LG C3 OLED TV Review

The LG OLED C3 has the same design as 2022's LG C2 OLED. It has a thin silver border, with bezels so thin you can barely notice them when sitting from a normal viewing distance. It looks sleek and modern.

The stand on the 65-inch LG C3 is identical to the stand found on the 65-inch LG C2 OLED, and it has the same issues: it's a bit small, and the TV wobbles on it. However, it doesn't take the TV long to settle after it starts wobbling, so it isn't an issue in practice. The stand lifts the bottom of the screen 2.7" above the table, so most soundbars will fit without blocking the screen. The 83-inch uses a bigger stand, the same as on the 83 and 48-inch LG C2 OLED or the LG C1 OLED. The 42-inch model of the C3 uses two feet on each side of the screen instead of a central stand.

Footprint of the 65" stand: 18.5" x 9.0"

The back of the TV feels quite nice; it's made of a textured, brushed metal. It almost feels like fabric to the touch. A large plastic panel is on the back, with the inputs on its right-hand side. The TV comes with cable management clips through which you can funnel cables towards a small plastic cover, and exiting through a another clip on the back of the stand. Check out the full cable management photo here, but take note that you can route cables through the small plastic cover.

The LG C3 is incredibly well-built. It feels premium, the fabric-like texture on the back feels unique and nice to the touch, and the TV itself doesn't flex much. The stand is small and doesn't take much space, but unfortunately, the TV wobbles quite a bit on it; again, it does settle in quickly, and it's not a problem in practice. Overall, very solidly built.

The LG C3 has a nearly infinite contrast ratio like every other OLED. As each pixel can individually control its own brightness due to OLED's self-emissive technology, you can have super bright highlights next to pixels that are completely off, leading to perfect blacks with no blooming or haloing. It's very impressive in a dark room.

Since pixels can be completely turned off next to pixels that are lit up to their maximum brightness, the blacks surrounding bright elements are perfect and don't have any blooming.

As with other OLED TVs, this TV doesn't have a backlight, but its self-emissive pixels give it the equivalent of a perfect local dimming feature with no 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. It looks fantastic.

The LG C3 has very good HDR peak brightness. In certain scenes, it's a noticeable improvement from last year's LG C2 OLED. Like other OLEDs, large bright scenes are significantly dimmer than smaller highlights due to the Automatic Brightness Limiter (ABL). It's not very noticeable during normal viewing, as the brightness transitions are typically smooth and seamless. However, the TV is much dimmer when watching very bright HDR content for extended periods, and the ABL is distracting when using the TV as a PC monitor.

Setting Peak Brightness to 'Off' reduces the ABL feature's aggressiveness but also reduces the panel's peak brightness in all scenes, which makes the TV look dimmer all the time.

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

• HDR Picture Mode: Cinema (User Settings)
• OLED Pixel Brightness: 100
• Adjust Contrast: 100
• Auto Dynamic Contrast: Off
• Dynamic Tone Mapping: Off
• Expression Enhancer: Detail
• Peak Brightness: High

The LG C3 is dimmer in Game Mode than in other picture modes, and it's noticeable if you swap between Game Mode and other modes. Still, it's bright enough for a pleasant HDR gaming experience, and it's an improvement over the LG C2 OLED. For a much better Game Mode performance, see the Samsung S89C OLED.

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

• HDR Picture Mode: Game Optimizer (User Settings)
• OLED Pixel Brightness: 100
• Dynamic Tone Mapping: HGiG
• Expression Enhancer: Off
• Peak Brightness: High

The LG C3 has fantastic PQ EOTF tracking. As it's an OLED, it has perfect blacks and follows the PQ EOTF curve very well. The TV is over-brightened at lower luminance levels. When the TV gets near its peak brightness, its tracking acts differently based on the content it's displaying; for content mastered at 600 and 1000 nits, which is the majority of content, the TV clips everything above its max brightness, resulting in a loss of fine detail in very bright scenes. For content mastered at 4000 nits, the TV does tone mapping; however, its roll-off is pretty quick, so it won't preserve as many fine details here as the LG C2 did.

