LG A1 OLED TV Review

The LG OLED65A1PUA has a very similar design to the LG C1 OLED, but the stand is different, with two v-shaped feet similar to the LG UP8000.

The stand supports the TV well but has a wide footprint. It sits low, leaving about 2.4 inches between the bottom of the bezel and the table, so some soundbars don't fit without blocking part of the TV.

Footprint of the 65-inch TV stand: 44.3" x 11.0"

The back of the TV is plain, and unfortunately, there's no cable management. Like the LG C1 OLED, the top half is metal, but the thicker bottom portion that houses the electronics is plastic. Most of the inputs face to the side and are easy to access, but there are a few less commonly used inputs that face straight back from the TV, and these are very difficult to access, especially when the TV is wall mounted.

Overall, the LG A1 has excellent build quality. The display portion of the body is metal and feels well-built. The section that houses the electronics is plastic but seems to be well-built. The plastic stand feels a bit weaker than the solid stand on the other models, like the LG C1 OLED, making the overall package of the A1 feel a bit less premium.

As OLED displays don't have a traditional backlight, they have nearly infinite contrast, as each pixel can be individually disabled. It results in perfect, inky blacks, which is ideal in a dark room.

The LG A1 has mediocre brightness in SDR. It's noticeably less bright than the LG C2 OLED. Like all OLED displays, there's a fair amount of variation in brightness depending on the scene due to the Automatic Brightness Limiter (ABL). If you find this distracting, disabling the Peak Brightness setting results in almost all scenes being displayed at about 230 cd/m². There's almost no variation in peak brightness with that setting, but it's too dim to overcome glare in a bright room. If you want something brighter, then look into the LG A2 OLED.

These measurements are with the full calibration settings, using the 'Expert (Dark space, night)' Picture Mode, Color Depth set to 'Warm 50', and Peak Brightness set to 'High'.

If you want an even brighter image and don't care about accuracy, set the Picture Mode to 'Standard', set Brightness and Contrast to max, Peak Brightness to 'High', and Auto Dynamic Contrast to 'High'. It reaches a peak of 458 cd/m² with a 2% window using those settings.

The LG A1 doesn't have a backlight, but thanks to its near-infinite contrast ratio, it's equivalent to a perfect local dimming feature. There's no blooming around bright objects in dark scenes, and bright white pixels are displayed perfectly even if they're surrounded by black pixels. We still film these videos on the TV, so you can see how it performs and compare it with a TV that has local dimming.

There's no difference in dark scene behavior between the calibrated picture modes and Game Mode.

Unfortunately, the LG A1 has disappointing HDR peak brightness. Although it tracks the EOTF correctly, displaying most scenes at the correct brightness, it peaks at a low brightness level and rolls off gradually. It's not bright enough for most HDR content, and small highlights don't stand out as well as the content creator intended. Like all OLED displays, there's a fair amount of variation in brightness depending on the scene due to the Automatic Brightness Limiter (ABL). If you find this distracting, setting Peak Brightness to 'Off' results in almost all scenes being displayed at about 370 cd/m². Even with this off, very bright scenes are dimmed considerably, dropping as low as 111 cd/m² with a sustained 100% bright window.

These measurements are with the default settings in the 'Cinema' Picture Mode, with Brightness and Contrast set to max, Peak Brightness on 'High', and Color Depth set to '50'. All other picture processing settings were left disabled. If you want to make HDR brighter, enable HDR Tone Mapping and set Auto Dynamic Contrast to 'High', which can help as seen in this EOTF.

To get the brightest possible image at the expense of picture quality, use the 'Vivid' Picture Mode, enable HDR Tone Mapping, and set Auto Dynamic Contrast to 'High', and leave the other settings as mentioned above. The TV reaches a peak brightness of 625 cd/m² in the 2% window using these settings.

Switching to Game Mode makes no noticeable difference to the peak brightness, which is great. These results are with the same picture settings as outside of Game Mode.

The LG OLED65A1 has great gray uniformity, but some bands appear slightly different from the rest of the screen. These aren't noticeable with regular content. In near-dark scenes, it's a bit better, but like all OLEDs we've tested, there are some faint vertical lines. These aren't noticeable unless you're looking for them.

Since each pixel can be turned off, the LG A1 has nearly perfect black uniformity, with no sign of blooming around bright objects in dark scenes.

The LG OLED65A1 has an outstanding viewing angle, making this a great choice for a wide seating arrangement, as the image remains consistent even if you're watching from the side.

The LG OLED65A1PUA has superb reflection handling. However, it's noticeably worse than the LG C1 OLED. The semi-gloss screen finish doesn't diffuse reflections as well as the glossy coating on the LG C1 OLED.

The LG A1 we tested has good accuracy in SDR out of the box. All colors are slightly inaccurate, but most people won't notice it. The white balance is the biggest issue, affecting mainly brighter shades of gray, and the color temperature is a bit cold, giving everything a slightly bluish tint. Gamma is a bit higher than the 2.2 target we use for a moderately lit room, as most scenes are darker than they should be.

The LG A1 was very easy to calibrate. After calibration, the white balance is nearly perfect, and gamma tracks our target of 2.2 almost perfectly. The color temperature is very close to our target, and any remaining inaccuracies in colors aren't noticeable.

You can see our full calibration settings here.

480p content, like DVDs, looks great, with no noticeable issues.

720p content, including cable TV, looks great.

