After waiting for some time we finally got
our hands on the new LG C1! This is LG's mid-range OLED in the US and one of their most popular
models throughout the years. Today, we'll see how it stacks up to last year's CX, and
if it can continue to carry the torch forward. Hi, I’m Brandon a test developer at RTINGS.com
where we help you find the best product for your needs. First we'll look at the design of the TV and
then move on to the smart features. Then, we'll look at the picture quality, motion
handling, inputs, and sound quality. Afterwards we'll finish with our verdict, and compare
to other competing models on the market. Also stick around, as we'll be answering some of
your questions in a short Q&A at the end. We bought the 55" model to test, but it is
also available in 48, 65, and 77 inches. An 83 inch model is expected to be released at
a later date. We expect these other sizes to perform similarly. If you’d like to skip straight to our test
results, then see the links in the description below, or use the Youtube chapters feature. First, let's start off with the design. In
simple words, not much has changed from 2020's LG CX. The C1 looks like a premium TV with
thin borders all around. It even has the same sleek looking stand as previous years, but
the TV sits a bit close to the table. So if you put a soundbar in front, it might block
the screen. Speaking about its stand, it's a mix of metal
and plastic. There's a plastic cover on the rear stand, and you can route cables through
it for cable management. This keeps your setup tidy, but you wont be able to use this if
you wall mount it, which you can thanks to the VESA mount. The back of the TV has a simple but modern
look to it. The housing for the OLED panel is metal and extremely thin. The housing for
the electronic sticks out a bit, and is made out of plastic. Overall, the LG C1 has fantastic build quality.
The mix of metal and plastic gives it a premium feel, and it's really solid throughout. The
back panel where the inputs are bends a bit because it's plastic, but this shouldn't be
an issue for most people. The stand is also very solid and there isn't much wobble. Overall,
you get what you pay for in terms of a premium TV and LG doesn't cut any corners. To learn more about inputs, stick around for
the Input Section later in the video. Before we get into looking at this TV in detail,
let's look at all the smart features. LG released an updated version of their WebOS smart system.
This version 6.0 is redesigned from version 5.0 found on the 2020 models. Instead of getting
LG's regular dashboard that pops up as a banner at the bottom, there's now a full home page.
It looks pretty simple and it's easy to use. The app store offers a bunch of apps you can
download. Sadly like most TVs in 2021, there are ads
in the app store and home page. You can't opt out of them without using a third party
software. There's even a Shop Store just for products that they have ads on. Now let's look at the remote. LG released
a new look to their famous Magic Remote. Instead of the curved shaped from past years, it now
sits flat. But don't worry, it still has the same functionality and you can access the
magic remote feature. This allows you to use the remote as point and press, kind of like
a computer mouse. There are quick access buttons to popular streaming apps at the bottom, and
there's even both Google Assistant and Alexa voice features. This allows you to change
inputs, search for content, or ask the weather, but you can't ask it to change settings. Open Youtube. Open Amazon Prime Video It also has a NFC feature that allows you
to tap your phone against the remote and cast content to the TV. Now let's take a look at the picture quality,
starting with contrast. Contrast ratio is the difference between the whitest white and
the darkest black, and this is one of the most important aspects of picture quality.
OLEDs are able to turn individual pixels completely off, which means they can display perfect
blacks, creating a near-infinite contrast ratio. This is fantastic, as it gives the
image a lot of depth. It's especially good if you watch in dark rooms, as the inky deep
blacks won't look gray, like with some LCD TVs. We recently started publishing local dimming
videos with real scene content in our latest TV reviews. This is a good way to see how
the TV performs with dark content in a dark room, and you can see the results on our website.
Of course, this TV doesn't use local dimming, since each pixel acts as its own individual
zone. Still, the video is a good way to show the advantages of an OLED compared to other
LCDs. Now moving onto SDR brightness. This measures
how bright a TV gets with SDR content and is important if you usually watch TV in a
bright environment. The C1's peak brightness in SDR is adequate,
although we measured slightly less brightness than last year's model. We got around 300 nits in our real scene test,
with window sizes ranging anywhere from 415 to 130 nits.
This wide range of luminance levels shouldn't be too surprising though, as OLEDs are known
for having somewhat aggressive Auto Brightness Limiters. Although in practice, the aggressive
ABL won't be too noticeable, as most content doesn't have full white screens.