Note that this particular PQ EOTF tracking curve was done with the new Expression Enhancer setting set to 'Detail', as with the setting set to 'Off', the TV was over-brightening most of the EOTF. You can see how the different Expression Enhancer settings impact the EOTF curve here

The LG C3 OLED has very good peak brightness in SDR. It's a bit brighter than the LG C2 OLED, especially noticeable when bright elements take up most or all of the screen. Its Automatic Brightness Limiter (ABL) is a bit less aggressive than on the C2, but it still dims large bright scenes significantly compared to smaller highlights.

Setting Peak Brightness to 'Off', which bypasses the ABL, reduces the peak brightness to about 200 cd/m², which is a much more radical reduction than what we saw on the LG C2. Note that setting the input to Game Mode or PC Mode, or setting the 4:4:4 Pass Through option to 'On' also locks the Peak Brightness option to 'Off'.

These measurements are after calibration with the following settings:

• Picture Mode: Expert (Dark Space, Night)
• OLED Pixel Light:: 100
• Peak Brightness: High
• Color Temp: Warm 50

The TV has an amazing color gamut. Like most TVs in this market range, the LG C3 has nearly perfect coverage of the DCI-P3 color space, which most current HDR content uses. However, when displaying very bright images, its color accuracy is off; it struggles with displaying accurate greens, and all colors are generally undersaturated. Its tone mapping is also off, like on the LG C2 OLED, struggling with accurately tone mapping desaturated colors. Note that these results are done with the TV receiving a near 1000 nits stimulus signal; in actual usage the TV's color accuracy and tone mapping is much better, as our results here amount to a stress test.

The TV also has good coverage of the Rec. 2020 color space used by some content. Still, it can't display the full range of green or cyan; colors are again generally undersaturated, and its tone mapping still struggles with desaturated colors. Overall it isn't the best TV for viewers who are really into HDR color accuracy, but otherwise, it looks great. If you're looking for a more color-accurate OLED, take a look at the Samsung S90C OLED.

The color volume is basically identical to last year's LG C2 OLED, and it's still very good. The LG C3 can push its white luminance a bit further, yet it's still far from pure white. It also displays dark saturated colors well.

The LG C3 has truly excellent pre-calibration accuracy in SDR. Its gamma is slightly above the 2.2 target for a moderately lit room, so it's on the darker side overall, except in very bright scenes where it's a tad too bright. Its color temperature is fantastic, albeit a bit warm. Its color accuracy is also fantastic, and its white balance is amazing, with both having very minor accuracy errors throughout.

The results above were with the Peak Brightness setting set to 'Off'. The TV is less accurate with it set to 'High'. Here are charts with Peak Brightness set to 'High':

• White Balance
• Color Space
• Gamma

And measurements with Peak Brightness set to 'High':

• White Balance dE: 1.33
• Color dE: 4.48
• Gamma: 2.22
• Color Temperature: 6,341 K

After calibrating to a D65 white point, the LG C3 has truly fantastic accuracy. The grayscale was easy to configure, and all white balance issues are gone. The colors, which were already fantastic, are even better. The TV's gamma and color temperature are now exactly on target.

You can see our full calibration settings here.

The results above were with the Peak Brightness setting set to 'Off'. The colors are much more difficult to calibrate with Peak Brightness set to 'High', and the resulting calibration is less accurate overall. Here are charts with Peak Brightness set to 'High':

• White Balance
• Color Space
• Gamma

And measurements with Peak Brightness set to 'High':

• White Balance dE: 0.62
• Color dE: 4.17
• Gamma: 2.21
• Color Temperature: 6,545 K

The LG C3 has excellent gray uniformity, but much like the LG C2 OLED and the LG G3 OLED, there are faint vertical lines in very dark scenes and faint pinkish vertical bands on the screen when uniform colors are shown. It's a common issue with the panel technology used in LG's OLEDs, but they're subtle, and you won't notice them in practice. There are no signs of the grid pattern that affected some 2021 units and no signs of the "Venetian blind effect" either.

