LG UM7300 TV Review

The UM7300 is LG's basic 4k model for 2019 for U.S. markets. It replaces the 2018 UK6570. There's a 2019 UM6300, but this is now a 1080p model. The main competitors for this model are the Sony X800G, the Samsung RU7100, and the Vizio V Series 2019.

The LG UM7300 has a decent design. It's fairly minimalist, with thin bezels and wide-set feet. The stand supports the TV well, but there's some wobble.

The stand supports the TV well, though it wobbles a bit when nudged. The feet are wide-set, so you'll need a large TV stand if it isn't wall-mounted.

Footprint of the 55" model: 44.5" x 9.1"

The back of the TV is very plain. Some of the connectors face directly out the back and may be difficult to access if wall-mounted. There's no integrated cable management.

The borders are thin and not very distracting.

The LG UM7300PUA is slightly thicker than the UK6300. It sticks out quite a bit when wall-mounted, especially if you use the back-facing inputs.

The LG 55UM7300PUA has decent build quality. It wobbles a bit less than the UK6300, and has a nicer frame, but doesn't have the metal back found on the UK7700.

The LG UM7300 has a mediocre contrast ratio, which is expected of most IPS panels. Blacks will appear grayish when viewed in the dark, and unfortunately, there's no local dimming feature to improve dark room performance.

The 50" model is expected to have a VA panel, and will have a much better contrast ratio.

The 55UM7300PUA has a decent peak brightness, good enough for most decently-lit rooms, and there's very little variation in brightness when displaying different content.

Peak brightness was measured with the 'ISF Expert (Dark Room)' Picture Mode, which is the most accurate. Different picture modes and color temperatures can produce slightly different results.

If image accuracy isn't as important to you, the 'Vivid' Picture Mode delivers a slightly brighter image, reaching a peak of 402 cd/m² with a 10% window.

This TV doesn't have a local dimming feature. The above video is for reference only.

Mediocre HDR peak brightness, too dim to show off small specular highlights in some scenes. It's slightly brighter than the UK6300 and UK7700.

We measured the HDR peak brightness with the 'Cinema' Picture Mode before calibrating. Different picture modes and color temperatures can produce slightly different results.

If image accuracy isn't as important to you, the 'Vivid' Picture Mode delivers a slightly brighter image, reaching a peak of about 410 cd/m² with a 10% window.

The UM7300 has good gray uniformity. There's some vignetting at all corners of the screen, but only slight dirty screen effect, which is great.

Decent black uniformity, but there is noticeable backlight bleed, which is typical for IPS TVs.

The 50" model is expected to have a VA panel and will have a much better contrast ratio, and likely has better black uniformity.

The LG UM7300PUA has a decent viewing angle, but it isn't as good as most IPS TVs. Colors don't shift very much at an angle, but they wash out at moderate angles. The black levels remain relatively flat at moderate angles, but they increase at wider angles, causing the image to appear washed out.

The 50" model is expected to have a VA panel, and will have worse viewing angles.

The LG 55UM7300PUA has excellent reflection handling, very similar to the LG UK7700. The semi-gloss finish diffuses reflections across the screen, without the purple tint seen on high-end TVs.

Out of the box, the UM7300 has decent color accuracy, but gamma is too high for the most part, causing most scenes to appear darker than they should.

After calibration, the UM7300 has excellent accuracy. The white balance is almost perfect, with only a slight inaccuracy in pure whites. Gamma follows our target of 2.2 almost perfectly. There are still a few color inaccuracies, especially in highly saturated blues, but most people won't notice it.

You can see our recommended settings here.

Older content, like DVDs, looks great, with no obvious issues or upscaling artifacts.

720p content, including most cable TV stations, looks great, with no obvious issues.

1080p content, like Blu-rays and older consoles, looks almost as good as native 4k content.

Update 01/29/2020: LG Canada has confirmed that the 49" model uses an RGBW panel, similar to the UM6900 we've tested. 4k content likely looks slightly worse on that model.

Unlike the UK6300, the LG UM7300 doesn't use an RGBW pixel structure, and 4k content is displayed with no issues.

The LG UM7300PUA has a decent color gamut, but it can't display a wide color gamut. The 'Expert (Dark Room)' EOTF (above) follows the target PQ curve almost perfectly until it rolls off near the TV's peak brightness. The Game mode EOTF is almost identical.

If you find HDR too dim, unfortunately, there isn't much you can do on this TV. Setting Dynamic Contrast to 'High' increases the brightness of bright scenes, and helps a bit in extremely dark scenes. See our full recommendation here.

Disappointing color volume. This TV can't produce very bright colors, and can't produce dark saturated colors, due to the mediocre contrast ratio. These results are better than the UK6300 this TV replaces, but not as good as the UK7700.

Good gradient performance overall, but there is noticeable banding in almost all areas. If banding bothers you, the Smooth Gradation feature can remove banding, but also causes a loss of some fine details in some scenes.

The TV shows some minor signs of temporary image retention, but it disappears almost immediately.

Although some IPS panels can suffer from temporary image retention, this doesn't appear to be permanent as the IPS panel in our long-term test appear immune.

The UM7300 has an excellent response time, with very little overshoot, which is great. It is a bit faster than UK7700, and quite a bit faster than the UK6300.

The backlight flickers at 120Hz regardless of Backlight setting, which may bother some people. This low flicker frequency does help to clear up motion a bit, but causes noticeable duplications, as seen in our Motion Blur photo.

The LG UM7300PUA doesn't have an optional Black Frame Insertion feature. The backlight flickers at 120Hz in any mode, which does help clear up motion, but causes some noticeable duplications in motion, as seen in our Motion Blur photo.

The UM7300 has an optional motion interpolation feature, but it can only interpolate up to 60 fps. In fast-moving scenes, it can struggle a bit and stop interpolating, causing the picture to appear jerky due to the sudden change in refresh rate.

Learn more about motion interpolation, and how to enable it on the UM7300, here.

Due to the fast response time, low frame rate content, like movies, does appear to stutter at times. This is especially noticeable in wide panning shots. You can reduce the effects of stutter by enabling motion interpolation.

The LG UM7300 can remove judder from true 24p sources, like a Blu-ray player or the native apps, but can't remove judder from sources that output at 60Hz, like a cable box.

See here for our recommended settings for judder removal.

The LG UM7300 has a simple 60Hz refresh rate, which may disappoint some people. It does not support any of the variable refresh rate technologies, like FreeSync or HDMI-Forum's VRR.