The LG G2 OLED is a high-end TV, and it's the successor to the LG G1 OLED. OLED TVs like the G2 are self-emissive, meaning unlike LCD panels found on other TVs, there's no backlight, which allows them to display a nearly-perfect contrast ratio in dark rooms, with deep inky blacks and no distracting blooming or halo-effect around bright objects. This TV has a unique design, and unlike most TVs, it doesn't even come with a stand, as it's designed to be mounted flush to your wall with the included slim wall mount. Like other LG TVs, it uses the webOS smart interface, which has been slightly refreshed for 2022, adding user profiles among other minor changes. There's a huge focus on gaming features this year, including support for GeForce Now and Stadia game streaming. The 'G' lineup isn't as popular as the rest of LG's lineup, as the unique design isn't cheap, but it's LG's highest-end 4k model in 2022, sitting above the more popular LG C2 OLED and below the 8k LG Z2 OLED.
The LG G2 OLED is a superb TV for most uses. Thanks to its nearly infinite contrast ratio, it displays deep blacks with perfect uniformity in a dark room, making it an exceptional choice for watching movies in a dark room. It's also one of the brightest OLED panels ever, making it a great choice for watching TV shows in a bright room. It also has an incredibly wide viewing angle, so it's a good choice for a wide seating arrangement. It's also an excellent choice for use as a PC monitor. Finally, it has an impressive selection of gaming features, and it delivers a superb gaming experience overall.
The LG G2 OLED delivers an exceptional movie-watching experience if you're in a dark room. The self-emissive OLED panel delivers a nearly-infinite contrast ratio in a dark room, with deep inky blacks and perfect uniformity. There's no blooming or haloing around bright objects. It can remove judder from all sources, and it upscales older DVD content well. Unfortunately, due to its extremely quick response time, movies appear to stutter in some scenes.
The LG G2 is an excellent choice for watching TV in a bright room. It's bright enough to overcome glare in a bright room, and it has fantastic reflection handling. The webOS smart interface has a huge selection of streaming apps to choose from, so you're sure to find your favorite content. It has a very wide viewing angle, so you can walk around the house with the TV on and still see an accurate image.
The LG G2 is an excellent TV for watching sports in a bright room. It gets bright enough to overcome glare in a bright room, and it has fantastic reflection handling, so glare isn't an issue. It has an extremely fast response time, so fast motion is clear and it's easy to see what's going on. Sadly, there are some uniformity issues, including a pink tint at the edge, and the aggressive brightness limiter causes brightness fluctuations with some content.
The LG G2 OLED delivers a superb gaming experience. It has a nearly-instantaneous response time, resulting in crystal-clear motion, as well as low input lag for a responsive gaming experience. It has a huge selection of additional gaming features, including support for all three variable refresh rate formats, and it's fully compatible with everything the PS5 and Xbox Series X have to offer, including 4k @ 120Hz gaming. Its four HDMI ports all support the full bandwidth of HDMI 2.1, great if you have both consoles or also want to connect a PC.
The LG G2 OLED is an amazing TV for watching HDR movies in a dark room. The nearly-infinite contrast ratio helps bright highlights really stand out in dark scenes, and there's no distracting blooming around bright objects. It's bright enough to really bring out bright highlights in most scenes, and it tracks the creator's intent well. It has an excellent HDR color gamut, but sadly, just okay HDR color volume, as colors aren't as bright as pure white.
The LG G2 OLED delivers a fantastic HDR gaming experience. It delivers a superb gaming experience, with an extremely quick response time and low input lag, and it has a huge selection of gaming features. It delivers an incredible HDR experience as well, with a nearly infinite contrast ratio and high peak brightness, so bright highlights stand out the way they should. It's fully compatible with everything the latest consoles have to offer, including 4k @ 120Hz gaming with HDR, and all four HDMI ports support the full bandwidth of HDMI 2.1, which is great if you have both consoles or a PC you want to connect.