Black uniformity on OLEDs is perfect due to their self-emissive pixels; there's no blooming or halo effect around bright objects.

The TV has an outstanding viewing angle. It's not the basically perfect viewing angle of the LG G3 OLED, but it's not far; like on the LG C2 OLED, the colors shift slightly when you watch the screen at an angle, but it's a bit less pronounced than it was on that TV, and it's nit-picking as you really won't notice this in practice.

The LG C3 OLED has fantastic reflection handling and avoids much of the purple hue of the LG G3 OLED's anti-reflective coating, which is good. Overall, glare isn't an issue for this TV.

The TV's HDR native gradient handling is very good, although a static image stress test shows some noticeable banding in dark grays and bright greens. In real content, the TV fares even better.

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

The LG C3 has very good sharpness processing with low-resolution or low-bitrate content. Some small details are lost, but the image is upscaled well overall.

Sharpness processing was calibrated for low-resolution or low-bitrate content, with no over-sharpening, with the following settings:

• Adjust Sharpness: 16
• Super Resolution: Off

The LG C3 uses the same panel as last year's LG C2 OLED, namely the 2022 WBE panels dubbed 'Ex'. The manufacturer advertises these panels to be brighter, have better heat dissipation, and be less prone to burn-in than those found on the 2021 LG C1 OLED. Like all LG OLED TVs, all four subpixels are never lit simultaneously. Also, note that this TV uses an RWBG subpixel layout, so it has issues with text display on Windows, as ClearType isn't well-adjusted to non-RGB subpixel layouts.

Like all OLEDs, this TV 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 overshoot in nearly-black scenes, but it only happens when coming out of a fully-off state and then quickly settles, so you won't notice it.

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 and isn't noticeable.

The LG C3 has an optional black frame insertion feature (BFI) that reduces the appearance of persistence blur caused by the TV's nearly instantaneous pixel response time. Like the LG C2 OLED, it can only flicker at 60Hz. BFI also reduces the TV's perceived brightness, which is noticeable in practice.

Like all of LG's high-end OLEDs, the optional motion interpolation feature works well. However, it also introduces what is commonly known as the 'soap opera effect', which will annoy some people. Motion appears significantly smoother, with less persistence blur, thanks to the higher frame rate, but again, there are some noticeable artifacts in busy scenes.

Like all OLEDs, there's noticeable stutter with low frame rate content due to their incredibly fast pixel response time. It's very noticeable in slow panning shots in movies, although some people are more sensitive to it than others. The black frame insertion feature and the motion interpolation feature can help reduce the appearance of stutter, but they both have their drawbacks.

The LG C3 can remove judder when watching 24p movies or TV shows, even from sources that can only send a 60Hz signal, like a cable box. Like the LG G3 OLED, the Real Cinema setting has to be enabled to remove judder. Sadly, movies aren't judder-free when BFI is enabled because the black frame insertion (BFI) feature can only flicker at 60Hz on the C3.

The TV supports FreeSync and HDMI Forum VRR and is G-SYNC Compatible certified, ensuring a nearly tear-free gaming experience from any VRR-enabled source. It works well across a wide refresh rate range, even when it drops very low, as the TV supports Low Framerate Compensation (LFC). There's some flickering when VRR is enabled, much as was reported on the LG C2 OLED in 2022, and it's noticeable in low and fluctuating frame rate situations on a near-black screen. See a video of this flickering in action here.