Originally we had even lower measurements, but since firmware update 03.11.15, we've
gotten brighter results. Keep in mind we measured SDR peak brightness after calibration, while
in the Expert Dark Space picture mode, with color depth set to Warm 50, Peak Brightness
set to High, and OLED Pixel Brightness set to max. Even before calibration, measured brightness
was about the same. It's possible to get a brighter measurement, but this comes at the
cost of picture accuracy. With the TV set to Vivid mode and all the other sliders cranked
to max, we were able to get 489 Nits in a 10% window. Overall, this TV gets bright enough for a
room with a few lights, but we don't suggest placing it opposite of a window. Thankfully,
it has superb reflection handling, which should help in these situations.
For this year, LG also released the G1, which uses a new "Evo" OLED panel. It's advertised
to be brighter than previous years models, but we can't say by how much, until we get
it in. If you do have a room with a few lights and
you're worried about glare, you should be happy to know that the reflection handling
is fantastic. It has a glossy finish that really does a good job at reducing reflected
light, so glare shouldn't be an issue for most rooms, unless you have really bright
lights directly on it. Now let's have a look at HDR brightness.
This is important if you tend to watch content in HDR and want highlights that really pop.
The TV gets much brighter than in SDR, although it's still not as high as what LCD TVs can
offer. We measured a real scene highlight of about 628 nits. Small highlights like in
the 2% and 10% windows are really bright, but then the larger the highlight, the more
dim it gets. This is because of the ABL. Once again, we measured overall lower brightness
than compared to the CX but in game mode, our C1 measured slightly brighter than our
CX, but these differences would be hard to notice. Now let's check out the gray uniformity. This
shows us how evenly the TV displays solid colors across the screen. It's important if
you plan on using it as a monitor, but can also be important for watching sports. As
with most OLEDs, the gray uniformity is excellent. There's very little dirty screen effect, but
it's hard to see. Near black uniformity is also quite great, better than last year's
model. Like with other OLEDs, there are some tiny horizontal and vertical lines. However,
it's hard to tell and shouldn't be noticeable with most content. As for true black uniformity,
it's perfect, since each pixel is turned off and there's no backlight layer. Keep in mind
that uniformity can change between units, but OLEDs tend to excel in this area. If you have an open seating area, it's important
to get a TV with wide viewing angles. OLEDs are a fantastic choice for this and this TV
is no exception. The image remains really accurate even when looking at it from the
widest angles, so it's a great choice for watching shows or sports with some family
and friends. Now lets look at color accuracy. Before any
sort of calibration, the accuracy on our unit was quite bad. Keep in mind that this can
vary between units, so it's possible we got unlucky with the panel we purchased. The white
balance and color accuracy are noticeably off, and if you experience the same thing,
you may want to calibrate it. Of course, after calibration everything looks great. You can
see our recommended TV settings here, but this may not work for each unit due to variance. Hey, Brandon from the future here. We received
a lot of feedback concerning our pre-calibration measurements, so we took a deeper dive into
it. When we originally measured color accuracy, we had Peak Brightness set to high, as we
didn't expect this setting to affect the color accuracy, and it's a setting we believe many
users will enable. Although as some of you pointed out, leaving this setting on can negatively
affect the SDR color accuracy. Because of your feedback, we re-measured color accuracy
with peak brightness disabled, and you can see the results on screen now. For the most
part, the color temperature and white balanced remained nearly the same, but we did get a
much lower Color DE, although the mapping is still not perfect. I should note we re-tested
color accuracy on the latest firmware 03.11.15, which is a different version than what we
originally tested with. But it's hard to say if that has any affects on our results. For
the time being, we're going to keep our published results as is, since we still expect most
people to enable Peak Brightness. If the behavior of the Peak Brightness setting changes in
a future firmware update, we'll be sure to test it out. Lastly, thank you to Keep It
Classy Tech in particular for bringing this to our attention, your feedback and testing
are much appreciated. Onto the color gamut, which is the range of
colors a TV can display. There isn't much new here, as OLEDs have performed mostly the
same in this regard for a while. The C1 has a really wide gamut, covering virtually all
of the P3 color space. So it can produce the vivid colors and hues needed for HDR. However,
because of the bad color accuracy, it doesn't map colors very well, so they can appear to
be inaccurate. The color volume is decent. It displays dark colors perfectly but struggles
with really bright tones, but this is normal for an OLED. If you watch HDR content, the TV's gradient
handling is also important. This is how well it displays shades of the same color. If a
TV has bad gradient handling and tries to display something like a sunset, you'll notice
banding between shades. Luckily, that's not the case here as it has impressive gradient
handling. It looks great overall, but you may notice some banding with darker grays
and greens. You can also enable smooth gradation to further improve gradient handling, but
it runs the risk of losing fine details. Before moving onto motion handling, it’s
important to note that this is an OLED display, and there's the risk of permanent burn-in
if displaying static content for long periods of time. This could especially be a problem
if you use your OLED as a PC monitor because there are so many static elements in the interface.
