LG C2 OLED TV Review

The LG C2 has a very sleek, modern design. The thin bezels are nearly invisible from a normal viewing distance, and the silver border looks great.

After four months, the TV has permanent image retention, visible on a 50% gray screen. You can start to make out the CNN logo in the lower right.

The stand is small, so it doesn't support the TV very well and wobbles quite a bit. The stand lifts the bottom of the screen about two inches above the table, which isn't quite enough to fit most soundbars, so you'll block part of the screen if you have a large soundbar on the same table. You can see a closeup photo of the stand here. Note that the 48-inch and 83-inch models use a different central stand, identical to the LG C1 OLED. The 42" model uses two feet on each side of the screen instead of a central stand.

Footprint of the 65" stand: 18.5" x 9.1"

The back of the TV has an updated design compared to 2021's LG C1 OLED. The back of the display panel is made of a textured, brushed metal, and even if nobody will see it, it looks and feels nice. The inputs are covered with a plastic panel meant to help funnel cables through. There are clips on the back to help with cable management.

The TV is incredibly well-built. The materials feel premium, and there's not much flex in the back panel. The smaller stand takes up less space and is considerably lighter, but it doesn't support the TV, as well as the bigger stand from the LG C1 OLED and the 83-inch and 48-inch models of the LG C2 TV, so it wobbles easily. It was a bit warm during testing, so like the LG G2 OLED, we took a thermal image of the TV.

Since OLED displays use self-emissive pixels instead of a backlight, the LG C2 has a nearly infinite contrast ratio. As it can control the brightness of each pixel individually, it can display bright highlights right next to perfect blacks with no blooming or haloing. It's especially noticeable if you're in a completely dark room.

As the TV can turn off or brighten each individual pixel, the blacks are perfect, and the bright elements of the content don't have any blooming.

OLED TVs like this one don't have a backlight, but their self-emissive pixels give them the equivalent of a perfect local dimming feature with no lightning zone transitions. We still film the zone transition video on the TV so you can see how the screen 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.

The LG C2 has decent peak brightness in HDR. It's not as bright as the LG G2 OLED, though, especially when displaying small, bright highlights in otherwise dark scenes. Unfortunately, large bright scenes are still significantly dimmer than smaller highlights due to the TV's aggressive Automatic Brightness Limiter (ABL). It isn't very noticeable when watching regular content, but it's distracting when using the TV as a monitor. Setting Peak Brightness to 'Off' reduces the ABL feature's aggressiveness and the panel's peak brightness in all scenes.

These measurements are after calibrating the HDR white point with the following settings:

• HDR Picture Mode: Cinema
• OLED Pixel Brightness: Max
• Contrast: Max
• Peak Brightness: High
• Color Temp: Warm 50

The TV is just about as bright in 'Game' mode as it is out of it. Small bright highlights in dark scenes are slightly dimmer than out of 'Game' mode, but it's not as noticeable as on the LG G2 OLED.

These measurements are after calibrating the HDR white point, with the following settings:

• Picture Mode: Game Optimizer
• OLED Pixel Brightness: Max
• Contrast: Max
• Peak Brightness: High
• Color Temp: Warm 50

Most scenes display at the correct brightness level if a tad on the bright side, and it tracks the PQ EOTF exceptionally well. For content mastered at 600 and 1000 nits, which is what most content is mastered at, the TV clips everything above its max brightness, resulting in a loss of fine detail in very bright scenes. But for content mastered at 4000 nits, the TV starts tone mapping earlier, leading to a slower roll-off which preserves fine details in bright scenes.

The LG C2 has good peak brightness in SDR. It's bright enough to overcome glare in bright rooms, but sadly, large bright scenes are dimmed considerably by the TV's Automatic Brightness Limiter (ABL). This isn't very noticeable with most regular content, but it's distracting when watching some sports, like Hockey. Setting Peak Brightness to 'Off' reduces the aggressiveness of the ABL feature but also reduces to the peak brightness to about 300 cd/m² in most scenes. It's significantly brighter than the Sony A90K OLED.

These measurements are after calibration with the following settings:

• Picture Mode: Expert (Dark Space, Night)
• Brightness: Max
• Peak Brightness: High
• Color Temp: Warm 50

The LG C2 has an amazing color gamut. It has nearly complete coverage of the DCI-P3 color space used by most current HDR content, including UHD Blu-rays. However, it struggles with portraying accurate greens, and all colors are slightly undersaturated. It also has good coverage of the Rec. 2020 color space used by some content, but it can't display the full range of greens or cyan, and colors are again generally undersaturated.

