LG G1 Gallery Series OLED TV Review (OLED65G1PUA)
LG G1 Gallery Series OLED TV Review: Bright, Beautiful, Smart
"The G1 Gallery series is the best OLED TV LG has ever made."
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Increased brightness
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Excellent contrast
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Exact color
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Player friendly
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WebOS improvements
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Confusing options for picture settings
Sure, LG has its mind-boggling wallpaper OLED, not to mention its drooling (and wallet-breaking) 8K OLED range, but according to specs, the new LG G1 Gallery range is the most advanced and promising OLED TV ever was a company that has pioneered OLED televisions since the launch of the first 55-inch model in 2012.
Equipped with the so-called OLED Evo panel from LG, advanced processing, a WebOS Smart TV makeover, HDMI 2.1 and a complete dashboard for gamers, the G1 combines the best of everything that LG has for its OLED product line this year Has. But how impressive is it really?
I took on the tedious task of testing a 65-inch version of the LG G1 Gallery series by taking measurements, looking at test clips I'd seen several times on dozen of TVs, and digging deep into those with the new Microsoft Xbox series Graphics performance immersed itself in next-generation X and Sony PlayStation 5 consoles. I found the following:
Jump to: Out of the box | Design | Features | The technology inside | Picture settings | Image quality | Play | Our opinion
Editor's Note: At the time of writing, the price and availability of this TV had not yet been announced. We will update this post as soon as it is published.
Out of the box
OLED TVs, known for their thin profiles and (sometimes) light weight, always required two people to set up. The G1 Gallery series is a bit cumbersome for an OLED and requires some TLC when wall mounted or with a stand.
Dan Baker / Digital Trends
Dan Baker / Digital Trends
Dan Baker / Digital Trends
Dan Baker / Digital Trends
The most interesting thing about what's in the box is also what's not in the box: a stand. The G1 instead comes with a custom wall mount bracket that lets the TV sit flush against the wall thanks to a recessed section on the back of the TV. LG provides clear instructions for wall mounting. The hardware is robust and easy to configure.
The television was specially developed for wall mounting. However, if you are interested in stand mounting, you have two options. One option is to buy the simple two-legged desk display stand for $ 100. The legs – or feet if you prefer – will fit all three available screen sizes of 55, 65 and 77 inches. The legs are stable enough, but the TV still wobbles despite their support.
Dan Baker / Digital Trends
The other option is to pick up the very sleek, lifestyle-friendly metal tripod-style stand that wasn't listed on LG's website at the time of writing. I'll say the three-legged floor stand looks attractive and can be handy for those who don't have the ideal wall space for a TV or need to put their TV in front of a window.
Other items in the box include a redesigned Magic Motion remote control, batteries for the remote control, a cable tie, IR repeater and some product literature.
design
I usually roll features and design into the same section, but there's so much going on in both departments that I'll be addressing them one by one.
As mentioned earlier, the G1 looks absolutely stunning on the wall (it's really something to see). I wrote about last year's GX-OLED: "If looks could kill, the GX-OLED would be a serial killer," and I stand by the G1 too. In terms of design, it's still one of the nicest TVs you can buy. With virtually nonexistent bezels and a ridiculously thin profile, the TV just seems to float on the wall.
Dan Baker / Digital Trends
Dan Baker / Digital Trends
Dan Baker / Digital Trends
Unfortunately, this means that considerations about conventional stand mounting with two legs have taken a back seat. During the design process, all of the cables will be routed to the center of the TV and then down over the bottom edge. If there is a few inches of space between the bottom of the TV and the stand, you can easily see cables falling from your seated position. This could easily be covered with a slim soundbar, of course, and LG would happily recommend the G1 soundbar for the job.
Get ready because LG has packed the G1 with a wealth of features.
On the plus side, LG offers a decorative cover to hide inputs and cable routing, and another one to hide the TV's recessed wall duct, so anyone looking at the TV from the side sees a very neat profile view.
characteristics
Get ready because LG has packed the G1 with a ton of features. When we're done here, we have yet to talk about some of the unique technologies in TV and all that goes with it. Stay with me though, because this is pretty meaningful stuff.
WebOS
I enjoyed WebOS in the wild west of the smart TV days when there was nothing like it on the market. But to be honest, I felt it needed a refresher over the past few years. In 2021 my wish will be granted and WebOS has the necessary makeover and it looks and works fantastic.
In the past, the WebOS interface was essentially a strip across the bottom of the TV that gave access to apps, inputs, and a few other widgets. Now WebOS takes over the screen and looks comfortable and dark.
Dan Baker / Digital Trends
Some may object to LG's decision to follow others and put content promotions in big boxes at the top of the user interface, but I really don't mind. Sure, it feels like advertising, but there's more to this new "hero banner", including widgets for weather and other information. Under the hero banner, content from apps and live TV is suggested based on your viewing habits. This section is not meaningful if you do not allow LG to collect some display data. So keep that in mind as you go through privacy policies and accept or reject them.
