LG’s C1 OLED TV line offers one of the best pictures we’ve seen, with nearly perfect cinema color. It also features AMD FreeSync and Nvidia G-Sync, making it a terrific high-end option for gamers.
Read more about the LG C1 right here!
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– Hi, welcome to 1 Cool Thing. This is PCMag’s weekly show Where we show you one cool thing That we’re testing in the PCMag labs. I’m Alex Colon and I’m
here with Will Greenwald Who is on site in the PCMag labs, And this week he reviewed the LG C1. This is LG’s newest, top
of the line, OLED TV. It comes in five different sizes. We’re going to discuss those in a bit. We reviewed the 65 inch…65 inch version, And that sells for $2,499, not,
not $24.99 as in 24 dollars But as in 2,500 dollars. And we gave this an Editor’s Choice Award As well as a Tech X Award. So Will, let’s just get into it. Give us a breakdown of the TV in general And then we’ll start to
talk about some specifics. – Well, to start it isn’t technically LG’s Top of the line OLED. Their OLED TVs are Their top of the line TVs. It’s like the most
expensive ones you can get But there’s an entire series of them Where there’s B1, C1, So it’s like a little bit
higher than the bottom Then G1, where you can hang it on the wall And it’s super thin and
it just looks like art. And just, there are a
bunch of different design Like different designs of OLED TVs. The thing is most of them use Pretty much the exact same panel. So you’re going to get the same features The same, the same picture quality. It’s just, you’ll be spending
more for a sleeker design
That’s more suited for
different environments Or different layouts
and at the C1, you know Just as a standard table
stand, you can wall mount it But it’s a pretty standard designed TV. So it’s actually in their OLED line Which is top of their line,
like above all of their LCD TVs. It’s still like, it’s in
their affordable range. – Yeah, so that’s a good
thing that you mentioned That this isn’t quite the
top of the line, as I said. The way that I see it,
this…their C line is sort of It’s, it’s the TV that you’re going to Come across the most. Like if you’re looking in your typical You know big box electronic store And you’re looking for an OLED TV You will likely see
something in the C line. I feel like that G line
that you mentioned, the ones That are super flat and hang on the walls, Those, I feel like you
pretty much tend to need to Order those specifically. I’ve never actually walked
into a Best Buy really And saw one hanging. – Generally. Yeah. And of course there are like,
I don’t know if they still Have an AK model, but I believe they do. And that is way, way more expensive. There is the long, almost
mythical rollerball OLED that LG has shown off for the
last couple of years, back When there was a CVS to go to. But in terms of what you’re actually Going to find in a store and what is Within a reasonable price
range, the C1 is where you go. And well, the whole point
of getting an OLED is Because its picture quality is amazing.
It can create perfect
blacks because each pixel Can produce light, like on demand. It doesn’t use a backlight
behind a LCD panel Which all LCD panels use. So it can get just amazing
infinite contrast going on. It doesn’t get as bright as
LCDs because the LED backlight Can get…just boost the
light to get really bright. And OLEDs can’t really do
that, but this still gets Pretty bright, like
very bright for an OLED. And its color accuracy,
which is the main thing That impressed me is…it’s fantastic. It can reach spot on for
a standard dynamic range Signals are a rec 709 broadcast standard Basically perfectly out
of the box in cinema mode Put an HDR signal through
it, and it reaches nearly Perfect DCI-P3 digital cinema standards. In terms of just accuracy in
its color, it is fantastic. It’s one of the best TVs I’ve seen so far. – And because of its
accuracy, that’s actually The main reason that we
gave it a Tech X Award Because we haven’t tested any other TVs That have actually come as Close to perfectly accurate as this one. – Yes, many have, they can reach Like further with their color,
but it’s not as accurate. And especially for the
digital cinema color space Nailing the color levels just straight on Setting into cinema mode
not needing to really Go through calibration
and just getting these Really accurate colors means That when you watch a movie on it It’s going to pretty much be
what the filmmaker intended Which is, you know, pretty vital If you want to watch movies on your TV.