The LG G2 is an excellent choice for use as a PC monitor. The image remains accurate at a wide angle, which is great if you're sitting close to the screen, as the edges remain relatively uniform. It has very low input lag, so it feels responsive, and the response is extremely fast, so there's no distracting ghosting if you're gaming or scrolling through a document or website quickly. There is a slightly pink tint on one side of the screen, though, which is distracting on pages with a light background.
We tested the 65 inch LG G2 OLED (OLED65G2), which also comes in 55-inch, 77-inch, 83-inch, and a new 97-inch size. Note that the last three letters in the model number (PUA in this case) vary between retailers and individual regions, but there's no difference in performance.
Size | US Model | UK Model |
---|---|---|
55" | OLED55G2PUA | OLED55G26LA |
65" | OLED65G2PUA | OLED65G26LA |
77" | OLED77G2PUA | OLED77G26LA |
83" | OLED83G2PUA | OLED83G26LA |
97" | OLED97G2PUA | OLED97G26LA |
If you come across a different type of panel or your LG G2 doesn't correspond to our review, let us know, and we'll update the review.
Our unit was manufactured in March 2022, and you can see the label here.
The LG G2 is an incredible OLED TV with exceptional picture quality. The newest evo panel allows it to get brighter than most other OLED TVs. The unique design looks great, but unless you really care about that you're better off getting a cheaper OLED like the LG C2 OLED, which performs almost identically.
See our recommendations for the best OLED TVs, the best 4k TVs, and the best TVs for watching movies.
The LG G2 OLED and the LG C2 OLED offer nearly identical performance, but there are some important design differences. The G2 is a bit brighter overall, especially when displaying small, bright areas in HDR, but the difference is minor. On the other hand, unlike the G2, which is designed to be wall-mounted, the C2 includes a stand, giving you a bit more versatility out of the box.
The Samsung S95B OLED and the LG G2 OLED are very similar overall, but they each excel in different ways. The Samsung has much better color volume, and colors are significantly brighter than on the LG. Skin tones look better on the Samsung, but some colors look a bit unnatural at times. Conversely, the LG has better black levels in rooms with a bit of natural light, whereas the Samsung is really best enjoyed in a completely dark room. The LG supports Dolby Vision, and it delivers a slightly more accurate HDR experience.
The Sony A95K OLED and the LG G2 OLED are both fantastic TVs with a few differences. The Sony delivers a better movie-watching experience because it has much better color volume and tone mapping, meaning it displays a wider range of colors and makes them look more vivid. However, the LG is better for use in well-lit rooms because ambient lighting doesn't cause the black levels to raise like on the Sony, and it gets much brighter in SDR. The LG has lower input lag, which is good if you're a gamer.
There aren't many significant differences between them, but the LG G2 OLED is a bit better overall than the LG G1 OLED. The G2 is a lot brighter, especially when displaying small, bright highlights in HDR. The G2 also has slightly improved smart features, including hands-free voice control and an updated smart interface that now supports multiple user profiles. Finally, the G2's HDMI ports support 48Gbps bandwidth instead of the 40Gbps limit on the G1.
The Sony A90J OLED and the LG G2 OLED are very similar overall, but the LG is slightly better for most users. The LG is brighter, especially when displaying small, bright highlights in HDR, and it has better gaming features. The Sony has better gradient handling and much better tone mapping, so it's a better choice for anyone who cares about an accurate image.
Although there aren't many differences between them overall, the LG G2 OLED is a bit better than the LG C1 OLED. The G2 is a lot brighter, especially when displaying small, bright highlights in HDR. The G2 has better smart features, including hands-free voice control, and the webOS smart interface on the G2 supports multiple user profiles. Finally, the G2's HDMI ports support 48Gbps bandwidth instead of the 40Gbps limit on the C1.
The LG G2 OLED is higher-end than the LG B2 OLED. If you want the best picture quality, the G2 gets brighter, delivering a better HDR experience. However, the B2 still delivers the same remarkable dark room performance, and if you want to place your TV on a table, it comes with a stand, which the G2 doesn't have.
