LG CX (OLED65CX) 4K OLED TV Review & Comments

Phil Hinton

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No BBCIPLAYER at launch. I assume it does have Prime, Netflix, NowTV, Disney+, AppleTV+ and YouTube otherwise I personally would not purchase it.
 
Thank you for a good review!

I'm curious: how does the LG near-black performance compare to Sony or Panasonic OLEDs this year?

"Our only slight issue with some HDR content was the default brightness setting of 50 introducing some floating blacks and flashing with certain content. This can be mitigated with some adjustments and has also been reported back to LG, so hopefully, it will be resolved with a firmware fix. As it can be mitigated easily we will allow LG some slack to fix this issue. "

I assume the easy mitigation is turning down the brightness to crush blacks a bit?
 
No BBCIPLAYER at launch. I assume it does have Prime, Netflix, NowTV, Disney+, AppleTV+ and YouTube otherwise I personally would not purchase it.

I'm not sure on all of what is available but it does have Netflix, Disney + , Apple TV, Youtube. Think I saw now tv as well.

I think it's just BBC, ITV, channel 4 catch up players that it doesn't have at present.
 
No BBCIPLAYER at launch. I assume it does have Prime, Netflix, NowTV, Disney+, AppleTV+ and YouTube otherwise I personally would not purchase it.
Yes, it has Prime etc. as per the review. It is missing the terrestrial catch-up apps at the moment. Your purchasing decisions are your own of course. You can get around the issues with an offboard source in the meantime, but the C9 is certainly better value at the moment.
 
Thank you for a good review!

I'm curious: how does the LG near-black performance compare to Sony or Panasonic OLEDs this year?

"Our only slight issue with some HDR content was the default brightness setting of 50 introducing some floating blacks and flashing with certain content. This can be mitigated with some adjustments and has also been reported back to LG, so hopefully, it will be resolved with a firmware fix. As it can be mitigated easily we will allow LG some slack to fix this issue. "

I assume the easy mitigation is turning down the brightness to crush blacks a bit?
Yes. But hopefully, a fix is due soon.
 
@Phil Hinton Hi Phil. Very comprehensive as usual. Are there any differences between filmmaker mode and technicolor mode of previous years?
 
@Phil Hinton Hi Phil. Very comprehensive as usual. Are there any differences between filmmaker mode and technicolor mode of previous years?
Filmmaker is more accurate and switches off all unnecessary processing.
 
The C9 really was an outstanding set, I think that's what I'm to take from the CX.
 
The C9 really was an outstanding set, I think that's what I'm to take from the CX.
The CX is slightly better for motion with slightly better gaming & better BFI implementation, but for UK users it is currently without catch up services.
 
Filmmaker is more accurate and switches off all unnecessary processing.
Thanks Phil. Filmmaker is a great feature for sure. In fairness LG always had good accurate modes in the form of ISF Expert and technicolor Expert so we've been fortunate. Don't think there was much if any difference between those two modes but others can correct me if I'm wrong about that.
 
Thanks Phil. Filmmaker is a great feature for sure. In fairness LG always had good accurate modes in the form of ISF Expert and technicolor Expert so we've been fortunate. Don't think there was much if any difference between those two modes but others can correct me if I'm wrong about that.
Technicolor was a little green to follow the white point of a cinema/grading suite projector lamp. Otherwise, they were pretty similar, but be aware that even the ISF modes out of the box have image processing applied and TruMotion set to on. Filmmaker has everything off as default.
 
Technicolor was a little green to follow the white point of a cinema/grading suite projector lamp. Otherwise, they were pretty similar, but be aware that even the ISF modes out of the box have image processing applied and TruMotion set to on. Filmmaker has everything off as default.
Very interesting to note. I've been using technicolor on my B7 and recently switched to ISF dark room so I'll check to make sure I've image processing turned off but I think it is. Strange decision to have it on on the CX.
 
I've just managed to find a C9 which should be arriving tomorrow.
I'm quite the gamer - the 2.1 gaming features for the upcoming consoles are what interest me the most.
Going to be interesting comparing it to my ZD9 for picture etc
 
Did last years models have all catch up and DTS encoding on board?
 
Excellent review Phil.

Phil - Filmmaker mode: Don't you have to receive the relevant signal to activate it. As I understand, it's only for certain movie content which upon receipt of the signal, triggers the filmmaker mode.
 
Excellent review Phil.

Phil - Filmmaker mode: Don't you have to receive the relevant signal to activate it. As I understand, it's only for certain movie content which upon receipt of the signal, triggers the filmmaker mode.
No, it is a picture preset just like the ISF modes and it replaces Technicolor, so you just select it in the menu system. It can be triggered by metadata in content such as 4K BDs but that is still to be implemented, so you just switch it on in the menus.
 
The floating blacks and posterisation issue, I wonder if this has anything to do with the improved BFI implementation?

From what I recall, 120Hz BFI was supposed to be a feature on the 2019 models but it was pulled last minute - one theory going at the time was that the dithering method introduced to mitigate the low level flashing complicated its implementation.

I read in a Danish online publication that the low level handling of the 2020 models was tweaked over the C8 and C9 - I wonder if that was to make 120Hz BFI possible, and if that's not the cause of the issues Phil has noticed?
 
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The floating blacks and posterisation issue, I wonder if this has anything to do with the improved BFI implementation?

From what I recall, 120Hz BFI was supposed to a feature on the 2019 models but it was pulled last minute - one theory going at the time was that the dithering method introduced to mitigate the low level flashing complicated its implementation.

I read in a Danish online publication that the low level handling of the 2020 models was tweaked over the C8 and C9 - I wonder if that was to make 120Hz BFI possible, and if that's not the cause of the issues Phil has noticed?
If you implement the BFI the issues were mitigated slightly. But for some reason, there seems to be an error with the code values for Brightness at 50 (default) because if you click two under it resolves itself in most cases, or in the case of Stranger Things, it looked far better with just the occasional light flash and very slight black crush.
 
Most people would not see any difference in picture quality between the CX and the 2018 C8. It’s the same panel with just some software tweaks, especially if you are not gaming.

OLED has not advanced much in the last two years. C8 was a good step up from the C7, but since then improvements have been marginal at best, except for gaming... not worth upgrading yet in my opinion.
 
Most people would not see any difference in picture quality between the CX and the 2018 C8. It’s the same panel with just some software tweaks, especially if you are not gaming.

OLED has not advanced much in the last two years. C8 was a good step up from the C7, but since then improvements have been marginal at best, except for gaming... not worth upgrading yet in my opinion.

Its not the same panel but do agree that differences are going to be marginal.

For me the major con is the lack of DTS support .
 

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