comment on this page, and we’ll do our best to get you an answer.
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