The LG G2 OLED is better overall than the Sony A80K OLED. While they both deliver the same fantastic dark room performance, the LG gets much brighter, allowing highlights to pop more in HDR. If you're a gamer, you'll also be happy to know the LG has lower input lag for a more responsive feel.
The LG GX OLED and the LG G2 OLED deliver a very similar experience. The G2 uses a newer OLED panel, which gets a lot brighter, especially in HDR, so bright highlights stand out better. On the other hand, the GX's black frame insertion feature is a bit more versatile, as it supports a 120Hz flicker with 120Hz content, whereas the G2 can only flicker at 60Hz.
The LG G2 OLED delivers a better dark room viewing experience than the Samsung QN95B QLED, but the Samsung is a better choice for a bright room. The G2 looks incredible in a dark room, with perfect blacks and no blooming around bright objects in dark scenes. HDR looks incredible on the G2 thanks to its near-infinite contrast ratio The Samsung, on the other hand, gets significantly brighter, so it's a better choice for a bright room with lots of natural light.
The LG G2 OLED is a bit better than the LG CX OLED. Although they deliver very similar picture quality overall, the G2 is a bit brighter overall in SDR and a lot brighter in HDR, so bright highlights stand out better. The CX is a bit more versatile out of the box, though, as it comes with a stand, whereas the G2 is designed to be wall-mounted and doesn't include one.
Although they deliver very similar picture quality overall, the LG G2 OLED is a bit better than the LG C9 OLED. The G2 is a lot brighter, especially with HDR content, so really bright highlights in some scenes stand out better. On the other hand, the C9 is a bit more versatile, as it includes a stand, whereas the G2 is designed to be wall-mounted and doesn't come with a stand.
The LG G2 OLED and the Sony A80J OLED deliver very similar picture quality overall, but the LG is a bit better for most users. The LG is a bit brighter in SDR and a lot brighter in HDR, so bright highlights stand out a bit better. On the other hand, the Sony TV has better processing, with better tone mapping and smoother gradients, so it's a bit better for cinephiles. There's also a big design difference between them, as the Sony comes with a stand, whereas the LG is designed to be wall-mounted and doesn't include one.
The LG G2 OLED is better than the Samsung QN90A QLED for most users. The LG has a near-infinite contrast ratio and perfect black uniformity, resulting in much better picture quality in a dark room, with no distracting blooming around bright objects. The Samsung gets significantly brighter, so it can better handle glare in a bright room, but it has worse picture quality and doesn't look as good as the LG in a dark room.
The LG G2 OLED is a lot better than the LG C8 OLED. There's not much difference in picture quality - they both display perfect inky blacks with perfect uniformity in a dark room. The G2 is a lot brighter, though, especially in HDR, and bright highlights stand out much better. The G2 also has more advanced gaming features, including variable refresh rate support. On the other hand, the C8 is a bit more versatile, as it includes a stand, whereas the G2 doesn't come with a stand, as it's designed to be wall-mounted.
The LG G2 OLED is much better than the Samsung QN85B QLED. The LG delivers significantly better picture quality, especially for watching movies in a dark room, as it has a near-infinite contrast ratio, resulting in deep inky blacks with no blooming around bright objects. The Samsung is significantly brighter than the LG, so it's a bit better suited for a bright room.
The LG G2 OLED is much better than the LG A1 OLED. The G2 is a lot brighter, especially in HDR, so bright highlights stand out better. The G2 also has more advanced gaming features, including a higher native refresh rate, a backlight-strobing feature, and variable refresh rate support. All four HDMI ports on the G2 support HDMI 2.1 bandwidth, whereas the A1 is limited to HDMI 2.0 bandwidth. The A1 is a bit more versatile out of the box, as it comes with a stand, whereas the G2 is designed to be wall-mounted and doesn't include one.