Unfortunately, the tone mapping isn't very accurate, especially when displaying desaturated colors, so it's not a good choice if you care about color accuracy in HDR.

The LG C2 has very good color volume. But despite the increased peak brightness from the LG C1 OLED, colors still aren't as bright as pure white. Its nearly-infinite contrast ratio allows it to display dark saturated colors extremely well. Overall, colors aren't as bright and vibrant as those on QD-OLED TVs, like the Samsung S95C OLED.

The LG C2 has great pre-calibration accuracy with no significant issues. The white balance is good throughout, but like with the LG G2 OLED, there are small but consistent errors in all shades of white, with blues becoming too prevalent in the brightest whites. The color temperature is a bit cool, giving the image a slightly blue tint. Gamma is very close to the 2.2 target for a dark room, but very dark scenes are crushed a bit.

After calibrating to a D65 white point, the LG C2 OLED TV has nearly perfect accuracy. The white balance and color accuracy are both nearly perfect, with no noticeable issues. The color temperature is extremely close to the 6500K calibration target, and gamma is perfect for a dark room.

You can see our full calibration settings here.

The LG C2 has excellent gray uniformity. There's very little dirty screen effect in the center, which is great for watching sports or using it as a PC monitor. Sadly, there are some vertical bands of color and a pink tint on both sides of the screen. It appears to be a common issue with the panel technology used in this TV, and it's not a defect with our specific unit. There are no signs of the grid pattern that affected some 2021 units and no signs of the "Venetian blind effect" either, which is great. Like almost all OLED displays, there are some faint vertical lines in very dark scenes.

Since OLEDs can turn off individual pixels, the LG C2 has perfect black uniformity and no blooming around bright objects.

The TV has a superb viewing angle. Unlike LCD/LED TVs, the image doesn't fade or wash out at an angle, which is great if you have a wide seating arrangement, as the image remains consistent even at a wide angle. The image's color composition starts shifting quickly as you move off-center, but it's not bothersome in practice.

The LG C2 has superb reflection handling. The glossy finish significantly reduces the intensity of direct reflections, so glare isn't an issue. The anti-reflective coating on the screen adds a purple tint, but this doesn't impact image quality.

The TV has good HDR gradient handling. Just like with the LG G2 OLED, there's noticeable banding in light grays, greens, and blues.

The TV has excellent low-quality content smoothing. There is no noticeable macro-blocking in dark areas, and details are preserved well.

The LG C2 has just okay sharpness processing with low-resolution or low-bitrate content. Text is a bit blurry and hard to make out, and some small details are lost.

The optimal sharpness settings for low-resolution or low-bitrate content, with no over-sharpening, are as follows:

• Adjusted Sharpness: 25
• Super Resolution: High

Based on the subpixel structure and the spectral power distribution of this panel, the LG C2 uses the 2022 WBE panels by LG Display, which they also call "Ex." These panels are advertised to be brighter, have better heat dissipation, and are less prone to burn-in than those used in the LG C1 OLED. Most LG C2 units are expected to use this new panel, but the 42" model uses a mixture of WBE and older WBC panels for units manufactured in Q1 and Q2 of 2022.

Like all LG OLED TVs, all four subpixels are never lit at the same time. You can see other subpixel photos here and here. Also note that as this TV uses an RWBG subpixel layout, this will cause issues with text display on Windows as ClearType isn't well adjusted to non-RGB subpixel layouts

The panel has an incredibly fast pixel response time. There's very little blur behind fast-moving objects, but due to the sample-and-hold nature of OLED technology, there's still some noticeable persistence blur. There's some slight overshoot in nearly-black scenes, but this isn't noticeable.

The TV isn't quite flicker-free, as a small decrease in brightness corresponds with the display's refresh cycle. It's very different from pulse width modulation flicker (PWM) on TVs with LED backlights.

This TV has an optional black frame insertion feature (BFI) that reduces the appearance of persistence blur caused by the TV's extremely fast pixel response time. LG has removed the 120Hz flicker mode available on the 2021 OLED TVs, so it can only flicker at 60Hz. BFI also reduces the TV's perceived brightness, which is very noticeable in practice.

The optional motion interpolation feature helps improve the appearance of motion, but this introduces what is commonly known as the 'soap opera effect,' which may bother some people. It does a good job with all settings at max, but there are some noticeable artifacts and loss of details in busy scenes. Unlike most TVs, it keeps interpolating even in extremely difficult scenes. It results in more noticeable artifacts, but it's good overall, as the frame rate remains consistent.