With all of that behind, your apps are neatly organized on the third level, which still appears at the top of the home page without having to scroll through. If I had to scroll to get to apps we would have a problem. Under the apps banner there is a "Home Dashboard" banner that you can use to switch to exactly what you want without having to go through them.
Among all the things you really want to see, WebOS has a ton of categories of content to suggest. Most of it doesn't interest me, but I don't like Sports Alerts, which allow you to follow your favorite teams in any sport, set up notifications for the game, and even show score updates during subsequent games.
Game optimizer
OK, player. This section is for you. If you have no real interest in gaming, go ahead!
In addition to support of up to 4K 120 Hz with variable refresh rate (VRR) and Nvidea G-Sync support as well as AMD FreeSync support via all four HDMI 2.1 ports of the G1, LG has a new Game Optimizer on-screen display for in Attacked access to and adaptation of all game-related things.
A display area at the top shows whether the Game Optimizer is activated or deactivated and shows the most important settings at a glance. Below, the user interface allows users to select image settings to optimize different game genres. For example, choosing First Person Shooter will ensure good visibility in dark areas and the real-time strategy will balance the lighting throughout the game.
The Image / Motion Settings section provides extensive control over various types of motion smoothing, as well as delay adjustments and adjustments for light and dark areas. The final area of the user interface provides direct access to VRR, G-Sync and FreeSync Premium toggle switches.
Evo offers higher brightness than we've seen from OLED TVs in the past.
A deep level of control to be sure, but how valuable these settings will be to individual players depends on how interested they are in delving into the UI and experimenting with it as they play.
The technology inside
OLED evo
LG did a big deal with OLED evo – essentially the next evolution in OLED display technology – but how does evo work and what are the benefits?
For one, evo offers higher brightness than OLED TVs in the past, which may fix one of the few issues that buyers may face. On the other hand, the color accuracy has been further refined.
Dan Baker / Digital Trends
But how? As LG explains, evo is a combination of finely tuned OLED materials that create more precise wavelengths of red and blue, as well as a new green layer that brings the green wavelength of light closer to where it should be, and where it should be Wavelength peak sharpens. For laypeople, this means that the colors are purer and require fewer filters for purity, so less light is lost to the filtering process and more of it gets into your eyes. Boom, brighter picture.
However, LG also points out that image processing also has a lot to do with the brighter performance. Let's call it LG's secret sauce. I just want to know how much brighter it is. We'll find out together below.
AI Picture Pro
This is a feature I usually turn off when rating a TV as it gets in the way of my purist approach to TV rating. Given that LG had such high demands, I tried this newly improved bag with image processing tricks.
Dan Baker / Digital Trends
AI Picture Pro claims to detect the types of content you're watching – a movie or a TV show, for example – and then automatically switch to the correct picture mode. It can also perform scene detection – for example, a dark scene versus a city scene – and apply deeper processing to optimize the image. Activating this feature promises to improve the shadow details in dark scenes and provide enhanced details in tight patterns to avoid the moiré effect, among other things. How much does it improve the picture?
In general, I appreciated the feature. It has increased the brightness in many of the YouTube clips I've watched and improved the picture quality a bit too. I found the feature pretty useful for more compressed YouTube content than for premium streaming titles from Disney + and HBO Max. In summary, the G1's processor is already doing an excellent job. How dramatic AI Picture Pro will be will likely depend on the quality of the content displayed.
AI Sound Pro
This feature promises to do the same for the sound as the A.I. This applies to the picture of the television set by virtue of the fact that audio signals are virtually mixed up to a 5.1.2 Atmos signal, not just for the television set, but for every connected device such as a soundbar or a receiver. I've always been in doubt about such claims, but I've tried.
First, the LG G1 sounds very good without any fancy processing or surround effects … for a TV. There are few TVs that can deliver more robust, dynamic sound. Clarity is never an issue, and the G1 offers more bass than you'd expect for such a thin panel.
I'm less of a fan of AI Sound Pro. I understand what the feature is trying to do, but I was distracted by the virtual surround effects that seemed to wash out some of the noises that should have been anchored on the screen. I suggest that users play around with this feature themselves and see if they like it.
One final acoustic hint: the G1 has an AI. The acoustic tuning feature did a good job in my opinion, adding a little more bass and shine to the TV's onboard sound. Users should definitely try this. An A / B comparison of the before and after shows the changes involved.
Picture settings
Before I dive into the image quality of the G1, I need to talk a little about the various image presets and settings available, what I used for my assessment, and why I chose what I did.