The back of the TV has a very clean look. It's made of textured metal, with a metallic silver border around the edges. There are cutouts in the back and clips to help with cable management. The included wall mount can be pulled forward with the TV on it, making it easy to swap cables or connect a new source.
The LG G2 OLED has fantastic build quality. The materials used feel premium, and although there's a bit of flex on the back panel near the inputs, it's not an issue. There are some very slight gaps where the bottom corners connect to the TV, as shown here, and here. It gets a bit warm with extended use, but this isn't unusual and won't cause any issues.
Since OLED displays use self-emissive pixels instead of a backlight, the LG OLED G2 has a nearly infinite contrast ratio. Since it can control the brightness of individual pixels without affecting nearby ones, this TV can display bright highlights right next to perfect blacks with no blooming. This is especially noticeable if you're in a completely dark room.
The LG G2 TV has very 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.
These measurements are in the 'Expert (Dark Space, Night)' Picture Mode, with OLED Light at 'Max', Peak Brightness on 'High', and the Color Temp set to 'Warm 50'.
If you want the brightest image possible, switching to the 'Vivid' Picture Mode, with Adjusted Contrast at 'Max', Auto Dynamic Contrast on 'High' and the Color Temp set to '0' results in a brighter image, reaching a peak of 581 cd/m² with a 2% window.
The LG G2 OLED has impressive peak brightness in HDR, and it's much brighter than the previous generation of OLED TVs, including the LG G1 OLED and the LG C1 OLED. 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. Most scenes are displayed at the correct brightness level, and it tracks the PQ EOTF well for the most part. Very dark scenes are crushed a bit. There's a smooth roll-off near the TV's peak brightness, so bright highlights in really bright scenes are preserved.
These measurements are in the 'Cinema' HDR Picture Mode with OLED Pixel Brightness, Contrast, and Peak Brightness all at their max settings, with Color Temperature at ' Warm 50' and all other image processing disabled. By setting Auto Dynamic Contrast to 'High' and enabling Dynamic Tone Mapping, you can get a slightly brighter image, as seen in this EOTF. Note that these settings increase the brightness of darker scenes, but the peak brightness of the display is the same.
The LG G2 is a bit dimmer in 'Game Mode', especially when displaying bright highlights in otherwise dark scenes. It still tracks the EOTF well, though, with a smooth roll-off near the TV's peak brightness.
The LG G2 OLED has excellent gradient handling. There's some noticeable banding, especially in darker shades of green, but it looks excellent overall. The Smooth Gradation feature reduces banding, especially with the 'Medium' or 'High' settings, but this causes a loss of fine details with high-quality content, so it's not recommended to leave this on.
The LG G2 OLED 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. There's also very little vignetting. Sadly, there are some vertical bands of color, and there's a pink tint on the left side of the screen. This appears to be a common issue with the new panel technology used by LG Display, and it's not a defect with our specific unit. There are no signs of the grid pattern that some owners noticed on their 2021 models, and no signs of the "Venetian blind effect" either, which is great. Like almost all OLED displays, though, there are some faint vertical lines in very dark scenes.
The LG G2 OLED has a fantastic viewing angle. This is great if you have a wide seating arrangement or like to move around with the TV on, as the image remains accurate even at a wide angle. There's no noticeable washout or loss of brightness even at an extremely wide angle.
The LG G2 OLED has fantastic reflection handling. The glossy finish significantly reduces the intensity of direct lights, and it looks great even in a bright room. Bright lights have a slightly purple tint to them, this is caused by the anti-reflective coating on the panel.
The LG G2 TV has great accuracy out of the box. There are very few issues with the white balance or color accuracy. Gamma is a bit high, so most scenes are a bit too dark for a dark room, and the color temperature is a bit cool, giving everything a slightly bluish tint.
