LG OLED65GXPTA 4K OLED TV
The 65-inch GX is a first taste of what OLED has to offer in its 2020 ranges. It’s not a giant step forward, but it’s most certainly a stunning telly.
The 65-inch GX is a first taste of what OLED has to offer in its 2020 ranges. It’s not a giant step forward, but it’s most certainly a stunning telly.
This latest OLED from LG is the first TV we can remember ever to arrive without a table-top stand. That’s because this OLED65GXPTA (65GX for short) is described as a ‘Gallery’ model, designed specifically to be wall-mounted, so a low-profile articulated mount is included instead, while it also has standard VESA mounting holes at the back. And rather than the usual wafer-thin top panel with a thicker base for hardware and connections, it’s a uniform 2cm deep all over. So is this the ultimate 4K wall-hanging TV?
Equipment
You can, in fact, order a pair of feet for the TV, but they’re a bit fugly, and have an unhelpfully wide footprint. So consider the GX a wall-mounter. That raises the question of connections, as LG doesn’t have anything like the Samsung single cable to neaten things. Here the connections are about halfway up the back, with most facing downwards. The side-mounted USBs are accessible once the TV is mounted, and LG’s articulated bracket just about allows access to the HDMIs if you need to replug.
And once up there, how sleek and neat it looks — flat to the wall, just the picture on display, with a small black lozenge below housing the remote receiver, standby light and other sensors.
The price for the Gallery GX is a little more than for the CX range below it — $5999 RRP for the 65-inch over $5399 for the 65CX. It’s an investment in design, as there’s no difference in the panels at all — both offer the company’s highest level of picture processing. The sound system is also better, with a 60W 4.2ch audio arrangement — but we always recommend using an external sound system with a TV of this quality.
Those connections include four HDMI inputs, three USB sockets (all 2.0), one combined component/ composite AV input, plus Ethernet, antenna, and audio outputs both optical digital and analogue minijack. The TV also supports Bluetooth 5.0 and has AirPlay 2, which allows Apple devices to throw video straight to the TV.
The four HDMI sockets are fully HDMI 2.1-certified, so support HFR (high frame rate), ALLM (auto low latency mode), eARC (Enhanced Audio Return Channel) and VRR (Variable Refresh Rate). The last allows the TV to match the refresh rate of a games console or PC, resulting in a smoother performance; there’s also G-Sync compatibility (the AMD FreeSync standard used by Xbox is marked as ‘coming soon’), HGiG for gaming HDR, and gaming lag is a mere 13ms.
Performance
The initial set-up of the GX has been made more sophisticated and less cartoony than in previous years, while LG’s webOS operating system remains as snappy and stylish as ever. There are plenty of streaming apps here: Netflix, Prime, Apple TV (rent/buy, not AppleTV+), Disney+, FreeView Plus, Google Play Movies & TV, Telstra TV Box Office, Foxtel and Stan. These can deliver Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos where available. The ‘AI Preview’ row of relevant content from an app appears when you hover over it.
This year’s remote is unchanged, which is fine; we love the magic pointer, but some don’t — you can now
reduce the cursor’s size and sensitivity, though not turn it off entirely.
There’s also voice control through Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa operated via the remote, while LG’s own voice assistant “Hi LG!” has been enhanced to operate with or without the remote thanks to built-in far-field microphones. It’s great for turning on the TV and opening an app, and claims to handle 20 different languages.
Chugging the data is ‘Gen 3’ of LG’s α9 processor, and LG persists with a plethora of ‘AI’ features (some of which this year claim to include on-device learning, rather than being baked in). AI Picture Pro identifies and aims to improve faces and text using a “Deep Learning technique”, and AI Sound Pro “provides the optimal sound or Virtual 5.1 surround, depending on the watching genre”. You are encouraged to enable these during initial set-up, but they can also be switched off in the ‘AI Service’ section of the TV’s menu, as can ‘AI Brightness Control’, which adjusts the brightness to ambient lighting conditions, and ‘Auto Genre Selection’ which adjusts picture processing depending on the type of content, though only a fairly coarse selection between animation, movie, news or sport.
Two new picture modes also prove less exciting than they sound. Filmmaker Mode is LG’s response to Hollywood’s aversion to motion processing, but appears to be identical to the Cinema Mode but with noise reduction turned off; it’s not metadata-led or in any way tailored to the specific piece of content. However, LG has clearly improved its motion handling in general. With all processing turned off, the GX is notably smoother and steadier in its handling. And while TruMotion on last year’s C9 looked deeply unnatural on all but the most minimal setting, the GX’s ‘Natural’ option does an impressive job of sharpening and smoothing motion without introducing the halos or the ‘soap opera’ effect. Still too much? Turn TruMotion off, or opt for Cinema Clear, which more or less splits the difference. LG is using ‘black’ insertion this year, which is believed to improve perception of motion.
Dolby Vision IQ, meanwhile, was announced at CES as a game-changing ‘beyond HDR’ development, but turns out to be simply Dolby Vision plus ambient light adjustment, something which LG’s 2019 sets (and other TVs) could already do. When you enable the Dolby Vision Cinema Home preset it now automatically enables the AI Brightness Control function — and that’s all there is to Dolby Vision IQ. It’ll primarily benefit those watching in brightly-lit rooms; the results weren’t very pronounced during testing.
Dolby Vision itself, however, continues to appeal, and was delivered confidently by the 65GX during The Witcher on Netflix 4K. When Dolby Vision is detected, the TV defaults to the Dolby Vision Cinema Home preset; you can switch the default Warm2 to Warm1 or Medium without losing the benefit of Dolby Vision’s dynamic metadata. Comparing the GX’s Dolby Vision delivery to that of last year’s C9, there’s more dark detail, and seemingly extra nuance to the colour palette.
The 4K Blu-ray of Blade Runner 2049 uses the static metadata of HDR10, and here there seemed an even greater improvement in dark detail. The GX beat the C9 in revealing all the folds and textures of K’s clothing when he stands in the shadows conversing with Dr Stelline. Skin tones also appeared a little more lifelike.
Moving to standard Blu-ray resolution, the GX’s biggest improvement is black depth. On the opening pans around Ripley’s drifting shuttle in Aliens, unlit areas of the cockpit are noticeably inkier than on last year’s C9 without any loss of detail. As the film progresses, the extra black enhances overall contrast and makes edges a little more pronounced, resulting in an image that’s a little more solid and threedimensional overall. Even with standard-def material the GX trumps the C9 with a deeper, fuller delivery. The upscaling seems a touch cleaner and smoother, too.
Integrated TV speakers can only do so much — get an external sound system! But for casual use, the downward-firing configuration here sounds surprisingly good; we’ll even give a tick to the ‘AI Sound Pro’ and ‘AI Acoustic Tuning’ which tailors the delivery to your room. With Dolby Atmos there’s a spread of sound around the TV, though obviously nothing like a genuine home cinema system. There is a feature called ‘Bluetooth Surround Ready’, using additional LG Bluetooth speakers for surround (also WiSA speakers, with a dongle), but this is still ‘under review’ for future implementation.
Conclusion
While OLED hasn’t made any giant leaps in quality over the last few years, LG has certainly succeeded here in iterative improvement in a few key areas, notably dark detail, colour richness and motion handling. We reiterate that the picture quality in the GX should be the same as the slightly cheaper CX, so your choice between the two is a matter of design and usage. On the desktop? Go the CX. On the wall? Consider the GX. We await other 2020 OLEDs from competitors (who all source their OLED panels from LG.Display), but the GX certainly sets the bar high.