Review: LG G6 65-Inch Flat OLED 4K UHD Smart TV (model OLED65G6P)

Do you believe in magic? I know we do now. Here comes another chapter in the book of amazing TVs that literally give you goosebumps when you watch them. Earlier this year, LG launched their Signature Series 65-inch G6 series 4K TV (model OLED65G6P) which has to be one of our favorite models to release this year–or ever. Both LG and Samsung continue to dominate as our top two companies and although the price on this one is a little high (ok, a bit more than little), it proves to be one of their best looking images yet.

The design of this TV is solid mixture between elegant and futuristic. Tony Stark would absolutely have these plastered all over his home (and office)–especially since he could afford them. The screen is only 1/8th of an inch in thickness, making it truly feel as though it was just a sheet of thin glass being held up by an attractive stand. The bezel is nearly unnoticeable, making it’s outer frame disappear into the background as you are watching your content. A majority of the stand is focused to the backside of the TV  leaving only a few inches on the front. It is also only about two inches thick, leaving a very minimal footprint across the front side of the TV. Kind of looks as though you have a soundbar running across the bottom of the screen. Of course, this appearance is amplified by the fact that it is a soundbar running across the front of the TV.

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Built into the front side of the stand is a 60-watt Harman Kardon soundbar, giving you an enhanced sound experience. Although it is so small, it sounds so good. Not breathtaking as we will go into in a few moments, but better than you’d expect.

The stand flips backwards to go flat against the back side of the TV for situations where you’d rather mount the TV to the wall. This way, the stand doesn’t get in the way, while still having access to the TV’s sound and various inputs. It also, surprisingly, does not affect the quality of the front soundbar.

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Since the screen is so amazingly thin, you don’t have any physical space for connections. So they are all built into the back side of the stand instead.

The backside features three USB ports, one of which is USB 3.0 for faster speeds and additional power output for any devices that need to be powered from USB. You have four HDMI inputs, one of which (HDMI 2) that supports ARC (audio return channel). That ARC-supporting HDMI input would be reserved for your receiver (that would also have to support ARC) if you prefer a more dramatic sound experience. This allows you to send audio back to the receiver using the same HDMI cable that is meant for sending video from the receiver to it, for when you are watching an audible source that is built into the TV (ie, YouTube, Netflix, OTA TV and so forth). This helps to minimize the amount of cables running all over.

Additionally, you have a cable/antenna input for TV, let it be OTA antenna, cable or satellite. If you do have a receiver in the mix, usually you will be plugging into the receiver with cable or satellite box now since the digital boxes these providers give you, typically focus on HDMI as a digital output vs coax.

You have a LAN input for wired ethernet when you have the preference to avoid WiFi. For situations where you can’t get an ethernet cable to it (or prefer not to), it does have built-in 802.11 (a/b/n/ac) WiFi support, which works perfectly. Even at a range of around 40-50ft from the tested router (including one wall in the mix), we were getting a good signal without dropouts or buffering troubles.

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You also have an optical-out if ARC isn’t an option for you or you are looking to run to an external soundbar or similar solution. Next to that you have your shared composite/component inputs. There are no analog outs for sound.

So now, let’s talk about picture! This is an HDR-10 (high dynamic range) TV with Dolby Vision. It’s 4K resolution is absolutely superb (the best it gets–so far, at least) and its blacks are flawless. There is no ghosting, no bleeding or horrible motion trails. In fact, motion trails only occurred with test footage that included video with a low frame rate. We gathered up some of our favorite HDR/4K test discs we had laying around and threw all of them at it (signal-wise) and giggled the whole way through. Anything with a native HDR 4K resolution shot with the right camera popped right out of the screen–or at least looked as though you were seeing it all live through the cleanest of windows.

The colors feel so accurate, you just want to hug the screen. Blacks are so perfect, at times it feels as though there weren’t any discrepancies. Given that, it also depends on the quality of the source footage. As I mentioned, we tested out a lot of HDR 4K content from our favorite selection. So these videos were meant to look amazing. So what about normal 4K content? The result? Superb! Watching scenes from a handful of 4K movies looked absolutely amazing. We selected movies like Deadpool (who didn’t find that movie heavily entertaining) and The Martian. All of these movies stood out well with rich detail and the kind of quality that makes you stick your nose up at just about every other TV on the store shelf.

