The LG QNED80 is the entry-level model in LG's mid-range QNED lineup. It's a new TV for 2022, sitting below the LG QNED85, and it combines quantum dot technology with LG's proprietary NanoCell technology to display a wider range of colors compared to lower-range models. It's available in a wide range of sizes, from 50 to 86 inches, but not all sizes perform the same. It's missing features you would expect from a mid-range TV, like Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos support. It also doesn't have Mini LED backlighting like most of the QNED lineup. Luckily, it has many of the same gaming features as higher-end models, like a 120Hz panel, HDMI 2.1 bandwidth, and variable refresh rate (VRR) support. It's been replaced in 2023 by the LG QNED80 2023, but there's almost no difference between them.
The LG QNED80 is decent for most uses. It's good for watching shows and sports in most well-lit rooms with wide seating arrangements because it has decent reflection handling and a wide viewing angle. It's also decent for gaming thanks to its HDMI 2.1 bandwidth, VRR support, and low input lag for a responsive feel. Sadly, it's mediocre for watching movies in dark rooms because blacks look gray in the dark and the local dimming feature is terrible as it causes a ton of blooming.
The LG QNED80 is very good for watching TV shows in well-lit rooms. It displays lower-resolution content without issues, which is important if you watch cable TV. If you stream your content, the webOS platform is user-friendly with a ton of apps available to download. It also has a wide viewing angle that makes the image remain consistent from the sides if you have a wide seating arrangement. Its reflection handling is decent, but it doesn't get bright enough to fight intense glare.
The LG QNED80 is good for sports. Fast-moving balls and players look good with minimal blur trail thanks to its quick response time. It has a wide viewing angle that makes it ideal for watching the big game with a group of friends, as everyone sees the same image. It also has decent reflection handling if you want to use it in a room with a few lights, but it isn't bright enough to fight glare from direct sunlight.
The LG QNED80 is decent for playing video games. It has all the gaming features needed to take full advantage of the PS5 and Xbox Series X thanks to its HDMI 2.1 bandwidth, VRR support, and 120Hz panel. It also has low input lag and a quick response time for a responsive gaming experience. Unfortunately, it's a bad choice for dark room gaming as it has low native contrast and a terrible local dimming feature.
The LG QNED80 is mediocre for watching HDR movies. It doesn't support Dolby Vision or HDR10+, so you're limited to watching content in the basic HDR10 format. Although it displays a wide range of colors, it doesn't get bright enough to make them look vivid and stand out. Sadly, its low contrast makes blacks look gray in the dark, and its terrible local dimming feature results in a ton of blooming.
The LG QNED80 is decent for HDR gaming, mainly due to its gaming features. With HDMI 2.1 bandwidth and VRR support, you can play games at a high frame rate from consoles. It also has low input lag and a quick response time for a decent gaming experience. However, HDR content looks mediocre due to its low contrast, terrible local dimming feature, and low HDR peak brightness.
The LG QNED80 is excellent to use as a PC monitor. With HDMI 2.1 bandwidth you can display high-frame-rate signals with chroma 4:4:4 for proper text as long as your graphics card supports it. It also has low input lag that makes your desktop movements feel responsive. It has a wide viewing angle that makes it ideal if you sit close as the edges don't look washed out, and it has decent reflection handling if you have a few lights around.
We tested the 65-inch LG QNED80, and the results are also valid for the 55 and 75-inch models. The 50-inch version has a different panel type, while the manufacturer advertises that the 86-inch model comes with direct LED backlighting instead of edge-lit backlighting like on the other models. The exact model code varies between regions and retailers. The QNED80AQA variant sold at Costco has a remote that supports NFC and a much longer warranty, and it has a NEXTGEN TV (ATSC 3.0) tuner.
In Europe, it's known as the LG QNED81, and the main difference is that it comes with a center-mounted stand. However, models outside the US may perform differently, and we don't know for sure.
Size | Panel | Backlighting | North America | Costco | Europe |
50" | VA | Edge | 50QNED80UQA | 50QNED80AQA | 50QNED816QA |
55" | IPS | Edge | 55QNED80UQA | 55QNED80AQA | 55QNED816QA |
65" | IPS | Edge | 65QNED80UQA | 65QNED80AQA | 65QNED816QA |
75" |
IPS | Edge | 75QNED80UQA | 75QNED80AQA | 75QNED816QA |
86" | IPS | Direct | 86QNED80UQA | 86QNED80AQA | 86QNED816QA |
The unit we tested was manufactured in May 2022 and you can see the label here.
The LG QNED80 is an okay TV with good gaming features, but compared to the competition, it doesn't offer anything special, and there aren't many reasons to buy this TV. It has a low contrast ratio that makes blacks look gray in the dark, and it has limited HDR performance too. You can easily find other similarly-priced TVs with much better performance, like the TCL 6 Series/R646 2021 QLED or the Hisense U8H if you don't mind spending a bit more.
Also see our recommendations for the best TVs for bright rooms, the best smart TVs, and the best 65-inch TVs.
