The LG OLED Flex is a new 42-inch TV in LG's 2023 OLED lineup with the unique ability to curve its screen, accommodating different viewing styles and needs. It can go from being flat, so you can sit back and watch a movie, to a curve that goes all the way to 900R, a shape which LG calls the panel's 'Shield Design'. It's effectively a TV designed like a monitor. It has LG's α9 Gen 5 AI Processor 4K processor, webOS smart platform, eARC for audio passthrough, and supports every gaming feature at 4k @ 120Hz with its HDMI 2.1 bandwidth.
It also has LG's patented Super Anti Reflection (SAR) feature, which promises less reflection when compared to the LG C2 OLED and LG G2 OLED. The TV has a fully height-adjustable stand, which you can't remove, that houses both the panel's curving mechanism and LG's Fusion Lighting RGB backlighting. Other features which are less common in TVs and are more typically found in monitors are its integrated gaming microphone as well as a fully customizable UX that lets you play games in smaller screen sizes than the screen's full 42-inches or have the screen split in half to view two separate content streams simultaneously.
We also tested the same display as a monitor, and you can read the full review here. However, the results aren't comparable between the two reviews because of our different testing methodologies, and we also tested it with different settings for each one.
Our Verdict
The LG OLED Flex is an excellent TV overall. Its ability to curve makes it a great TV for watching movies and shows and a great gaming TV if you like to sit close and be fully immersed in the action. It has exceptional reflection handling, which is great when watching shows, sports, or movies in a room with glare, and the TV gets bright enough in both HDR and SDR to handle bright rooms. The TV's viewing angle is excellent, so the image remains consistent even when viewing the TV from the side, so watching shows or sports in a wide seating arrangement is a good experience. This TV has an incredible response time, so motion like fast-moving players or fast gaming action is crisp and sharp, with no blurring. As an OLED panel, it has deep, inky blacks with a nearly infinite contrast ratio, so movies and games look amazing. Bright highlights look great for all content, even if they can be aggressively dimmed at times.
- Near-infinite contrast ratio for perfect blacks.
- Fantastic reflection handling.
- Image remains accurate at a wide angle.
- Curving mechanism for versatile viewing conditions.
- Aggressive ABL can get distracting with large areas of brightness.
- Risk of permanent burn-in.
The LG OLED Flex is a great TV for watching TV shows. It has exceptional reflection handling, which is great when watching shows in a room with glare, and the TV gets bright enough in SDR to handle bright rooms. The TV's viewing angle is excellent, so the image remains consistent even when viewing the TV from the side, so you can easily watch shows with the whole family in a wide seating arrangement or while moving about in your home while doing your daily chores. The Flex also has amazing low-quality content smoothing, so your shows won't have annoying macro-blocking artifacts. Unfortunately, it's only decent at lower resolution upscaling, so shows watched on legacy formats like DVDs won't look their sharpest.
- Near-infinite contrast ratio for perfect blacks.
- Fantastic reflection handling.
- Image remains accurate at a wide angle.
- Curving mechanism for versatile viewing conditions.
- Risk of permanent burn-in.
The LG OLED Flex is an amazing TV for watching sports with friends. It has exceptional reflection handling, which is great when watching shows in a room with glare, and the TV gets bright enough in SDR to handle bright rooms. The TV's viewing angle is excellent, so the image remains consistent even when viewing the TV from the side, so those sitting off-center will have a pleasant viewing experience. The Flex has an incredible response time, so motion like fast-moving players is crisp and sharp, with no blurring. The TV has great color uniformity, so when watching sports with large areas of uniform color, like hockey, you won't be distracted by annoying smudges or color variations in the image.
- Near-infinite contrast ratio for perfect blacks.
- Fantastic reflection handling.
- Image remains accurate at a wide angle.
- Fantastic response time for blur-free action.
- Curving mechanism for versatile viewing conditions.