– So, if you do buy this TV and say You’re getting the 65 inch model And you’re spending 2,500 dollars on it Then are you saying that you don’t then Need to pay a professional
calibrator to come in And potentially spend I don’t know, another 500
dollars calibrating the TV? – Out of the box, using
the numbers that I’ve seen As long as you keep it
in cinema picture mode It doesn’t really need a calibration. I mean, if you’re spending
a ton of money on your TV Or if you have a, just a
big, complicated home theater If you dedicate an entire
room just to a home theater, You might want to hire a
professional just to do everything Including calibration and wiring
and design and all of that Because that’s what they do. But just calibrating this TV If you take it home from the store It’s really not necessary. – Now let’s also talk
about gaming features Because I feel like high-end TVs often We don’t think of them as gaming TVs But this one has a lot of
gaming specific features That we, that really impressed us. – Yeah, gaming features have become A lot more common on higher end TVs But it’s still very scattershot
compared to monitors. Like it used to be things
like variable refresh rate and You know, NVIDIA G-Sync and AMD FreeSync, Were all pretty much purely
the purview of monitors. Like you could connect into your computer, It syncs up the frame rates So you don’t get choppiness or carrying. Now you can get them on a lot of TVs
And this one has pretty much every Gaming feature you can name. It has auto low-latency mode. So if you’re working with
a compatible console or PC It will automatically switch
to the low latency gaming mode. So you get the lowest input lag you can. It has variable refresh rate And NVIDIA G-Force, NVIDIA
G-Sync, and AMD FreeSync. So if you connect it to a
compatible game, game console Like an Xbox Series X or to your PC Whether it has a radio energy force card You can sync the refresh rate. And that’s excellent Because then you’re going to
lose a lot of screen carrying. You’re going to have
a lot smoother action. And just the input lag is excellent. We measured in gaming mode I think 4.6 milliseconds,
which is very low. – Yeah. So we typically For input lag, we look for
either 20 milliseconds or under For that to be considered one
of our best TVs for gaming. So the fact that this is
only 4.6 is very impressive. – For TVs, yes. For gaming monitors, you can get like… We’ve measured 1.2 to 1.6 milliseconds On the really good models But you’re also going to be spending For like a 24 inch TV,
maybe 700, 800 dollars. So it is a very, it’s a
very different picture In terms of the screen
real estate, the resolution Just like what you’re going to get And what you can expect between
a TV and a gaming monitor. – Right. And how about
this TV’s sound quality? Do you need to, you know, do you need to
When you’re buying it,
budget a soundbar in with it Or some other kind of audio setup Or does it actually sound good on its own? – It sounds surprisingly good on its own Because it has a pretty
strong, for a TV sound system, It has some, a pair of conventional
drivers and then a pair Of hot drivers that I believe
were built a bit higher And it has some very
good audio processing. So it sounds very loud for a TV. It sounds quite clear. It’s good. I believe it is Adobe
Atmos compatible audio. Once again, you’re dealing with Like a handful of watts in power output. So getting, switching to a sound bar Especially one with a subwoofer Switching to a full speaker system That’s as huge step above. But this compared to
your average TV speaker It sounds much better. – Right. So one of the
things that I really like About it is that between the
sound quality and the color This is the sort of TV
where you can take it Out of the box and it is good to go. It’s going to look fantastic. And it’s going to sound
pretty good for a TV. – Yes, it’s, it’s really excellent. Like we can wholeheartedly recommend it. If you have the budget
for a TV in this range You should probably go for it Because it has a fantastic picture. It is just, it’s gorgeous. Like you can see how thin it is How like there’s no
bezel, there’s no edge. It is great for gaming.
It’s just an excellent TV. Now, of course, you know Not everyone can spend
2,500 bucks on a 65 inch TV. So we do recommend some
LED models that cost Less than half as much as this Which are still very strong choices. They get much brighter. They have a different
feature set, but you know They don’t get quite as dark And the color isn’t quite
as accurate out of the box. So, there are trade-offs, you know, If you want the brightest
TV, you can spend less But if you want just an incredible picture With perfect black levels
spending the extra money For an OLED is the way to go. – Yeah. I will just add a
little personal note here. I own an older model
of this TV, the LG C9, And it is one of my favorite things. One of my favorite pieces
of technology in my house. So I can wholeheartedly agree With Will’s recommendation here. And just to give a little
rundown of some of the sizes. It does come in 48 inches for $1,499. It’s 55 inches for $1,799. There’s the 65 inch model
that you’re looking at That we tested that’s $2,499. There’s a 77 inch model for $3,799, And an 83 inch model for
five, for 6,000 dollars. – And it is important to note That an OLED in that
size, 77 and 83 inches, That’s rare for, well, pretty
much any OLED manufacturers. I don’t believe Sony’s A90J, I believe it’s the A90J, gets that big. And the fact that it’s only 6,000 dollars
For an 83 inch OLED is pretty incredible, When you think that a few years
ago, like the first couple OLEDs I tested were five
digits for like 55 inches. – Yeah. With, with OLED,
definitely the larger you go The more of a premium you’re paying. Although it is interesting that, you know We could consider 6,000 dollars to be Only 6,000 dollars in this category. – Well, you’ve seen how
OLED prices have gone. That’s, that’s definitely been the case. – Yeah. So this has been the LG C1. We reviewed the 65 inch model. This is our editor’s choice for OLED TVs. It also won a Tech X Award. If you have any more questions about it We have a full review online at PCmag.com And we will be back again
next week with another 1 Cool Thing to show you.
