Review: LG G5 OLED TV

Even after last year’s incredible run of the best OLED TVs we’d ever tested, I thought the search for the perfect TV was never-ending. With a viewing experience that’s virtually flawless by nearly every metric we measure, LG's new G5 makes me wonder. Highlights include immaculate black levels and contrast, stirring clarity and picture processing, expansive and accurate colors that bring every image to life, and a brightness boost that keeps pace with today’s fieriest premium QLED TVs.

After refining its already searing MLA (Microlens Array) OLED panel for last year’s G4 (and the fabulous Panasonic Z95A), LG flipped the script for the G5 with its new four-stack OLED panel that’s significantly brighter and more capable. I’ve only had limited time with the similarly potent new QD-OLED panel behind the latest Samsung and Sony flagships, and Panasonic’s Z95B once again uses LG’s best display, so I’ll reserve judgment on the best TV of the year for now—but the G5 will be tough to beat.

Not everything is superb. The new remote is more minimalist, but much less user-friendly. LG’s WebOS smart system is zippy and loaded, but I experienced a few streaming fails, particularly galling at this price. Still, while real-world perfection remains elusive, this TV's visual performance comes close.

Glittering Glass Void

The G5’s sleek design is as stylish as ever, with taut bezels up front and sleek silver borders at the back. At just an inch deep, my 65-inch review model is remarkably thin, yet stout enough to feel robust during assembly. Its slim frame doesn’t leave much room for sound quality, but with a screen this nice, you’ll want to pair it with the best soundbar or speakers you can afford. The TV is designed for mounting, including a custom mount to sit flush on your wall, but a rotating pedestal stand is available for an additional fee.

Most striking after setup is just how deep and dark the screen looks, even in a well-lit room, offering excellent glare reduction without the matte-like look of Samsung’s S95 series. Beneath the void is LG’s new four-stack panel that uses two layers of blue elements and independent layers of red and green. This is designed to improve the RGB color structure of the TV’s emissive OLED lighting system that turns on or off each of its millions of pixels independently, while also increasing the amount of light produced by each layer, according to LG.

LG says the TV offers 33 percent higher peak brightness (the brightest it gets in small highlights) than last year’s model, and it's been independently measured at over 2,000 nits peak brightness in real-world tests. That translates to eye-tingling HDR that meets or beats many of the best QLED TVs, like Samsung’s QN90D (8/10, WIRED Recommends), without QLED hangups like raised black levels, light bloom/haloing, or off-angle image degradation. There are brighter QLEDs out there, but for flagship screens, only Sony’s Bravia 9 QLED (9/10, WIRED Recommends) gets notably brighter.

WebOS Highs and Lows

Setting up LG’s webOS smart system is refreshingly simple, with only Google TV offering a notably better experience. The home screen sports a ton of ads by default, but going into Home Settings lets you turn them off. You can also turn off the screensaver ads, a new addition that has annoyed some folks, but it only popped up once for me over several days.

More annoying is the fact that the TV froze on me a few times while streaming with both Apple TV+ and Disney+, usually when trying to rewatch or fast-forward a scene. A streaming box is an easy solution, but I’m hoping LG will address these issues in a future update.

The G5’s Gaming Portal is the only place I couldn’t seem to kill the ads, but the 2025 iteration makes up for it with the addition of Xbox Cloud streaming, alongside options like Amazon Luna, Nvidia GeForce Now, and others. The TV is built for gaming on all fronts, with four full-bandwidth HDMI 2.1 inputs, support for VRR at up to 165 Hz with compatible PCs, and Auto Low Latency Mode (ALLM). Games look brilliant by default, and LG’s Game Optimizer provides loads of customization options.

There are plenty of other ways to customize your experience, including multiple “AI” features such as LG’s AI Picture and Sound modes. AI is a big theme with the G5 (it’s even in the full name), including the new AI Concierge, which is a helpful if clunky navigation tool.