OLED pixels use an organic compound to emit light, which degrades with usage. You can
see our video here for an investigation into this issue, however, we don’t expect this
to be a problem with how most people use their TVs. By the way, before we speak about Motion,
if you enjoy our content please make sure you subscribe to our channel for the latest
videos, and check out our website for the full review and more! By subscribing, you're
helping us reach a wider audience and in turn helping you find the best products for your
needs! Also, visit this product Deal Page on our
website, linked below. You'll find all available sizes from our affiliates presented in a convenience
way. Now, let's look at its motion performance,
starting with response time. Response time is how long it takes for pixels to change
from one color to the next. Slow response times can make moving objects appear blurry
or smeary, known as ghosting. Like any OLED, the response time is near-instant, so there's
virtually no ghosting artifacts. This makes the TV a great choice for gaming or watching
sports. If you find that motion still looks a bit
blurry, there's a way to reduce the perceived motion blur. The TV achieves this by inserting
black frames in between each frame, and it's called Black Frame Insertion. You can learn
more about how it works here. LG calls this feature OLED Motion Pro and it can be set
to either 60 or 120Hz, so it can change depending on the content. However, you can't use it
in PC mode or if the TV is in the Game Optimizer mode with the Prevent Input Delay set to Boost.
Keep in mind BFI lowers screen brightness which will negatively affect HDR content.
Also, it can cause eye fatigue or headaches, so it's not for everyone. Since this TV has such a quick response time,
lower frame rate content like in movies may appear to stutter because each frame is held
on longer. If that bothers you, there's a way to try to fix it. The C1 has a motion
interpolation feature that can interpolate low framerate content up to 120fps. We found
it works it quite well, with only mild artifacting. However, it may not be for everyone, as the
increase in smoothness creates what's known as the Soap Opera Effect, and you can learn
more about that works here. To enable Motion Interpolation, first turn on TruMotion in
the settings, and adjust the De-Judder and De-Blur sliders.
Gamers should be happy to know this TV has all of the VRR features we've seen on past
LG TVs. It supports FreeSync and HDMI Forum VRR, and it's also G-SYNC compatible. All
three forms of VRR work properly and there aren't any issues with them. If you have a
HDMI 2.1 source, the VRR works as low as 20Hz, and if it's a HDMI 2.0 source, it works at
40Hz and above. Also important for gaming is the input lag.
Like most LG TVs it has very low input lag, so games will feel smooth and responsive.
LG continues to lead the pack in this regard with some of the fastest input lag on a TV
we've measured. New to the C1 this year is a Prevent Input Delay setting in the Game
Optimizer menu. If you set it to Boost, it actually reduces the input lag by about 3ms
for 60Hz content. This happens because the TV sends a 120Hz signal, which decreases the
delay, but it doesn't make a difference with 120Hz content. You don't even need to change
this setting because it's on by default when enabling the game optimizer setting. Luckily, this TV supports most common resolutions
up to 4k @ 120Hz. It doesn't support 1440p @ 60Hz natively, but it works through a forced
resolution. If you want to use it as a pc monitor, it supports proper chroma 4:4:4,
which is important for reading clear text. You just need to set the label of the input
you're using to PC. Go to Inputs
Home Dashboard Edit
Edit Inputs PC
Save And back to Home
Now we are in PC Mode With our recent test bench 1.6 update, we've
added a new advanced console compatibility box to test with the new PS5 and Xbox series
X. This TV supports any resolution from either console, including 4k @ 120Hz in HDR. However,
we noticed that Dolby vision doesn't work from the Xbox series x when FreeSync is enabled,
but it works with HDMI Forum VRR and G-SYNC. Now let's check out the inputs. The C1 has
a good selection of inputs. There are four HDMI inputs, which all support HDMI 2.1. Technically,
they don't support the full HDMI 2.1 bandwidth of 48gbps, and can only do up to 40gbps. Although
this isn't really an issue, as it can still display 4k @120Hz content in 10-bit HDR with
chroma 4:4:4. So there's not very many cases where you'll need more bandwidth than that.