Unfortunately, due to the extremely fast pixel response time, there's noticeable stutter when watching low frame rate content. It's especially noticeable in slow-panning shots in movies. The black frame insertion feature and the motion interpolation feature can both help reduce the appearance of stutter, but neither feature is a perfect solution.

The LG C2 can remove judder when watching 24p movies or TV shows, even from sources that can only send a 60Hz signal, like a cable box. Unlike previous LG TVs, the Real Cinema setting has to be enabled to remove judder from most sources. Sadly, movies aren't judder-free when BFI is enabled because the black frame insertion (BFI) feature can only flicker at 60Hz on the C2.

The TV OLED is compatible with all three variable refresh rate technology types, ensuring a nearly tear-free gaming experience from any source that supports it. The VRR feature works across a very wide range of refresh rates, so even if your framerate drops very low, you still won't see screen tearing.

There are widespread reports of the C2 flickering when VRR is enabled, and frames are dropped, or when VRR is unstable. It appears to have been partially fixed with firmware update 03.30.45, as it's not an issue with the unit we bought, but some users are still reporting this issue, even on the latest firmware.

The LG C2 OLED has incredibly low input lag, ensuring your actions are in-sync with what you see on the screen. It's not as good as high-end gaming monitors, even at 120Hz, but it's still low enough for most gamers. Like most TVs, the input lag is too high outside of 'Game' mode for competitive reaction-based games. Note that to get the lowest input lag with Chroma 4:4:4 support, you need to set the input to PC with Game Mode enabled. Setting Prevent Input Delay to 'Boost' reduces the input lag by 2-3ms. This wasn't working properly with the initial firmware but has been fixed as of firmware 03.11.35.

The LG OLED EVO C2 displays all common formats properly. Chroma 4:4:4 signals are also displayed properly, which is important for clear text from a PC. Unlike some TVs, 4k @ 120Hz signals are displayed perfectly, with no resolution halving or other display issues.

This TV is fully compatible with everything the PS5 offers, including 1440p @ 120Hz, 4k @ 120Hz, and HDMI Forum VRR. All four HDMI ports support the full bandwidth of HDMI 2.1, which is great if you have both consoles and/or a PC you plan on using with the TV.

This TV is fully compatible with everything the Xbox Series X|S have to offer, including 1440p @ 120Hz, 4k @ 120Hz, and both HDMI Forum VRR and Freesync. All four HDMI ports support the full bandwidth of HDMI 2.1, which is great if you have both consoles and/or a PC you plan on using with the TV.

All four HDMI ports support 48Gbps bandwidth, which is an improvement over the LG G1 OLED. It allows you to send 4k @ 120Hz signals with 12-bit color and full chroma 4:4:4, which is great for PC users.

Unfortunately, this TV doesn't support DTS formats, which is disappointing as many Blu-rays use this format for their main audio track. If you like this TV but would have loved DTS support, check out its successor, the LG C3 OLED, or the Sony A80L/A80CL OLED.

The TV's speakers have a decent frequency response. They have an okay low-frequency extension, but like most TVs, they can't produce much bass. They get loud, but there's a bit of compression and pumping artifacts at max volume. On the other hand, they have a fairly well-balanced sound profile at moderate listening levels, resulting in clear dialogue.

The TV's speakers have good distortion performance overall. There's very little harmonic distortion, even at max volume.

LG has rolled out an update, and the TV now runs the 2023 version of LG's webOS proprietary smart interface. The interface is fast and easy to use, and the 2023 version brings an updated home screen, improved functionality, better performance, and upgraded security. Unfortunately, updating to webOS 23 also removes the Google Assistant feature.

Unfortunately, like almost all smart TVs, there are ads throughout the smart interface, and they can't be fully disabled.

The LG C2 OLED has a great selection of additional apps, so you're sure to find your favorite content.

This TV comes with the same magic remote found on previous models. The remote can be used like a pointer, making it easy to navigate through menus. There are also microphones on the TV, allowing for hands-free voice control. Unfortunately, there's no physical switch to disable the microphones if you're concerned about privacy. Voice control works well, though, and you can use it to change inputs, open apps, search within apps for content, and even adjust basic settings.

A single button is on the bottom of the TV in the middle. You can turn the TV on or off with it, change inputs or channels, or control the volume.

• Remote (with 2x AA batteries)
• Cable management clips
• User manuals
• IR blaster