After calibrating to a D65 white point, the LG G2 OLED has nearly perfect accuracy. The white balance and color accuracy are both nearly perfect, but there are still some slight issues with saturated reds and bright whites. The color temperature is extremely close to the 6500K calibration target, and gamma is nearly perfect.
You can see our recommended settings here.
Based on the subpixel structure and the spectral power distribution of this panel, this TV uses the new WBE panels by LG Display, which they also call "Ex". These panels are advertised to be brighter, have better heat dissipation, and be less prone to burn-in. All LG G2 units are expected to use this new panel.
Like all LG OLED TVs, all four subpixels are never lit at the same time. You can see other subpixel photos here and here.
The LG G2 has an excellent color gamut. It has nearly perfect coverage of the DCI-P3 color space used by most current HDR content, including most UHD Blu-rays. It has decent coverage of the wider Rec. 2020 color space, but it can't display the full range of greens or cyan. Unfortunately, the tone mapping isn't very good, especially when displaying saturated colors, and it doesn't display the creator's intent. If you care about good tone mapping, the Sony A95K OLED is nearly perfect with that.
The LG G2 has okay color volume. It fills out its color gamut well at moderate luminance levels, and it can display dark saturated colors well thanks to its nearly-infinite contrast ratio. Sadly, bright colors aren't as bright as pure white, so they're not as vivid and lifelike as they should be. Newer OLED technology, like the QD-OLED in the Samsung S95B OLED produce much brighter colors.
The LG G2 OLED 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. Strangely, LG has removed the 120Hz flicker mode that was available on the 2021 OLED TVs, so it can only flicker at 60Hz.
The optional motion interpolation feature works really well. Motion appears significantly smoother, with less persistence blur thanks to the higher refresh rate. There's some noticeable artifacts in busy scenes, but it's better than most TVs.
Unfortunately, due to the nearly instantaneous pixel response time of the LG G2 OLED, there's noticeable stutter with 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 they both have their drawbacks.
The LG G2 OLED can almost always 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. Sadly, because the black frame insertion (BFI) feature can only flicker at 60Hz on the G2, movies aren't judder-free when BFI is enabled.
The LG G2 OLED supports all current variable refresh rate formats, ensuring a nearly tear-free gaming experience from any source that supports VRR. The VRR feature works across a very wide range of refresh rates. Below about 40Hz low-framerate compensation (LFC) is automatically enabled, so even if your framerate drops very low, you still won't see screen tearing.
The LG G2 has fantastic 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 it's good enough for most gamers. These results are with the Prevent Input Delay setting set to 'Boost', 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. Unfortunately, the input lag is much higher when sending a 4:3 signal, so it's not great for retro gaming:
This TV supports all common formats, and it displays chroma 4:4:4 properly, which is important for clear text from a PC. Unlike some other brands, 4k @ 120Hz is displayed perfectly, with no resolution-halving or other issues.
This TV is fully compatible with everything the PS5 and Xbox Series S|X support, including the variable refresh rate feature on the PS5. It also has four ports that support HDMI 2.1 bandwidth, which is great if you have both consoles or are looking to connect a PC as well.
All four HDMI ports support 48Gbps bandwidth, which is an improvement over the LG G1 OLED. This 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 can't passthrough any DTS formats, which is disappointing as many Blu-rays use this format for their main audio track.
The LG G2 has a decent frequency response. The low-frequency extension is okay, but it still can't produce much deep bass. It gets loud, and it has a very well-balanced sound profile, so dialogue sounds clear.
The LG G2 OLED runs the latest version of LG's proprietary smart interface, webOS. LG advertises this as version 22, which is a shift from the previous versioning system they used. Internally, it appears that LG still uses the old versioning system, as the "TV Information" page reports the webOS TV version as version 7.1.0. The interface is fast and easy to use, and the new interface now supports user profiles, so you can customize the home page for different users.
This TV comes with the same magic remote found on previous models. The remote can be used as a pointer, making it very easy to navigate through menus. The TV now supports hands-free voice control, through microphones on the TV itself. 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.