There are also 3 USB inputs, an ethernet port, a TV tuner, an analog audio out, and a digital
audio out. This TV also has eARC support with HDMI 2, which allows you to pass audio from
your TV to a receiver. Now let's quickly talk about the built-in
speakers. In terms of performance, it's actually slightly worse than last year's CX because
the C1 can't produce as much bass. It has a well-balanced sound profile and gets loud,
but there's some distortion and compression at its max volume. However, this depends on
the content and not everyone may hear it. Still, if you want the better audio experience,
go for a speaker system or soundbar. Overall, the C1 is an amazing TV, which is
what we've come to expect from LG's OLED TVs over the years. It's excellent for gaming
because of its 4 HDMI 2.1 ports, VRR support, low input lag, and quick response time. If
you're going to use it to watch movies in dark rooms, it's an exceptional choice thanks
to its near-infinite contrast ratio. However, it's not a huge step up over the
CX. If you already have the CX, it's not worth the upgrade, but if you're looking to buy
a high-end OLED, you should definitely be pleased with it. So far, we've reviewed 2 OLEDs this year,
being the LG C1 and the Sony A90J. From LG, there's also be the A1, the B1, and the G1,
and Sony also has the A80J. It's hard for us to give an exact comparison at the moment,
since we haven't reviewed those models. Although in the past years, the C model from LG has
always been a solid choice, and one that people gravitate towards. We do expect the G1 to
have higher brightness thanks to it's new EVO panel, with everything else remaining
mostly the same. The Sony A90J also uses the newer Evo panel, and you can see from our
measurements a tangible improvement in brightness. However, the LG currently has more gaming
features, and it's considerably cheaper, so it's likely the better pick for most people.
We'll make sure to keep our website and comparisons up to date as we buy and test more TVs. If you want an LCD that offers much higher
brightness with no risk of burn-in, the Samsung QN90A is a solid choice. That said, the C1
delivers better picture quality for dark rooms, better gaming performance and features, and
wider viewing angles. Choosing one over the other really comes downs to personal preference
and how you'll be using it. Now let's do a quick Q&A to end it out.
Let's start off with AnthonySkatz question. "Is the C1 that much better than the CX that
it's worth the price increase if you can get the CX at about $300 cheaper"
Given a price difference of 300 US Dollars, the CX is likely the better deal for most
people. The 2 TVs perform the same in many areas and offer many of the same features.
Of course as time goes on, the CX will be phased out and will be harder to find, in
which case the C1 is still a solid choice. And that will likely see a price drop near
Black Friday. Here's from one from KaneRobot. "Any idea
why multiple other reviewers that are generally fairly reliable think the C1 is a bit brighter
than the CX instead of darker? Is there something that can just be chalked up to the panel lottery?"
This is a good question and something that stood out to us as well. Currently, we don't
have any evidence to suggest why this is, and we hypothesize it could be due to panel
variance. Here's a question from Kaybao from Instagram.
"In real play, is the differences in gaming (VRR range & Input Lag) noticeable between
the C1 and CX The C1 does have marginally faster input lag
than the CX. However, while this difference may be measurable, it's very unlikely to be
perceivable. So for input lag, it's basically the same experience. As for VRR, the C1 is
able to go all the way down to under 20Hz, whereas the CX can only do down to 40Hz. In
certain games, such as ones that runs at 30FPS, having this extended VRR range on the C1 will
result in a smoother gameplay experience. Lastly, we get a lot of questions along the
lines of, "When will X TV be reviewed?". We generally try to buy and review TVs as fast
as possible. If you'd like to know more about what TVs we are reviewing and when they'll
be finished, check out our suggestion tool linked below. Here, you can see where each
TV is in the review process, and also vote for TVs that you'd like us to review in the
future. So that's it! What do you think of the LG
C1? Is this TV going to be on your must-buy list? Let us know below. Also, we're a growing company, and are expanding
into other product categories. As a result, we are currently hiring in our offices in
Montreal for various positions. So, if you want to help people find the best product
for their needs, have a look at the careers page on our website. You can check out all of the measurements
on our website. If you like this video, please subscribe to our channel. You can also become
an insider on the website for early access to our latest results! So that's it! Thank you for watching and see
you next time.