The LG QNED85 is a significant step up from the lower-end model, the LG QNED80. The QNED85 has much better contrast, with a Mini LED backlight that delivers deep blacks with just a bit of blooming around bright objects. The QNED80 doesn't have any blooming with local dimming disabled, but its contrast ratio is so low that the screen is washed out in dark scenes. The QNED85 also gets significantly brighter, so it can handle more glare in a bright room, and bright highlights in HDR stand out better.
The Sony X90K is better than the LG QNED80. The Sony is much better for watching movies in HDR or SDR because it displays deeper blacks and its local dimming feature is significantly better. It also gets brighter in HDR, allowing colors to look vivid and highlights to stand out. While the Sony is better overall for gaming due to its faster response time, the LG has lower input lag for a more responsive feel.
The Samsung Q80/Q80B QLED is better overall than the LG QNED80. Although they both have the same panel type with low native contrast, the Samsung has a much better local dimming feature that helps improve the picture quality in dark scenes, and it has less blooming than the LG. The Samsung also gets brighter, making it a better choice for well-lit rooms and making highlights pop more in HDR.
The Hisense U8H is significantly better than the LG QNED80. The Hisense delivers much better picture quality in dark rooms thanks to its higher contrast and better local dimming. It's also much better for HDR because it supports both Dolby Vision and HDR10+, which the LG doesn't support, and it gets much brighter for better highlights and more vivid colors.
The Samsung QN85A QLED is better than the LG QNED80. Although they each use IPS panels with wide viewing angles and low contrast, the Samsung uses Mini LED backlighting that lets it provide a better local dimming feature with a lot less blooming than the edge-lit local dimming on the LG. The Samsung is also better for HDR because it gets much brighter, has better gradient handling, and displays a wider range of colors.
Although the LG NANO85 2021 and the LG QNED80 are from different lineups, they're very similar TVs. The main difference is that the QNED80 displays slightly more colors thanks to its quantum dot technology, and it's a bit brighter too. They have many of the same features, but the NANO85 supports Dolby Atmos passthrough and supports Dolby Vision for HDR, both of which the QNED80 doesn't do.
The LG QNED80 2023 is nearly identical to its predecessor, the LG QNED80 2022. The 2023 model is slightly brighter and supports DTS audio formats, so it's a better choice overall, but the differences are extremely minor.
The TCL 6 Series/R646 2021 QLED is much better than the LG QNED80. The TCL delivers significantly better picture quality thanks to its higher contrast, better local dimming, and improved black uniformity. It also gets brighter than the LG, meaning it's the better choice for watching content in well-lit rooms and makes highlights pop more in HDR.
The stand is two V-shaped feet that hold the TV well. They raise the screen high enough off the table that there's 3.31" (8.4 cm) of space between the table and the bottom of the screen, meaning most soundbars won't block it. You can also place the feet in a narrow position (see here) if you have a smaller TV stand.
Footprint of the 65" TV:
The back of the TV features brushed metal and is simple-looking. The inputs are set into the TV, so they're hard to reach with the TV wall-mounted. You can route cables through the feet and clips for cable management. If you have the stand in the narrow position, you can also move the clips to the center to keep the setup clean.
The LG QNED80 has a bad contrast ratio. It means that blacks look gray next to bright highlights in dark rooms. Although the local dimming feature helps improve the contrast a bit, it does so by raising the brightness of the whites, so dark scenes look even worse. The higher-end LG QNED85 delivers much better dark scene performance thanks to its Mini LED backlight.
The HDR brightness isn't bad, but it isn't bright enough to make highlights truly stand out against dark backgrounds. Small highlights do get brighter than larger ones, but because of the low contrast and elevated black levels, they don't pop like on other TVs.
These results are from after calibration to the 6500K white point in the 'Cinema' HDR Picture Mode with the Panel Brightness and Adjust Contrast each at '100', LED Local Dimming on 'High', and Color Temperature on 'Warm 50'.
The HDR brightness in Game Mode looks the same as outside of Game Mode, even if the individual windows are slightly dimmer, but you won't notice any difference. These results are with the same settings as outside of Game Mode but in the 'Game Optimizer' HDR Picture Mode.
The PQ EOTF tracking is incredible. With content mastered at 600 and 1,000 nits, which is the majority of content, it displays shadows and midtones at their correct brightness. While it doesn't display all highlights the way they should be displayed, there's a slow roll-off at the peak brightness, meaning it preserves details well. However, it isn't as good with content mastered at 4,000 nits because the roll-off happens earlier, meaning even midtones don't appear as they should.
The SDR peak brightness is decent. It's bright enough to fight glare with a few lights around but not enough if you have it placed opposite a bright window. There's some variation in brightness between different scenes, but this will only be noticeable when using it as a PC monitor, like when you're minimizing and maximizing windows.
These results are from after calibration in the 'Expert (Dark space, night)' Picture Mode with the Panel Brightness at '100'. Adjust Contrast on '80', Color Temperature on 'Warm 50', and the LED Local Dimming set to 'High'.