Upscaling is also fantastic, bringing out the best in just about everything you watch. Everything from 720p to 1080p looks great, with detail that goes beyond the original content if watched on a normal 1080p TV. It seems to enhance colors, blacks, edges and more. You won’t necessarily turn everything into 4K quality, but it is an upscale performance that won’t go unnoticed. Keep in mind, there are things out there that no TV can honestly upscale to perfection. For example, you won’t be connecting an old VCR to this TV so that you can bring your old home movies to life. They will still look good, as standard definition really pops due to the rich colors and blacks. However, less than standard definition, usually remains less than impressive no matter what you do with it.

For the best performance, the TV really delivers on Blu-ray 1080p quality and above. You can brag below that mark quite fine, but that would be the fine line where it really captures your attention and begins to draw you into the aww.

We did throw up some test patterns to tweak the settings a little, but wound up not using any of it as we liked it just fine the way it was compared to anything we could do to it.

3D content is also supported although not in the title. 3D seems to be a hoot of the past until we can move forward to greater things. For now, TV manufacturers seem to be moving towards listing it as a basic feature more than anything, as it doesn’t seem to stand out as well as a strong selling point anymore. “Here is a TV that can do this, this, this, this, this, this and omg that. It can do all of this, and all of that with a mix of this and that. Oh, it also supports apps, ARC and 3D as well and has a cute little remote”.

Does 3D look good? Sure it does. Oddly, we have seen a little better from LG from shows like CES, but it is far from mediocre. Especially 4K content and animation as it really pops out. The viewing angle is perfect for any room setup as well which is nice. The TV does come with two pairs of passive glasses.

WebOS 3.0 is featured on this model with a very user-friendly interface. Equally important, it is responsive, allowing you to navigate around naturally vs having to deal with any kind of bad delays. This is where a lot of TVs fail and become a nuisance. Nobody wants to go through the controller tango trying to access their favorite Netflix movies. You should be able to navigate those menus as smoothly and flipping through the channels on your TV. What also helps is the network connection. You’ll find all of your favorite apps available to you, including Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and more. LG has come a long ways in our eyes as we typically never praised Smart features in a manufacturer outside of Samsung’s awesome UI.

Speaking of network connection. As mentioned earlier, network connectivity is smooth both wired and wireless. We didn’t experience any dropouts or buffer troubles at about 40-50ft from the router with one wall in between. You can also stream content from mobile devices on the same network to the TV as well, allowing you to display your images, video and more.

Sound Quality is pretty darn good with the soundbar. You get a much better performance from it than you’d expect. Then again, we have been seeing a handful of smaller sized soundbars enter the market with impressive performance. They simply took one and built it in. The fact that is feature Harman Kardon on the inside doesn’t draw it down any either. You will most likely still find yourself adding in a sound system since anyone with this kind of cash probably wants theatrical sound to go with it. Unless of course the TV is hanging on the wall in the bedroom, next to the pool table or above the bath (I’ve seen it done!).

Two remotes come with this model, one being the newly designed Magic Remote and the other one simply acting as a backup remote with the most simple of buttons laid out on it. The smaller one features a power button, volume scroll, channel scroll, mute, back, home, input and ok button as well as a clickable scrollable wheel. The larger remote features all of those favorite capabilities people have learned to fall in love with, including the ability to use it as a mouse by waiving it around and take voice commands. This makes navigating WebOS 3.0 all the easier.

Our Conclusion

As I said, this is by far, one of our favorite TVs we have ever played with. We only get to say something like that so often (ok, at least once a year). The picture is, what we believe based on current day technology, absolutely perfect–as long as you’re feeding it the best video you can get your hands on. Anything below that is near perfect or close enough. The blacks, colors and just about everything else can make a grown man giggle. The only con, is that is is expensive–really expensive. I’m talking a few dollars shy of $8,000 expensive. Obviously this means that the average person won’t be rushing out to get one. However, if they do have that kind of cash randomly lying around burning to be spent, this is one hell of a way to do it. Especially if they have even more lying around and would like to send another one our way! No? It was worth a try.

Normally, when the price is higher than we’d like to see for something, it can affect the score by two or even three starts. Even so, we still couldn’t find it in us to dock it more than one. The picture is just that good. We can’t wait to see what next year’s CES will shed light on.

Our Rating 9 / 10

Average Price* $7997.00

*Average price is based on the time this article was published

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