- Aggressive ABL can get distracting with large areas of brightness.
- Risk of permanent burn-in.
The LG OLED Flex is an outstanding TV for dominating your friends in your favorite video games. The TV's input lag is superbly low in Game Mode, so your inputs on the controller are transmitted almost instantly to your on-screen avatar. It also has an exceptional response time so fast-moving characters won't have blurry trails, and the action remains crisp. The TV also handles reflections very well, and it gets plenty bright in SDR, so you can play your games in a bright, sunny room without seeing your experience negatively impacted.
- Near-infinite contrast ratio for perfect blacks.
- Fantastic reflection handling.
- Low input lag.
- HDMI 2.1 bandwidth for gaming.
- Fantastic response time for blur-free action.
- Curving mechanism for versatile viewing conditions.
- Risk of permanent burn-in.
The LG OLED Flex is an amazing TV for a home cinema setup. It has incredible contrast, with deep inky blacks and no blooming around bright highlights due to its OLED panel. It has good HDR brightness, so bright highlights look great next to perfect blacks. It also has excellent low-quality content smoothing, so whether you like to watch movies on legacy formats like DVDs or through streaming services like Netflix, your content will be free of macro-blocking, and details will be preserved. Sadly for DVDs, the TV is only decent at low-resolution upscaling, so your movies won't be as sharp as they could be. The TV handles judder perfectly, so your movies are judder free. Note that the Flex has only satisfactory pre-calibration color accuracy, so for the best movie-watching experience, spend the time calibrating your panel.
- Near-infinite contrast ratio for perfect blacks.
- Automatically removes 24p judder from any source.
- Fantastic reflection handling.
- Wide color gamut for HDR content.
- Image remains accurate at a wide angle.
- Curving mechanism for versatile viewing conditions.
- Good HDR peak brightness.
- Aggressive ABL can get distracting with large areas of brightness.
- Risk of permanent burn-in.
- Doesn't support DTS passthrough.
- Fast response time results in noticeable stutter.
- Decent color accuracy, but nothing special.
The LG OLED Flex is a remarkable TV for playing the latest hit games in HDR. The TV's input lag is superbly low in Game Mode, so your inputs on the controller are transmitted almost instantly to your on-screen avatar. It also has an exceptional response time so that fast-moving characters won't have blurry trails, and the action is clear. It can handle all commonly used resolutions, like 4k @ 120Hz and 10-bit HDR. Its HDR brightness is only adequate in Game Mode; however, as this is an OLED panel with deep inky blacks, bright highlights, even if they're not technically very bright, look amazing in contrast with the perfect blacks surrounding them.
- Near-infinite contrast ratio for perfect blacks.
- Fantastic reflection handling.
- Wide color gamut for HDR content.
- Low input lag.
- HDMI 2.1 bandwidth for gaming.
- Fantastic response time for blur-free action.
- Curving mechanism for versatile viewing conditions.
- Good HDR peak brightness.
- Aggressive ABL can get distracting with large areas of brightness.
- Risk of permanent burn-in.
- Decent color accuracy, but nothing special.
The LG OLED Flex is outstanding as a PC monitor. It has a spectacular response time, so you can move windows around the screen blur and ghosting free. Its input lag is also outstanding, so mouse clicks are nearly instantaneously transferred to the screen for a responsive user experience. The TV also has an excellent viewing angle, so the image remains consistent even when sitting close to the panel. However, note that OLED screens are prone to burn-in. This is particularly troublesome when using the TV as a monitor, as PC use involves having static elements on the screen for prolonged periods. You can read our review of this TV as a PC monitor here.
- Near-infinite contrast ratio for perfect blacks.
- Fantastic reflection handling.
- Image remains accurate at a wide angle.
- Low input lag.
- Fantastic response time for blur-free action.
- Curving mechanism for versatile viewing conditions.
- Risk of permanent burn-in.
- Decent color accuracy, but nothing special.