The LG QNED80 has a very good color gamut thanks to its quantum dot technology. It has excellent coverage of the commonly-used DCI-P3 color space, but it isn't future-proof because it has limited coverage of the Rec. 2020 color space, which more HDR content will start to use. Unfortunately, it has bad tone mapping with the tested 75% stimulus, meaning that brighter colors lose details. However, it's better with a 50% stimulus, as you can see with the DCI-P3 color space here and the Rec. 2020 color space here.
The color volume is decent. It struggles to display bright colors and can't display dark colors well either due to its low contrast.
The accuracy before calibration is good. Most colors have excellent accuracy as they aren't oversaturated, and the color temperature is close to the 6500K target. However, the white balance is off, particularly with brighter shads of gray, and gamma doesn't follow our 2.2 target for moderately-lit rooms well, as most scenes are too bright.
The accuracy after calibration to the 6500K white point is fantastic. It's easy to calibrate and there aren't any visible issues with the colors, white balance, gamma, or color temperature.
See our full calibration settings here.
The LG QNED80 has good gray uniformity. The edges of the screen are a bit darker than the rest, and there's a bit of dirty screen effect in the center, but it isn't enough to be distracting while watching sports or using it as a PC monitor.
The black uniformity is disappointing. With the local dimming disabled, the entire screen is blue due to the low contrast, and there's noticeable clouding. Although the local dimming helps deepen parts of the screen, there's still noticeable blooming due to the edge-lit dimming zones. Keep in mind that the 50-inch model has a different panel that has a higher contrast for deeper blacks, and the 86-inch model has direct-lit local dimming, so there'll be less blooming.
The LG QNED80 has a good viewing angle. For the most part, the image remains consistent when viewing from the sides, but you'll notice the screen looks darker at a wide angle. Unfortunately, the 50-inch model has a different panel with a worse viewing angle.
The gradient handling is disappointing. There's visible banding in most colors, especially the grays and greens, and you'll see this banding in scenes with shades of similar colors, like a sunset. It has a Smooth Gradation setting that helps smooth out the gradients.
Like most IPS panels, this TV has an RGB subpixel layout, which is better for PC use than BGR panels because it improves the text clarity, which you can read about here. However, the 50-inch model has a different panel type with a BGR layout.
The LG QNED80 uses pulse width modulation (PWM) to dim its backlight at all brightness levels. The flicker depends on the picture mode you use, and you can see the differences below. The 120Hz flicker can be noticeable and cause image duplication with 60 fps signals, like when you're gaming as it flickers at 120Hz in Game Mode.
Picture modes with 480Hz flicker:
Picture modes with 120Hz flicker:
This TV has an optional backlight strobing feature, commonly known as black frame insertion, to reduce persistence blur. It can flicker at either 60Hz or 120Hz, and while it does a good job at reducing blur, there's still some image duplication. Note that the BFI score is based on the flicker frequencies at which it works and not the actual performance.
Despite the fast response time, there isn't too much stutter, even with 24 fps signals. If it bothers you, try enabling the motion interpolation feature.
The LG QNED80 removes 24p judder from any source, which helps with the appearance of motion in movies, especially if you're watching them from a source that sends 60 fps signals, like a cable box.
It supports all three common VRR formats to reduce screen tearing. It supports Low Framerate Compensation for the VRR feature to continue working even at low frame rates.
The LG QNED80 has low input lag for a responsive feel while gaming, as long as you're in Game Mode.
The LG QNED80 has HDMI 2.1 bandwidth that lets it support all signals up to 4k @ 120Hz, as long as you're using HDMI ports 3 and 4. It also displays proper chroma 4:4:4 with any signal, which helps it display proper text with PCs. If you're using HDMI ports 1 and 2, you're limited to HDMI 2.0 bandwidth, so you can't use it for 4k @ 120Hz signals with chroma 4:4:4 and 10-bit color depth.
The TV doesn't support Dolby Vision, so you're limited to watching HDR content in the basic HDR10 format. One of the HDMI 2.1 bandwidth ports also serves as the eARC port, meaning you can only have one HDMI 2.1 device connected if you have a soundbar or receiver.
Although it has an eARC port, it doesn't actually support any lossless audio formats that require eARC, as it can't pass Dolby Atmos to a compatible receiver.
This TV has an okay frequency response. It sounds alright with moderate listening levels, but there's more deviation and compression at its max volume. Sadly, like most TVs, it doesn't produce much bass, if any.
The LG QNED80 comes with the 2022 version of the webOS smart platform. It's easy to use and it has a few more features compared to past models, like the support of user profiles so each member of your household can customize their profile how they want.
The included Magic Remote has a point-and-press feature that makes it easier to navigate through the menu. It has a built-in mic that you can ask to switch inputs, open apps, search for content, or adjust the settings. The remote that comes with the Costco version of this TV has an NFC feature that lets you tap your phone against the remote to cast content, and it's symbolized with the NFC logo on the remote.