Review: The LG CX 4K TV maintains the firm’s fine OLED standard

LG’s CX 4K is another great smart OLED TV but not everything is perfect.

LG CX 4K OLED TV

Televisions in 2020 appear to be at the bleeding edge of their 4K lives. With a list of acronyms, trademarks and brand partnerships you start to look at which ones are missing. It tells you one thing; we’ve become nitpickers, and that’s a great thing for consumers.

The 2020 LG OLED CX 4K television is one of those examples, but we were up for the challenge of finding its faults.

One of these 65-inch LG OLED televisions carries a recommended retail price of $5,399. It’s not a cheap purchase for a television of that size, however when it comes to OLED and LG, this is actually $1,000 less than when the 2019 model was originally offered.

I was able to unbox the TV, fit the stand and set it up. It is scary and slightly confusing as the base stand has two elements and no instructions. When the purchase is so expensive it’s just smarter to have it professionally managed. The TV panel is half the thickness of an iPhone 11 except where the brains and speakers live. That part is 47mm.

You are spoiled for features which should please all members of the household. The television supports the latest HDR formats including DolbyVision and Dolby Atmos for better audio. There are 20 picture modes on-board including one specifically for cricket, gaming and even a Filmmaker mode to represent movies exactly as the creators intended.

LG CX 4K OLED TV

In many scenarios the artificial intelligence engine will automatically detect the correct mode for you, including adjusting the brightness for the room and upscaling.

The TV does a good job of keeping you updated of its efforts by highlighting the mode being used and the type of content being played for a few seconds whenever starting something new. For example if the next Netflix show supports Dolby Vision, you’ll know.

These modes worked well with 4K content that you find through Netflix, Stan or Amazon Prime however if I selected the classic Jurassic Park film from 1993, I found myself shifting between picture modes to find that one that worked best. The TV was playing with things a little too much, almost too smart for its own good. For people who watch plenty of free-to-air television you are likely to set and forget the picture mode.

With that said, I’ve never seen Jurassic Park look so good. LG OLED produces the best blacks and overall contrast I have seen. It shines in those special Dolby Vision clips however it still performs and almost reinvents previous movies you loved when you were younger, so bring on Star Wars 4/5/6 again.

If you use DVD, Bluray and consoles you’ll appreciate four HDMI 2.1 ports all of which carry support for future generation consoles. There’s also three USB ports which we couldn’t imagine needing more than one.

The apps available through the LG operating system app store include Netflix, Stan, Disney+, Amazon Prime, local catch up TV apps. We did note the Kayo sports streaming service was missing.

However with Miracast and Airplay support you can “throw” missing content from a smartphone to the TV.

The TV supports Amazon Alexa voice assistant and the Google Voice Assistant so you have a choice. You can ask Google to “show me movies with Kevin Spacey” or “show me Australian movies” and see content offered across multiple apps.

You couldn’t do this with all apps, for example with Stan. The Amazon Alexa assistant can’t tell you these but can tell you the weather and control your smart lights. That’s something.

The LG integration with the Google voice assistant however is good.

The LG magic remote control needs an upgrade.

Given that Google is the personal assistant of choice in Australia, we don’t think this will be a problem for most. The LG voice integration will save you time, getting you in front of the right content faster.

The home dashboard gives you a view of all connected things that LG can support. This makes it easy to access network storage, check on the progress of your washing machine and switch the audio to your bluetooth headphones for late night binge watching.

However being so thin, the TV has little space to provide the audio experience it deserves. For any purchase of a new TV in 2020 I’d recommend a quality soundbar to bring that tyrannosaurus rex to life.

I have reserved some criticism for the remote. The “clicker” is desperately in need of a redesign. It is cluttered, tries to act as a Nintendo Wii remote while still having a scroll wheel and 38 buttons. Competitors have managed to simplify this and we hoped LG would have followed suit.

The LG OLED CX range is available in 55, 65 with a 77-inch version coming soon.

Geoff Quattromani is a tech commentator across radio, print, online and television. Check out his podcast “Technology Uncorked” for new information each week.