Changelog
- Updated Jun 15, 2023: Added mention of Dolby Digital Plus 7.1 support in Audio Passthrough, added input lag numbers when using the Game Optimizer resize feature in Input Lag, and updated the text regarding the HDR Native Gradient.
- Updated May 24, 2023: Measured the screen's width at different curvatures and added the measurements in the Thickness test box.
- Updated May 12, 2023: Review published.
- Updated May 05, 2023: Early access published.
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Differences Between Sizes And Variants
We tested the 42-inch LG OLED Flex as a TV, and we also tested the same unit as a monitor, for which you can read the full review here. It's only available in this size, and no other variants exist. Remember that the full model code, particularly the last three letters, can change between regions and retailers.
| US Model Code | Size | Panel Type | Resolution | Curve |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 42LX3QPUA | 42" | OLED | 4k | 0-900R |
Our unit was manufactured in January 2023; you can see the label here.
Popular TV Comparisons
The LG OLED Flex is a unique model with peculiar characteristics. Its ability to go from fully flat, like a TV, to fully curved, like a gaming monitor, gives it tremendous versatility. Unfortunately, this comes at a cost; the OLED Flex is very expensive. The LG C2 OLED offers the same performance, minus the ability to curve, for a much lower price and is also offered in a 42-inch size like the OLED Flex.
For other recommendations, check out our articles for the best OLED TVs, the best 4k TVs, and the best TVs for watching movies.
The LG OLED Flex and the LG C1 OLED are very similar, minus the Flex's ability to curve. The Flex gets a bit brighter in both HDR and SDR and has slightly better reflection handling to handle glare and bright rooms better than the C1. The Flex is better at smoothing low-quality content, but the C1 is no slouch. Overall they're very similar TVs, so price and screen size options are likely to be the primary factor in choosing between them.
The LG OLED Flex and the LG C2 OLED are almost identical performance-wise, so the primary difference is cost, with the C2 generally being significantly cheaper, and versatility, with the Flex's ability to curve, allowing it to fit many roles. The C2 is available in many screen sizes, while the Flex is only available in 42-inch. Unlike the Flex, the C2 has a removable stand so it can be wall-mounted. The C2 also has much better color accuracy than the OLED Flex. The Flex has better reflection handling, but the C2 is also quite good.
The LG OLED Flex and the LG B2 OLED are very similar TVs, minus the Flex's ability to curve. The Flex gets slightly brighter in HDR, so bright highlights pop more. It also has much better PQ EOTF Tracking, so brightness levels are as they should be in HDR. However, the B2 is much more color accurate than the Flex. However, SDR is also a bit brighter on the B2, so if you mostly watch SDR content, this is something you should consider.
The Samsung S95C OLED is better than the LG OLED Flex but doesn't have the Flex's panel curving versatility. The S95C gets much brighter than the Flex in both SDR and HDR, leading to a better viewing experience for all content; bright highlights pop on the S95C. The S95C also has an even wider color gamut than the Flex's, has a much better color volume, and is significantly more color accurate. The S95C supports 4K @ 144Hz, while the Flex is limited to 4K @ 120Hz, so the Samsung is the better gaming TV. Outside of its versatility, the Flex has one advantage over the S95C: it has much better low-quality content smoothing, so content from DVDs and even some streaming services look better on this TV.
We buy and test dozens of TVs yearly, taking an objective, data-driven approach to deliver results you can trust. Our testing process is complex, with hundreds of individual tests that take over a week to complete. Most of our tests use specially designed test patterns that mimic real content, but we also use the same sources you have at home to ensure our results match the real-world experience. We use two main tools for our testing: a Colorimetry Research CR-100 colorimeter and a CR-250 spectroradiometer.
Test Results
Older Test Bench: This product has been tested using an older TV test methodology, before a major update. Some of the test results below aren't directly comparable with other TVs. Learn more
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