The TV has low input lag, resulting in a very responsive gaming experience. Although it's still not as good as high-end gaming monitors, it's better than most TVs and good enough for most gamers. These results are with the Boost Mode setting set to 'on' in the 'Game Optimizer' menu, which reduces input lag by 2-3 ms. Like most TVs, the input lag is too high outside of 'Game Mode' for competitive reaction-based games. The input lag is higher when forcing a 4:3 aspect ratio versus setting it to 'original'. Here are some measurements, all done at 120Hz:

When set to 'Original' aspect ratio:
• 1920x1440: 10.1 ms
• 640x480: 27.3 ms
• 320x240: 28 ms

When set to '4:3' aspect ratio:
• 1920x1440: 26.8 ms
• 640x480: 27.4 ms
• 320x240: 28 ms

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. Like on the G3, the C3 can enable 4:4:4 Pass Through in the 'Game Optimizer' settings, resulting in Chroma 4:4:4 support with the lowest input lag. Enabling 4:4:4 Pass Through disables motion interpolation settings and a few picture processing settings and is identical to setting the input to PC.

Enabling BOOST in the 'Game Optimizer' settings, or setting the input to PC Mode, does not noticeably affect gamma when compared to having BOOST disabled. Similarly, gamma is not noticeably affected when comparing PC Mode to HDMI input or the 4:4:4 Pass Through option enabled. You can check out a few examples here:

• BOOST enabled
• BOOST disabled
• HDMI Input
• PC Mode
• 4:4:4 Pass Through

This LG C3 OLED supports all common formats, and it displays chroma 4:4:4 properly, which is important for clear text from a PC.

This TV is fully compatible with everything the PS5 supports, like 1440p @ 120Hz and 4K @ 120Hz, as well as HDMI Forum VRR. It also has four ports supporting HDMI 2.1 bandwidth, which is great if you have multiple HDMI 2.1 consoles or want to connect a PC.

This TV is fully compatible with everything the Xbox Series X|S offers, including 1440p @ 120Hz, 4k @ 120Hz, 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 or a PC you plan on using with the TV.

As with LG's 2022 OLEDs, all four HDMI ports on the LG C3 support 48Gbps bandwidth. It allows you to send 4k @ 120Hz signals with 12-bit color and full chroma 4:4:4, which is great for PC users.

This LG C3 supports many audio formats, making it a movie lover's dream. In particular, both this TV and the LG G3 OLED now support DTS audio formats, which is great if you like to watch DVDs or Blu-rays, as they tend to use DTS for their main audio tracks.

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. The LG C3 doesn't get very loud; even then, it can't avoid compression and pumping artifacts at max volume. The TV does have a well-balanced sound profile at moderate listening levels, resulting in clear dialogue.

The LG C3 has fair distortion performance. The speakers struggle to handle distortion when being fed multiple simultaneous frequencies, as seen in their high levels of intermodulation distortion. The TV performs better when dealing with distortion from individual fundamental frequencies (THD).

The TV runs the 2023 version of LG's proprietary smart interface, webOS. The interface is fast and easy to use, and it supports user profiles, so you can customize the home page for different users.

Unfortunately, like almost all smart TVs, there are ads throughout the smart interface, and you can't fully disable them. There are two settings in the 'Home Settings' menu, namely the 'Home Promotion' and 'Content Recommendation' settings, which remove the top banner ads and suggested content from the home screen, but there's no way to remove ads from the apps page.

Like other webOS-equipped TVs, the LG C3 OLED has a great selection of apps, and you're sure to find your favorite content.

The TV uses the same Magic Remote as the LG C1 OLED and LG C2 OLED. You can use it as a pointer if you prefer to navigate menus that way instead of using the buttons. There are also microphones on the TV, allowing for hands-free voice control. Voice control on the LG C3 isn't as good as on the LG C2 OLED; you can't ask it to change the backlight, change inputs, or ask basic questions like the weather in your current area. Luckily you can still ask to open apps and search within apps.

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 (with mounting stickers)