Review: LG 55UB950V

IntroductionAfter strong 4K/UHD showings this year from Sony, Samsung and Panasonic, the next brand in the 4K firing line is LG, with its 55-inch 55UB950V.The UB950V series sits at the very top of LG's TV range (until the brand rolls out its stunning 4K OLED TVs around October time, anyway). So it's no surprise to find the set bristling with design sophistication and features.Build quality is excellent. Both the black main bezel and silver bottom edge feel robust and the contrasting colours go together nicely. The bezel is eye-catchingly slim too, ensuring that the 55-inch screen takes up no more space in your living room than it absolutely needs to. The rear isn't particularly trim versus some rival models, but then if you're anything like us (and other erstwhile 'normal' people) you spend rather more time looking at a TV's front than its back.If you're wondering why the silver bottom edge on the 55UB950V looks perforated rather than smooth, it's not just a design decision. It's because LG has elected to fit its flagship TV with a set of forward firing speakers that should deliver a more open, detailed and convincing soundstage than the down-firing speakers commonly found on flat TVs.Any flagship TV worth its salt these days will offer a combination of high-end video source support and extensive multimedia compatibility. The 55UB950V delivers in these areas with its four HDMIs (built to the v2.0 spec to offer more 4K playback flexibility), three USBs, and Wi-Fi or LAN support for both DLNA streaming from networked PCs/smart devices and going online with LG's latest on-demand content service.This service is fairly well populated with content, including big hitters Amazon Instant, Netflix, Now TV, BBC iPlayer and Demand 5. Though it remains a shame that LG hasn't managed to pry catch-up TV apps out of ITV or Channel 4 yet.What elevates LG's smart offering from a good service to a great one, is its interface. Powered by the webOS platform LG cunningly snapped up 18 months ago, the so-called 'Smart+ TV' system is a joy to behold and use, combining slick, speedily rendered, motion-packed and ultra-colourful graphics with a complete rethink of how to organise smart TV content.It feels so intuitive it's positively empowering. This means it's pretty much the polar opposite of the inscrutable, sluggish, static smart TV experiences we've tended to be faced with previously.There are a few key tricks that help make Smart+ TV so effective. The way everything – even the HDMI inputs – is treated as an app so that it can be properly integrated into the TV's software.This allows for multitasking that lets you have multiple apps open at once and switch almost instantaneously between them (even if you're using one of them to watch 4K). Similarly impressive is the way every source, be it your own content, broadcast programming, an HDMI input or an on-demand source, is given equal importance in the tile-based onscreen menus.For more on the webOS operating system check out the usability section.Screen specDragging myself away from the joys of webOS, there's still plenty to get my teeth into with respect to the 55UB950V's screen specification.It's an edge LED model, as are all LG's LCD TVs this year, and its lighting array is bolstered by a local dimming system whereby segments of the LEDs can have their light output adjusted independently of each other to boost contrast. As usual with LG TVs, the panel at the 55UB950V's heart is an IPS type designed to deliver a wider effective viewing angle than rival panel technologies.Meanwhile the 55UB950V's picture quality is helped along by a quad-core processing engine. This includes multi-level motion processing (LG claims it can emulate a 1250Hz refresh rate via a scanning backlight, frame interpolation and a native 100Hz panel), noise reduction and dynamic contrast features. Calibration friendlySerious picture aficionados will be pleased to find an extensive toolset for managing the picture's colours, white balance and gamma setting. There are also multi-level controls for almost every element of LG's picture processing systems. Particularly important among these processing controls, as I'll explain later, are the settings for noise reduction, motion compensation and black level/contrast.So extensive are the picture set up tools that the 55UB950V carries the backing of the independent Imaging Science Foundation (ISF). There are even two ISF picture preset slots available for an ISF engineer to use if you want to pay one to come round and do a pro calibration taking your individual room conditions into account.Last but not least (well, to some people, anyway!) on the 55UB950V's list of features is its passive 3D playback. With two pairs of glasses included free, experience suggests the passive system should deliver fairly crosstalk-free 3D images that don't suffer any of the flickering problems associated with the active system.The passive 3D approach has tended to prove especially effective on UHD TVs, since it allows full HD 3D Blu-rays to be rendered without any of the loss of detail that accompanies 3D playback on passive full HD TVs.Picture qualityThere are times when the 55UB950V's pictures look nothing short of spectacular. But unfortunately there are also times where its pictorial wheels come off fairly badly.Starting with the good stuff, the 55UB950V excels at the key job of delivering on the sharpness and detail promise of the UHD/4K format. Native 4K feeds – taken from a combination of a 4K video server and some footage shot on Panasonic's superb GH4 digital camera – look incredibly crisp, dense, textured and, for want of a better phrase, life like.The delivery of 4K pixel density really does seem to mark the difference between feeling like you're watching a screen and feeling like you're looking at the real world.Colours the 4K wayThis stunning illusion isn't just down to the fact that you don't