I've Tested Over 80 TVs and This LG OLED Is the Best One Yet

Pros

• Highest brightness of any OLED TV yet
• Stunning image quality

Cons

• Brightness boost not visible in all content
• Remote is not as good as previous versions
• Expensive

• I've Tested Over 80 TVs and This LG OLED Is the Best One Yet
• LG G5 OLED TV sizes and series comparison
• Class from the ground up
• Smart TV and AI
• Higher brightness is just the start
• High-end OLED comparison: LG G5 vs LG C5 vs Samsung S95D
• Light output in nits
• LG C5 test measurements

OLED TVs have consistently demonstrated the best picture quality according to our head-to-head tests -- with the best shadow detail, contrast, color and black levels. Yet, there is one thing LCD-based TVs have always done better: sheer brightness. That is, until the LG G5 came along. Finally, OLED can reclaim its place at the top of the TV technology leader board with a model that performs brilliantly in almost every single respect.

When LG claimed its G5 had a 40% brightness increase I was skeptical because companies make these types of announcements all the time. Furthermore, OLED has typically been an incremental technology, with small gains made every year. The year 2025 is an exception and LG has made a major leap forward in light output. The G5 is bright. Very bright. 

Based on my measurements, the claimed improvement is right on the money. Be aware that it is only one of the first 2025 OLEDs, and while I have compared its brightness to the Samsung S95F (review forthcoming) and the LG won, there are still others, like the Sony Bravia 5 II, to come.

The catch to all that brightness is that its impact varies with different types of video. While I was watching typical Blu-ray movies or streaming HDR TV shows, it was difficult to tell the difference between the LG C4 from 2024, the less expensive C5 I reviewed earlier and the G5. It was mainly in console gaming or particularly well-mastered 4K material that I saw the advantages. The extra brightness helped in bright rooms too.

For a roughly $600 premium on the 65-inch C5, the G5 offers nearly twice the potential brightness and better color saturation too. While most OLED generations have experienced a small bump, the G5 is demonstrably better than any other OLED TV on the market. If you want the punchiest OLED picture available right now, it's the LG G5. 

As a counterpoint, if you want maximum bang for buck, then last year's C4, at a savings of more than $2,000 on the G5, is the OLED to buy.

LG G5 OLED TV sizes and series comparison

I performed a hands-on evaluation of the 65-inch LG G5, but this review also applies to the other screen sizes in the series. All sizes have very similar specs and should provide very similar picture quality. 

• LG OLED97G5WUA (97-inch)
• LG OLED83G5WUA (83-inch)
• LG OLED77G5WUA (77-inch) 
• LG OLED65G5WUA (65-inch)
• LG OLED55G5WUA (55-inch)

The G5 evo AI series, to use its full name, is the company's premium wired TV for 2025. The flagship M5 announced at CES is the same panel but it features a wireless connection to the input box. The rest of the range is made of the mid-level C5 and the entry-level B5.

Class from the ground up

Ty Pendlebury/CNET

While the C series goes for a slim profile, the G series is a lot chunkier, being about an inch thick. It goes without saying that when you're watching TV on either of these the differences in thickness don't matter. The G5's bezel design is classy with a thin, black border and a faint metallic rim.

One thing I appreciate about the G5 is that it includes a slim wall mount in the box -- no more flailing around on Amazon for a suitable mount, it's right there. The company also produces a separate "desktop stand" which is a gun metal pedestal. I used the stand instead of the wall mount and found that it was easy enough to attach.

LG's Magic Remote has been redesigned for 2025.

Ty Pendlebury/CNET

While I am used to the "infrared thermometer" remote that has shipped with LG OLEDs for the past decade, the 2025 models switch it up with a more traditional candy-bar shape. It's still a "magic" remote with a motion-sensitive cursor I could wave around the screen, but you can also use it as if it's a regular clicker. It has fewer buttons than before, yet more with AI functions, and I do miss the dedicated input button (you now need to hold down Home).

Smart TV and AI

Ty Pendlebury/CNET

The LG G5 comes with the latest version of the company's webOS software, which features dozens of streaming apps as well as integration with the company's ThinQ smart platform. Progressively, companies such as Samsung, Google and LG are focussing on the TV as the center of the smart home and let you control your compatible devices. As evidence of this, the LG remote's ThinQ button brings up a home screen of your smart devices as well as the TV's inputs -- although I still want a dedicated input button! 

From the name alone you can tell the "G5 evo AI" is a 2025 TV and it certainly goes overboard with the robots: Alpha 11 AI Processor Gen2, AI Picture Pro, AI Super Upscaling and AI Concierge. While most of these functions relate to picture processing, and are something TVs have done in an un-AI guise for years, the Concierge is new. 

I tested the TV's AI Concierge feature on the cheaper C5 and didn't find it to be all that helpful. While the AI is supposed to learn from your watch history it's more limited than that -- it bases its content recommendations on your interactions with the AI. This is separate from using another voice assistant or just the remote control to pick your content -- some people may find use for this AI feature but I foresee many people giving up quickly.

Like most TVs today, the LG C5 has a gallery mode that also includes the ability to create your own AI art or upload a photo gallery.

Watch this: LG C5 vs. LG G5: Which OLED Gives the Most for Your Money

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Higher brightness is just the start

The G5's OLED panel features the company's Brightness Boosting Ultimate tech, which magnifies each individual pixel, and it boasts a new four layer design ("four stack") that includes two blue filter layers. This is a departure from the G4 that had a micro-lens array but the differences equate to the higher brightness.