Speaking of navigation, the new remote is more stylish and more confusing. I’m glad LG kept the Wii-like point-and click-cursor, but the lack of a mute key requires you to hold the volume key down to mute, which I had to look up to figure out. The lack of a dedicated input key also tripped me up until I tried the encircled home key, which pulls up the full input list alongside a dedicated smart hub. In keeping with the AI theme, both Google Assistant and Alexa are supported, as is streaming over AirPlay and Google Cast.

On Picture Modes

I’ve got a detailed guide to locking in a great picture, and you can certainly get in the weeds with the G5’s many options and cinema-forward modes, but the most accurate picture proved delightfully simple to achieve. After futzing with modes and settings like the Professional Mode for precise tone mapping at different mastering levels, the Filmmaker Mode looked nearly perfect as-is for both SDR (standard dynamic range) and HDR10 (LG doesn't support the fancier HDR10+).

If Filmmaker is too dim, you can raise the backlight in SDR or turn on Tone Mapping for HDR10 for a serious boost. That’s not available for Dolby Vision, so I used the slightly brighter Cinema Home with a few minor tweaks, including turning off motion smoothing. For consistent testing, I also turned off the TV's light sensors in the eco and picture mode settings.

Picture Perfect

LG’s revolutionary MLA OLED panel pushed TVs to a whole new level, evidenced by last year’s G4 and Z95A. Adding truly impactful HDR brightness to a screen that emits light from a perfectly black void is a stirring experience, with everything from menus to a flickering candle seeming to emerge from the blackness like ink drawn with flame. Those TVs are bright enough for nearly any use case, especially since most streaming content is capped at just 1,000 nits.

The G5 is brighter still, but like Sony’s excellent Bravia 9, LG is judicious with its new Brightness Booster. Most scenes look refined and even resigned in the Filmmaker modes. That keeps films and prestige dramas looking rich, saturated, and sumptuous as the TV follows the director’s intent, saving the true glitz and punch for select highlights. But when this TV pops, it really pops, especially when you feed it high-nit 4K Blu-rays.

The first time I put on Mad Max: Fury Road, I felt like I was back in the theater, but with an even more raucous and inciting ride. The lightning storm that caps the film’s first 20 minutes seemed to explode into my living room. Each bolt and fiery crash burned with white-hot sizzle, almost overwhelming my senses even in a daytime viewing. Gaming was a similar experience, lulling me with sensibly refined colors and crystalline resolution, until a flame or explosion hit, and the TV seemed to almost simmer in the corner of the room.

Brightness aside, I was just as enamored with the G5’s other skills, especially its fantastic colors. As with Panasonic’s immaculate Z95A, everything looks better when lit with the G5’s deep gulf of color gradients, from one of Jerry’s forest green sweaters on Netflix’s Dolby Vision rendering of Seinfeld (I never realized he wore so much green), to the creamy curtains in the Weasley family’s beach house and Harry’s maroon T-shirt against his marble-blue eyes in my HD Blu-ray of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Speaking of the Hallows, this may be the best I’ve ever seen this film look. The G5 does a splendid job with upscaling HD resolution and colors, with a particular proclivity (thanks for that one, McGonagall) for SDR shadow detail, offering perhaps the best performance I’ve tested. It’s nearly as good in murky HDR scenes, a real feat for an OLED TV, though some of the darkest Dolby Vision content looked dimmer than I’d like in the light of day.

The G5’s picture processing is similarly top-notch, with only a few struggles in upscaling poor antenna broadcasts, while its screen uniformity is second to none. The TV revealed virtually zero notable aberrations in testing across even difficult gray-scale scenes looking, well, perfect. A few minor issues like some loss of color accuracy off-axis (only really noticeable with test screens) and screen stuttering on hard camera pans accounted for my only picture complaints in weeks of watching.

You can get nearly as much goodness from last year’s G4 or Z95A, and LG's C4 (9/10, WIRED Recommends) is a fantastic step-down option, especially on sale. You shouldn’t need higher brightness than what the G5 offers for most content, but if you want it, Sony’s Bravia 9 obliges, albeit with drawbacks like screen rainbowing, minor light bloom, and a greater loss of color and brightness off-axis. Otherwise, if you’re ready to spend up on the best TV you can buy, the G5 is a nearly perfect choice.