get a sense of any visible pixel structure or jagged edges in the 4K pictures. It's also because there's more finesse in the way colours are rendered due to the image having finer 'steps' with which to paint changing colours. Plus there's a greater sense of depth in large-scale shots thanks to the way the finer pixilation allows more detail to be resolved further into the distance before the flattening effects of blurring set in.Of course, pixels alone do not a great picture make. So it's great to see LG really boosting its colour performance this year, giving full expression to that 4K colour finesse while simultaneously delivering a vibrant, well-saturated palette. What's more, despite this vibrancy colours don't tip over into looking overblown or cartoonish, even with skin tones.The only colour issue I occasionally spotted was a slightly plasticky look to some skin tones when watching HD, but this seemed more down to a slight shortcoming in the TV's upscaling system than a problem with colour reproduction per se.Motion reproductionYet more good news when it comes to being able to appreciate the benefits of 4K – even on a relatively small screen by 4K standards – is the 55UB950V's motion handling. This is hugely improved from previous LG generations, managing to tackle LCD's tendency to lose resolution over moving objects quite effectively without making the picture look too processed. This is an impressive feat when you consider how many pixels the TV is having to handle with its motion processing – especially when upscaling sub-4K sources.I guess it is true to say, meanwhile, that the IPS panel inside the 55UB950V delivers on its wider viewing angle promise. Colour and contrast don't drop off quite as quickly as you move your viewing position down the TV's sides. However, you don't have to be at much of an angle before the flaws with LG's local dimming system start to look quite pronounced.Local dimming issuesWhat are these local dimming flaws? Light bars. As in, stripes and rectangles of light that run the full height of the image around bright objects that appear against dark backgrounds. In other words, you can see too clearly the way the cluster of LEDs driving the part of the picture containing a bright object are being driven brighter than the clusters of LEDs driving the darker parts of the picture.This problem becomes particularly distracting if you're watching a scene where the positions of very bright objects change regularly, as it results in obvious local light 'movement'.So why not just turn the local dimming off, I hear you cry? Because if you do the picture's contrast performance takes a huge hit, leaving dark scenes having to appear through a very obvious grey mist that makes such scenes look unnatural and can obscure some shadow detailing. IPS contrast woesBasically, the problem with the local dimming system is that it has to work too hard to overcome the core contrast weakness of the IPS panel. This same 'working too hard' issue also finds the picture's overall light levels skipping about more drastically than we'd like in response to the changing light levels of whatever content you're watching.At this point it's important to stress that when you're watching the sort of bright footage that makes up the vast majority of typical TV broadcasts – including sports – the contrast problems I've been describing really aren't an issue. Instead you're free to enjoy all the many good things about the 55UB950V's pictures.Suited to bright roomsIt's also true that the contrast problems aren't overt if you're watching TV in a fairly bright room. It's only when you turn the lights low that the lack of native contrast and backlight 'blocking' really become apparent. So LG could claim that for the majority of your normal TV viewing life you won't be perturbed by the contrast problems. However, the fairly straightforward counter to this is that I've seen excellent rival UHD/4K TVs from Sony and Samsung that don't have any contrast problems, and so can be enjoyed in ANY room conditions with ANY types of content.One other area where I think the 55UB950V loses out slightly to the best of the 4K competition is with its upscaling from standard def and HD to UHD. The processing does a very good job of preventing noise from infiltrating the upscaled pictures, but it doesn't make them look quite as sharp and detailed as Sony and Samsung's 4K sets. This is especially noticeable, as noted before, when it comes to the reproduction of skin tones – especially low-lit skin tones.A 3D oddityPopping on a pair of the comfortable and even quite stylish 3D glasses you get free with the 55UB950V, I was faced with arguably the strangest 3D pictures I've seen. For while parts of the picture looked great, the bottom right quadrant and bottom edge looked a mess thanks to the appearance of huge amounts of crosstalk. Bright objects in these areas of 3D images routinely suffer with heavy double ghosting noise, making these parts of the picture look unfocussed and your entire 3D viewing experience feel uncomfortable and distracting. If you're watching something with subtitles along the bottom you'll find the crosstalk so bad you'll be lucky if you can actually make out the words. The 3D good stuffElsewhere in the frame things look predominantly peachy. There's hardly any crosstalk – as we would normally expect with passive 3D technology – and it's also great to be able to watch 3D in a bright room without having to worry about the flickering associated with active 3D.In the good parts of the picture it's also striking how colourful and bright 3D footage looks, while sharpness levels are impressive thanks to the way passive 3D is able to deliver a genuine full HD image from 3D Blu-rays, so you don't have any of the resolution compromise associated with passive 3D on HD TVs.Had the whole of the 55UB950V's 3D frame looked as good as the top edge and top left quadrant, then I'd