LG C7 OLED Review

Hi, I’m Cedric from Rtings.com. We are testing today the LG C7 OLED TV. It
has a great overall picture quality, better than LCD TVs although it has some downside
like the varying luminosity and the temporary image retention.
We bought the 55 inch for our testing, and it is also available in 65”. The picture
quality should be the same between the two, except bigger TVs usually have more uniformity
issues. Let’s do an overview of the design, before looking at our measurements and we
will also compare it with the Sony OLED and a few other TVs.
The design of LG C7 looks similar to last year's OLEDs. It looks great and it has a
good build quality. The borders are slim and the top part of the TV is really thin, but
the bottom is a bit thicker.
The stand is different with a brushed metallic finish and it feels sturdy. The back of the
TV is white, which is not for everyone, but the color of the back of the TV doesn’t
really matter for most people.
Some inputs are facing the back of the TV, which could be an issue of you wall mount it.
At least, there are 3 HDMI and 1 USB port on the side.
Now let's go over the picture quality. The blacks on the OLED are perfect, which means
it has an infinite contrast ratio.
The near blacks are not perfect though, as you can see in this picture of a 5% gray.
You can see some vertical lines. Note that LCD TVs are not really better in the shadows
either. But this is usually not problematic.
The uniformity of a brighter screen is much better. The color changes a little bit throughout
the screen, but at least there are no major dirty screen effect like most LCD TVs.
Now for the luminosity. The brightness of the screen varies depending on the content.
This is called ABL or Automatic Brightness Limiter. You will see it mostly in HDR when
the screen changes from a small highlight to a full screen.
The brightness also varies in time, but not as much as most LED TVs. You can see in this
graph that the luminosity of the C7 starts to go down after a few minutes.
The viewing angle is great. Way better than any LCD TVs including Samsung’s QLED TV.
Note that there is a shift of colors at an angle, but since it remains a perfect contrast
ratio, the picture is still impressive.
The color gamut and color volume are good for HDR. Not as wide as Samsung’s QLED TV,
but HDR content will still look good.
It has a glossy finish very similar to last year’s OLED but slightly less of a purple
tint. It works well to reduce the ambient light as long as you don’t have a bright
object directly in your reflection path.
A downside of OLED TVs is the image retention. If you display our pattern for a few minutes
you will notice an image retention after. The big question is should you be worried
about this when playing video games? Overall no need to worry, since it almost always go
away after a few minutes and there is even a feature to clean it. So far, we’ve only
seen 1 case of a permanent burn-in on OLED, so it is rare, but it could happen.
The response time is perfect, which means no motion blur following moving objects. Keep
in mind that there is a downside to a perfect response time: low frame rate content like
movies can give a stutter look, as explained in our judder video.
LG keeps improving the input lag and now the C7 is about 20 ms in Game Mode no matter the
signal, even HDR. Which is almost as good as it can get for a TV and great to play video
games.
A cool addition to the LG 2017 OLED TVs is the support for a 1080p at 120Hz input, which
is great for PC gamers. It even shows up in the EDID so you don’t need to create a custom
resolution like you have to on Sony LED TVs.
The C7 OLED runs LG’s WebOS and it is great. Very easy to use and it is responsive. The
included remote can also be used to control the onscreen pointer.
Let's quickly compare the C7 to other TVs.
The Sony Z9D. Very bright and blacks almost as good as OLED. But the viewing angle is
not as good and it is worse for video games since there is a longer trail following moving
objects.
Last year’s model, the B6. Slightly more input lag and no 120Hz input, but if the B6
is cheaper, go for it instead since the picture quality is about the same.
The Sony OLED. Picture quality is also in the same ballpark, but it has some nice extra
features like black frame insertion. Overall, it's very hard to justify paying more for it.
The LG C7 OLED is a great TV. Perfect blacks which is great for movies and low input lag
which is great for video games. But it doesn’t get as bright as the best LED TVs and it can
suffer from image retention. Overall, if it's in your budget, go for it.
An OLED TV is the best TV you can buy. But as for whether to get the C7 or another OLED
model, just get the cheapest one you can find since the picture quality is all in the same
ballpark unless you are looking for a very specific feature like a 120Hz input.
So that's it! If you liked this video, subscribe to our channel, and see you next time!

LG C7 OLED Review

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