Dan Baker / Digital Trends
I usually went straight to the TV's ISF Dark Room mode with an LG TV, but to grin I started with ISF Bright Room. After some measuring and fumbling around in the settings, I found that ISF Bright uses a cooler color temperature by default, which I think was chosen for better viewing in daylight. However, it is not suitable for testing as it does not allow for a level playing field. Ultimately, I decided to go to Cinema User Mode or ISF Dark Room and changed the settings for measuring.
For a brighter picture than standard SDR, users can set the G1's Peak Brightness setting to high and get an image bright enough for most daytime situations.
In HDR mode, I initially opted for Cinema User, as Cinema Home had a cooler color temperature by default. After playing around a bit, I finally changed the color temperature from Cinema Home to Warm 50 and switched between the two cinema modes. Cinema Home enabled the G1's AI brightness feature to be activated while Cinema didn't – curious. The differences between the two were only noticeable in certain dark scenes.
Dan Baker / Digital Trends
Dolby Vision was a very different situation. ISF modes are not an option here, so I re-examined the differences between Cinema User and Cinema Home – which I found frustrating. In this case the color temperature was correctly set to warm 50 and the AI brightness was activated by default. However, TruMotion (motion smoothing) has been set to Cinematic Movement – a new setting that aims to remove jerking without introducing a soap opera effect. and changing this setting has been blocked.
Without a doubt, the G1 Gallery series is an important advancement of the OLED for LG.
In many ways, Cinema Home's brighter setting is subjectively superior. However, I still see a soap opera effect from the smoothing and was frustrated that I couldn't have higher brightness without this option. Most of the time I've used Cinema User because I'm so picky.
picture quality
Without a doubt, the G1 Gallery series is an important advancement of the OLED for LG. Everything I've seen, from 720p cables to HD on Netflix and wireless broadcasts to 4K HDR movies, looked as good as I've never seen, if not downright extraordinary.
Cable / satellite television is low definition and fairly compressed. It takes some serious processing muscle to look even more decent on a 65-inch TV. The G1's processor is about as good as I've seen at smoothing gradients and minimizing macroblocks – those annoying noisy blocks you get with compressed content.
Dan Baker / Digital Trends
As the quality of the content increased, the visual experience just got bigger. Meat Eater on Netflix is in HD with no HDR, but the superior black levels, improved brightness, and resulting vivid contrast that the G1 itself creates in cinema mode made the show look as natural as the views it contained.
4K HDR content, especially on 4K Blu-ray but also on YouTube, looked better than I've ever seen it before. The colors are rich and bright, if you call them, HDR highlights are extremely poignant, blacks are perfectly tinted with solid shadow detail, and banding – or contouring as it's often called – was virtually nonexistent.
The bottom line is that the LG G1 Gallery series delivers the cleanest, most alluring images I've seen from a television to date. Finally a big leap forward for OLED after years of excellence.
Dan Baker / Digital Trends
If I had to complain, I'd say that darker Dolby Vision content was sometimes just too dark for me, even in a well-darkened room. While WandaVision looked great overall on Disney +, I found that Captain Marvel often became a pool of blackness with little detail, especially in the movie's opening battle scene between Kree and Skrull, where the characters' details were difficult to see. I'm not sure what to make of this, but I'm in the early stages of my long-term assessment and will update this section as I learn more.
Overall, I am delighted with the image quality of the LG G1 Gallery Series. I have a lot of TVs to review this year, but I'm pretty sure this TV will be high on the list for picture quality and overall experience.
Play
There might be some surprises for me later this year, but I think LG's C and G series OLED TVs are going to be the best TVs for gaming this year. LG seems to be the only TV manufacturer to date to offer four HDMI 2.1 connections, support for G-Sync and FreeSync Premium as well as the kind of game-specific image adjustments – all in one place – that gamers need and want the best gaming experiences for the device . From now on, the OLEDs from LG offer everything that the new game consoles of the next generation have to offer in the best possible way.
Our opinion
The LG G1 series OLED is an important step forward for OLED televisions. With exceptional picture quality, a great form factor and industry leading gaming support, the G1 is a great high-end television that meets the needs of those who only want the best.
Is there a better alternative?
For most people, especially gamers, there is no better alternative. In terms of image quality and user experience, I suspect the Sony A90J is a competitive option for cinephiles. I will update this section when my Sony A90J review is complete.
How long it will take?
The G1 is equipped with the latest technology, bells and whistles. It should outlast most other TVs sold that year.
warranty
LG provides a one-year limited warranty on the G1 Galler Series OLED if purchased from an authorized LG dealer.
Should you buy it?
Ordinarily I would say, yes, if you have the money and want the fanciest OLED that anyone can reasonably afford, the G1 is the TV. And that's still true. This year's additional qualifier, however, is the premium image quality of the G1, which is now brighter and more accurate than ever, making it yet another reason to buy.
Editor's recommendations