1080p content looks almost as good as native 4k content.

4k content is displayed perfectly, with no noticeable issues.

The LG A1 OLED is a 4k TV that can't accept an 8k signal.

The LG A1 uses a WRGB subpixel structure. Like other OLEDs, all four subpixels are never lit at the same time. This image shows the red, white, and blue sub-pixels. You can see an alternate photo with the green, red, and white subpixels lit here.

The LG A1 has an excellent color gamut, with almost perfect coverage of the DCI P3 color space used by the majority of HDR content currently available and good coverage of the wider Rec. 2020 color space. It also has good tone mapping in both color spaces, ensuring that fine details in areas of bright saturated colors are preserved.

The LG A1 has good color volume. Due to the extra white subpixel, colors aren't as bright as pure white. Thanks to the nearly infinite contrast ratio, dark saturated colors are properly displayed.

The LG A1 has very good gradient handling. There's some banding in every shade, but it looks good overall. The Smooth Gradation feature reduces banding but doesn't completely remove it, but this setting causes a loss of fine details in high-quality content.

There are some noticeable signs of image retention; it's too faint for our systems to detect.

Even though the LG A1 is likely less prone to burn-in than older OLED panels, there's still a risk. OLED panel technology has significantly advanced since our real-world burn-in test, which used 2017 models, so we don't know just how likely it is that these TVs will experience burn-in. We'll be starting a new burn-in test shortly to determine how effective each of these new panel technologies are at reducing the risk of burn-in, so our estimated burn-in risk score may change.

The LG A1 has an outstanding response time, but it does behave a bit differently from the other 2021 LG OLED TVs, including the LG C1 OLED. Transitions from dark scenes to bright scenes are significantly slower than usual, causing a bit more noticeable blur behind fast-moving objects. That said, it's still fantastic, and there's almost no noticeable blur behind fast-moving objects. Due to the panel's sample-and-hold technology, though, there's more persistence blur due to the fast response time.

Like all OLED displays, the LG 65A1 isn't quite flicker-free, as there's a small decrease in brightness that corresponds with the refresh cycle of the display. It's very different from pulse width modulation flicker (PWM) on TVs with LED backlights, as the entire screen never dims at once.

Unlike the rest of LG's OLED lineup, the LG A1 OLED doesn't have a Black Frame Insertion (BFI) feature.

The LG A1 OLED has an optional motion interpolation feature, which reduces the amount of stutter when watching low framerate content. Unfortunately, it doesn't perform very well, with significant artifacts and haloing in action scenes.

Due to the slightly slower response time on the LG 65A1, there's a bit less stutter than the other OLED displays we've tested, like the LG C2 OLED or the Sony A90J. It's still noticeable when watching movies, especially in slow panning shots.

The LG A1 can only remove judder from 24p sources and the native apps. It's different from the other LG OLEDs we've tested and is likely due to the 60Hz refresh rate.I

Unlike the LG C1 OLED, the LG A1 is limited to a 60Hz refresh rate, and it doesn't support variable refresh rate technology, so it's not as versatile for gaming, and you'll see more flickering and tearing in some games.

The LG A1 has outstanding low input lag, resulting in a very responsive gaming experience.

The LG A1 supports many common formats, but only at 60Hz, as it can't refresh faster than that. Although it'll accept a 120Hz 1080p signal, it just skips every other frame. All supported formats can display chroma 4:4:4 properly, which is essential for clear text from a PC, but a 4k 60Hz signal can only display chroma 4:4:4 in SDR with 8-bit color due to the bandwidth limitations of the HDMI ports on this TV.

The LG A1 OLED only supports a 4k @ 60Hz input from the next-generation consoles, as it lacks the HDMI 2.1 ports necessary for higher refresh rates. Although the TV exposes that it can accept a 120Hz signal at 1080p, it just skips every other frame, resulting in a 60Hz image.

There's no composite input, even with an adapter.

The LG A1 supports eARC, meaning it can pass most high-quality audio formats to a connected receiver or soundbar. It doesn't support DTS or DTS:X, though, which is disappointing, as many Blu-rays use DTS for the main audio format. If you have a UHD Blu-ray player, it might be best to connect it directly to your receiver instead of using eARC.

The LG A1 has an okay frequency response. The low-frequency extension (LFE) is okay, but like most TVs, the bass lacks thump or rumble. Above the LFE, the sound profile is balanced, resulting in clear dialogue. It can get loud, but there's a bit of compression at higher volume levels.

Unfortunately, although the overall distortion is acceptable, at max volume, there's significant intermodulation distortion. It varies depending on the content, though, and not everyone will even notice it.

The LG A1 runs the same webOS smart interface as the LG C1 OLED. Instead of the dual ribbons found on 2020 models, the Home hub is now full screen, with emphasis placed on rows of suggested content, connected devices, and apps. The interface is easy to use and very responsive, and we didn't notice any issues with it during testing.

Unfortunately, the interface is full of ads in the home menu and the app store. There's even an entire section of the home menu dedicated to home shopping.

LG's app store has a huge selection of apps, meaning you won't have any issues finding an app for your streaming service of choice.

LG has finally updated the design of the Magic Remote, which had remained virtually unchanged for a few years. The new remote is slimmer but has the same great features as the previous model. The remote has built-in voice controls and can be used to change inputs, search for content, or search the web.

• User manual
• Remote
• Batteries
• Cable tie