Up Close with LG’s 2016 Signature OLED TV

Getting up close to LG’s new Signature OLED TV releasing in Q2 2016 is equivalent to placing your face next to a knife’s edge. At least, that’s what I first did upon seeing the TV, as calling the television “thin” is an understatement. I believe that there are no words in the vocabulary that can properly articulate how awesome LG’s Singapore OLED TV looks in real life.

Announced during CES and  LG’s Future World, stock images for the TV were too good to be true but seeing it up close blew me away.

The official line states the thickness of the TV being four credit cards thick when stacked upon each other. Grabbing the remote and placing alongside the TV certainly puts that claim into perspective, with regards to how flat the screen actually is. It feels as though LG is showing off what their panels are capable of, and they are doing it in the flashiest way possible.

With so much of the weight gone from the actual display, the bulk of the TV’s mass has been shifted to the base which doubles up as a soundbar. It was hard to make an assessment of whether the audio output was sufficient in my short time with the TV, but from the demos, the quality and volume would be more than enough to fit into your average living room.

Taking a peek behind the TV reveals all the essential ports one needs for the modern day television viewing experience. It is pretty standard fare these days to have 4 HDMI ports for your gaming consoles and Blu-Ray player. When laid flat on a surface in the set up above, wires can be hidden rather nicely away from view as the stand does a good job at concealing the rear. However, it could possibly get awkward when considering a wall mounted solution.

Behind the panel are hinges that allows the screen to be folded flush with the stand. This would cause the cables to loop upwards and connect down into the ports. While the screen might be thin, the overall space that the Signature OLED TV takes up on a television console or wall is comparable to the current offerings in the market. However, the quality of the screen is where the power of this beauty lies.

The image quality is stellar, thanks to the deep blacks, which highkights the strength of OLED TV to display incredibly rich and velvety smooth details. It took me quite some time to have my eyes adjust to the quality that was projected on screen. Gone are the issues of television panels having sub par viewing angles. Having approached the display from a variety of directions, the screen still looked as good as when viewed from the front. I did notice a fair amount of reflection on the glossy screen, which might be a cause for concern if you’re thinking of placing the TV in a room with bright or direct sunlight flowing in.

If 4K content is not enough, LG has teamed up with Dolby to include Dolby Vision into the Signature TVs and current 2016 OLED TVs. Dolby Vision works by building a better and brighter pixel, to output an image that has a massive amount of detail, color depth, and clarity which starts to rival the human visual capability. In layman terms, Dolby Vision makes everything look even more awesome.

The challenge here is that not many shows support Dolby Vision at the moment but moving forward, all the latest blockbusters should feature the technology. At home, Dolby Vision content will be delivered via streaming sources such as Netflix and Vudu, with 4K Blu-Rays capable of supporting Dolby Vision coming along shortly.

Dolby has partnered with three TV makers for this and LG is the only company selling the TVs here.

Televisions are tricky to describe in text and these TVs from LG certainly warrant a trip down to your electronics store to take a look at the actual product. The most affordable of this series would be a curved 4K OLED TV, which enters the floor at S$6,799 for a 55″. Eventually you would work your way up to the 77″ OLED G6 Signature model which caps it all off at S$41,999.

If these prices didn’t faze you the slightest bit, I’d say grab one right now to own the future.