The G5 has an anti-reflective treatment that has been certified by safety organization UL as "glare free." The G5 comes with a 120Hz native refresh rate for smoother motion, as well as Dolby Vision and HDR 10 for more vivid gaming and movie watching. The TV is compatible with Nvidia G-Sync and AMD FreeSync Premium with 165Hz VRR for console and PC gaming. 

• 120Hz Native (VRR 144Hz)
• Four HDMI inputs with HDMI 2.1, HDCP 2.2
• Three USB 2.0 ports
• Optical digital audio output
• RF (antenna) input
• RS-232 port (minijack, for service only)
• Ethernet (LAN) port
• Wi-Fi 6E

While LG was one of the first adopters of the NextGen TV (ATSC 3.0) standard, the company has not included tuners in its TVs since 2023.

High-end OLED comparison: LG G5 vs LG C5 vs Samsung S95D 

TV and movies

While I was able to get a perfectly great picture via Netflix or Fandango at Home I didn't realize the TV's full potential until I broke out the Blu-ray player. With the right material, the G5 is noticeably brighter than the G4.

From my experience, Fandango at Home is one of the best ways to watch streaming movies, with higher-than-normal bit rates. Yet, when set to their respective Filmmaker Modes, the LG C4, LG C5, LG G5 and Samsung S95D all behaved very similarly when watching my selection of test movies. I also compared these TVs against a TCL QM8, and it was the only one that demonstrated the most significant differences (spoiler, it looked worse than the OLEDs).

The opening scene of It Part One is a great test of a TV's capabilities with its high-contrast images and I was a little surprised to see the four OLEDs perform to a similar level. As Georgie starts to descend the stairs into the basement you will see an area of wall next to the railing with some low-level shadow detail. The C4, C5 and TCL shadows looked a little more detailed than the G5 and Samsung but it was only by a small amount -- I had to look really hard. 

In the intercut shots of his brother Bill, the view through the windows looked a lot brighter and bluer on the TCL than the OLEDs. The drawbacks of LCD technology were also on display in the cellar as there was a little bit of blue hazing in completely black areas of the screen -- and this is something that OLED doesn't do, the pixel is simply off.

After inconclusive results with It I tried a number of colorful and very dynamic movies including Mad Max: Fury Road. In Mad Max (at 4:48) there is a moment in a chase scene where the war boys are fighting Max in a water-filled room. There is a flame at the right of frame which looked a little brighter on the G5 than the others. The G5 also had a little more solidity to it, but again not much. 

I followed that up, then, with a 4K Blu-ray test disc from Spears and Munsil comprising mostly static footage and, apart from gaming, here is where the C5 and G5 showed the differences in performance. The C5 still looked very good, with deep contrast and plenty of color saturation, but the G5 showed where the extra $600 was going: brighter images and clearer, less-green snowy fields. White was more vibrant on the G5 while the C5 was a little green and color popped a little better on the G5, too. Most movies don't look like test discs but at least I could finally see a difference between the two.

Read more: How We Test TVs

Bright room

With its ultra-high brightness the LG G5 is already a great candidate for bright room viewing but this OLED also does a great job dealing with annoying TV glare. In terms of reflectivity I graded each of the OLED TVs subjectively from worst to best: LG C4> LG C5 > LG G5 > Samsung S95D. The G5 had the second-least reflective screen but the "winner" Samsung had another potential issue. It had the lightest black levels that translated to kind of gray in a lit room. That's the compromise with the Samsung vs the LG G5, you can choose either deep blacks or more reflectivity.

I have tested the brightness of the flagship 2025 Samsung S95F and found that it is not as bright, about 2100 lumens, but have yet to compare it formally head-to-head. Watch this space.

With its gamma of roughly 2.4 in Filmmaker Mode, the G5 is designed to be watched in a dark room, although its high brightness offsets this a little.

Gaming

I'd argue that the two main reasons to buy a high-end TV like this are to a) watch movies and b) play HDR games. Well, having tested it, I can say these ARE the two reasons to buy it -- it's great at both. Gaming image quality is where the G5 really pulled ahead of the others, with more consistency than with movies.

In a lineup of four OLED TVs, the G5 had the clearest-looking gaming mode on my Xbox Series X -- brighter than the Samsung and two C series LGs. I played Call of Duty, which had better HDR contrast on the G5, although the Samsung did have slightly better color.

I played several different games on my four-TV setup and it was here that the biggest differences between the G5, in particular, and the rest of the lineup appeared. While the C5 looked as good as the higher-end Samsung S95D during games, it didn't stand up to the G5. The G5's pixel response time as tested with the Leo Bodnar test units was about 9ms with Game Optimizer Boost mode enabled (Settings>General>Game Optimizer>Game>Prevent Input Delay>Boost). This response time is equivalent to the best I've seen with TVs like the Samsung S95D or the Roku Pro Series. The TL:DR is: this TV is great for gaming.

Uniformity and viewing angle

The G5 was consistent with most OLED TVs in that its picture was uniform across the panel. When viewed off-angle there was no appreciable color shift which means the G5 will look good whether you're in the dead center or sitting in the grandparent chair. 

Picture settings and testing notes

In testing -- both in measurements and in the real world -- the G5 is a massive improvement over the G4 from brightness to color and more.

It's worth mentioning that some TVs can give a better response in darkness than the G5, which has a Gamma 2.4. This "gamma curve" may be an industry standard but in our tests, 2.2 gives a better experience with more shadow detail.

Filmmaker mode proved to be the overall best picture mode on the G5, both from our quantitative measurements and with the bare eye. Cinema mode was a close second but it enables some smoothing, which can create the often undesirable soap opera effect.

Portrait Displays Calman calibration software was used in this review.