The LG G5 was one of the best-performing TVs of last year, delivering superb picture quality with gorgeous colors and strong contrast. It was also one of the best options for gaming, with a full suite of features and razor-sharp performance, as well as an intuitive smart TV platform. While it was a premium TV, it was good value for what it delivered.
Its successor, the LG G6, has some mighty big shoes to fill. Earlier this year, I saw the LG G6 and LG G5 side-by-side at a demo event, but now the G6 has now arrived in our testing labs for longer-term testing.
I still use the G5 regularly for testing discs in my Blu-ray Bounty column, so I put the G5 and G6 next to each other, and compared the two using some 4K Blu-rays I regularly use for testing TVs, with a signal splitter from our trusty Panasonic DP-UB820 Blu-ray player.
Equipped with a new-gen Primary Tandem RGB OLED 2.0 panel, the LG G6 promised a brightness upgrade over its predecessor, and it’s delivered. The G6 registered 2,471 nits of peak HDR brightness (10% window) in Filmmaker Mode, compared to the G5’s 2,268 nits.
While this is only an incremental increase, fullscreen HDR brightness (100% window) in Filmmaker Mode on the G6 clocked in at 455 nits, which is a huge jump from the G5’s 331 nits.
But what does this mean for pictures? In brighter scenes, such as a series of clips of snow from the Spears & Munsil UHD Benchmark’s demo material, the G6 has higher brightness in fullscreen parts of the picture.
While the G5 actually appears brighter in some peak areas, such as the snow on the fence in the photo above, this is likely due to intentional Filmmaker Mode tweaks, where G6 pulls back on the vibrancy. This results in a more balanced picture, with no over-exertion of bright tones, which is how the G5 can appear at times.
One area where the G6 shows a real upgrade over the G5 is reflection handling. While the G6 still shows some mirror-like reflections, they are significantly reduced compared to the G5.
Watching darker scenes from movies such as The Batman, Alien: Romulus and Dark City in bright conditions, with overhead lights on in our testing lab, the G5 actually has higher perceived brightness, but the obvious mirror-like reflections make viewing difficult.
The G6, despite appearing dimmer, is much better at reducing mirror-like reflections, leaving a cleaner and more distration-free image, as is clear in the photo above. The G6 even looks better than the Samsung S95F's matte anti-reflection screen in bright rooms, balancing the pros and cons the two TV's approaches to beating reflections.
Using The Batman, one of my go-to discs for contrast testing because it's so damn dark, both the G6 and G5 demonstrate very strong contrast with a great balance between light and dark tones. As Batman walks through the halls and rooms of Mayor Mitchell’s house, the lamps on the wall and flash bulbs of cameras have a nice punch on both TVs and contrast well with the dark walls and floors.
Where the G6 impresses is that not only do peak areas on screen, such as the aforementioned lamps, look brighter than the G5 but blacks are deeper resulting in more natural looking contrast.
The G5’s dark tones appear raised in comparison, so while the G5 may appear the more eye-catching on the surface, the G6 appears to be the more accurate result. This follows what LG told me about how the more restrained Filmmaker Mode on the G6 is “by design” in the pursuit of accuracy.
Both TVs demonstrate great shadow detail, with objects and textures in dark areas on screen still visible. As Bruce enters the Batcave, rocks and steel in the roof are still defined on both TVs and again, although it’s marginally more visible on the G5, the G6 strikes that nice balance between detail and black accuracy.
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