Last year, LG’s EC9600 stood out as the finest TV we’d seen up until that point. Its picture quality was nothing short of stunning, and as the first UHD OLED, it was easy to bestow high honors upon it. In fact, it stands to this day as the first and only television to receive a 10-point rating from us. So how do you follow that up?
LG faced that unenviable task this year, and the product of its efforts is the EG9600 series, the company’s flagship 4K UHD OLED for 2015. New for this year is WebOS 2.0, an update to LG’s already outstanding operating system/smart TV platform, a slightly different physical design, a new Magic Motion remote, and an anti-glare coating for the TV’s panel. Also, there’s one less HDMI input (what?!?).
And then there’s the price: The 65-inch EG9600 model has been introduced at $9,000 — that’s down $3,000 from prior year, but still a hefty chunk of change. Ultimately, that figure will go down later this year, meaning that the EG9600 will be the least expensive premium UHD OLED we’ve seen yet. Even if it is still outlandishly expensive for a TV.
Of course, as the only major manufacturer producing OLED TVs, LG doesn’t have any real competition in the OLED market, so there is little incentive to drop prices. In fact, as OLED adoption is still very slow, the company has to foot the bill as it invests a tremendous amount of capital into research, development, and production. So the fact that the price is dropping at all is an indication that LG really, really, wants you to get into OLED.
Frankly, we think that’s a pretty good idea ourselves. OLED has tremendous potential, and it doesn’t suffer some of the maladies that LCD-based TVs do, which makes it a great replacement for the now-departed plasma TV. But the technology still needs some work. As you’ll see in our video review, while the EG9600’s picture is outstanding in nearly every way, it does exhibit a couple of key weaknesses. More work must be done until OLED can be called the holy grail of display technology, and that work will require time, effort, and, yes, money.
The EG9600 will reward those who invest in it with the most impressive picture quality out there. While Samsung, Panasonic, and Sony have all made huge strides toward improving their LCD-based LED TVs, OLED still rules with its perfect black levels, exceptional brightness, and vibrant colors. There’s just one problem, and it could be a big one for some viewers. There’s a sort of flashing effect that comes along with some judder on this set, and it’s especially prevalent if you don’t make some settings changes. We’ve got full instructions on how to fix it.
To learn more, be sure to check out our video. We think you’ll agree, quirks or no, this is one amazing TV.
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