have been talking about one of the finest 3D performances ever. As it stands, though, I unfortunately have to say that the amounts of crosstalk on sections of the 55UB950V make 3D borderline unwatchable.Recent discussions with LG about the issue have raised hopes that the brand's engineers might be able to fix it – or it could be that the issue only affected a particular early production run. At any rate, I'm hoping to receive a second sample soon, and will update this review if things have improved significantly.Input lagOne final picture quality issue to discuss is input lag. And, as I've found before with LG's TVs, it's rather high on the 55UB950V – around 100ms. This is sufficient to reduce your gaming performance.Usability, sound and valueUsabilityNo smart TV seen to date makes its smart features as brilliantly easy to access, setup and understand as the 55UB950V. As mentioned, this is down to LG's inspired Smart+ TV system developed on the webOS platform.The smart menus do a fantastic job of judging just the right amount of content links to show on screen at once without making things look too daunting or complicated, and the speed with which you can whisk through all the options with LG's excellent point and click 'magic remote' control is sensational. Also much appreciated are all the cute little animations that accompany your navigational adventures. They give the interface a genuine personality, and also empower the user by visually rewarding them for every little navigational move they make. You even get a charming animated character – the Bean Bird – to help guide you through initial set up. This seemingly playful touch is perhaps the most striking single example of the underlying Smart+ TV philosophy. People will be much more likely to actually use smart features and thus become invested in LG's platform if finding and accessing those features feels engaging and immediate.LG's picture, sound and network setup menus aren't integrated into the webOS platform as fully as they perhaps could be but they're still nicely designed and responsive. There are certainly some areas where the 'webOS mindset' can be seen, such as in the way connected picture set up tools appear together side by side, so you can slide easily across from one to the other. This makes fine-tuning colours in particular a much more intuitive and straightforward process than having to always jump in and out of fully separated menus, as happens with all other TVs.It's no exaggeration to say that Smart+ TV with webOS, together with the latest magic remote, revolutionises the way you interface with modern TVs. So much so that it could be enough reason in itself to persuade plenty of people to buy an LG TV this year.Sound qualityThe 55UB950V is a smooth and consistent audio performer. Its speakers deliver a well-balanced, richly toned and, best of all, distortion-free performance unless you crank them up to unrealistic volume levels.Also appreciated is the way the TV delivers plenty of subtle soundstage detail without feeling the need to be showy or 'forced' about it, contributing further to the soundstage's cohesive, immersive feel.The 55UB950V is no rival for the revolutionary audio of Sony's X9005B 4K TV series. Sony's set exposes a pretty limited store of bass from LG's offering, as well as an inability in the LG set to really expand the soundstage much when handling an action scene. But the 55UB950V's audio remains a solid effort by the standards of the flat TV world generally – especially given how slim its bezel is.ValueThe 55UB950V costs between £300 and £400 less than rival Sony and Samsung 4K TVs, giving LG's model a key advantage in today's ultra-competitive marketplace. Especially when you consider that the 55UB950V's feature count doesn't seem at all compromised by its price. On the contrary, thanks to its groundbreaking Smart+ TV with webOS interface it's the smartest smart TV in town.The catch is that some fundamental contrast shortcomings and a weird 3D crosstalk issue prevent the 55UB950V from matching its key rivals in the rather important picture quality department.VerdictLG's debut UHD TV for 2014 ticks all the key 'first impressions' boxes. It looks lovely with its ultra-thin frame and polished finish, it costs substantially less than its key UHD/4K rivals, and it sets the perfect user-friendly, futuristic tone with its superbly designed Smart+ TV (webOS) interface.Many aspects of its performance are tiptop too. It excels at delivering the full impact of UHD sharpness and detail, even when there's motion in the frame, colours look bold but always entirely believable, and its sound is powerful enough to do justice to its next-gen images. However, problems getting a convincing and consistent black level response out of the IPS panel mean it's not as well equipped for movie viewing as the best of its UHD rivals.We likedThe set looks lovely, is aggressively priced and features the most user-friendly operating system to date thanks to webOS. UHD pictures look ultra-sharp and richly coloured, too.We dislikedThe IPS panel's native contrast performance isn't great, leading to some occasionally crude light inconsistencies from the local dimming system. Input lag is high for gamers, too, and it would be great if LG could get 4OD and the ITV Player on its roster of video streamers.Final verdictLG's spirit of design and feature innovation is fully on show with the 55UB950V, and fits handsomely with the futuristic feel of the set's UHD technology. There are times when its pictures look sublime too – especially with bright, colour-rich native UHD material. Finally in the plus column its price is super-aggressive for the burgeoning UK UHD marketplace.Its potential market is ultimately limited, though, by problems matching rival screens in the key picture performance area of contrast and input lag levels too high for gamers.

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