| Design | 7.0 |
| Picture Quality | 7.2 |
| Motion | 7.2 |
| Inputs | 9.7 |
| Sound Quality | 6.1 |
| Smart Features | 8.2 |
- Outstanding low input lag.
- Image remains accurate when viewed at an angle.
- Can't produce deep, uniform blacks.
- HDR doesn't add much.
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Market Context
The UM7300 is LG's basic 4k model for 2019 for U.S. markets. It replaces the 2018 model UK6570. There is 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.
Design
The LG UM7300 has a decent design. It looks very similar to last year's UK6300 and UK7700. The legs are very close to the sides of the TV, so it needs a large stand to support it if it isn't wall mounted. The stand supports the TV well, but does wobble a bit if nudged or if your floor isn't solid. It has decent build quality, and there are no obvious signs of concern, but it doesn't have the metal back of the UK7700. There is no cable management.
The stand supports the TV well, allowing only minimal wobble when nudged. Unfortunately, the stand is nearly the full width of the TV, 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 is no integrated cable management.
The LG UM7300PUA is slightly thicker than the UK6300. It sticks out quite a bit when wall-mounted.
Picture Quality
The LG UM7300PUA delivers decent overall picture quality. Like most IPS TVs, it has a mediocre contrast ratio, and isn't as well-suited for dark room viewing. This model doesn't have a local dimming feature, but has decent black uniformity. The UM7300 has decent peak brightness in SDR, but in HDR it can't get bright enough for small highlights to really stand out. It has decent viewing angles and excellent reflection handling. Unlike the UK6300, this TV doesn't use an RGBW pixel structure, and there is no subpixel dithering, which is great.
Like most IPS TVs, the LG UM7300 has a mediocre contrast ratio, very similar to the UK6300. Blacks look slightly grayish in a dark room. Unfortunately, this TV lacks a 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.
Unfortunately, this TV does not have a local dimming feature. The above video is for reference only.
Decent peak brightness, good enough for most decently-lit rooms. The 55UM7300PUA is significantly brighter than the UK6300 and a bit brighter than the UK7700, which is great. There is very little variation in brightness with different content, which is great.
We measured the peak brightness with the 'ISF Expert (Dark Room)' Picture Mode, as it 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.
Mediocre HDR peak brightness, too dim to show off small specular highlights in some scenes. It is 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 is some vignetting, but only slight dirty screen effect, which is great.
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 at wider angles they increase, causing the image to appear washed out.
The 50" model is expected to have a VA panel, and will have worse viewing angles.
Decent black uniformity, but there is noticeable backlight bleed, which is typical for IPS TVs. Unfortunately, there is no local dimming feature, which could improve black uniformity.
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 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.
With our pre-calibration settings, this TV has decent color accuracy, but gamma doesn't follow the target of 2.2 at all, and most scenes 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.
1080p content, like Blu-rays and older consoles, looks almost as good as native 4k content.
Unlike the UK6300, the LG UM7300 does not 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.
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.
Motion
The LG UM7300 has decent motion handling. It has a great response time, producing clear motion that has only a short blur trail behind it. The backlight flickers at 120Hz at any setting, which may bother some people, and causes duplications in moving objects. It doesn't have an optional black frame insertion feature, and doesn't support any of the variable refresh rate technologies.
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 does not 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.
There is an optional motion interpolation feature, but as it is a 60Hz panel, it can only interpolate up to 60 fps. Like the majority of TVs, the UM7300 does its best to interpolate fast action, but when it can't keep up it stops interpolating, which can be distracting 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.
Inputs
The LG UM7300 has outstanding low input lag, and it supports all of the common 60Hz input formats. It can also display chroma 4:4:4 properly with any resolution, but only in 'PC' mode. It has a decent selection of inputs, but has fewer HDMI inputs than more expensive models. Unfortunately, this model only supports HDR10, and does not support any dynamic HDR formats, like HDR10+ or Dolby Vision.
Outstanding low input lag, almost as low as the best 60Hz gaming monitors. The UM7300 has very similar low input lag with almost any supported input signal, as long as 'Game' mode is enabled. New this year is support for auto low latency mode, as long as Instant Game Response is enabled for the HDMI port in use.
See our recommended gaming settings here.
The LG 55UM7300PUA supports all of the common 60Hz input resolutions, and can display all of them with proper 4:4:4 chroma, so that text looks the way it should, as long as the input icon is changed to 'PC' from the Home Dashboard.
Some of the high bandwidth resolutions, like 4k @ 60Hz + HDR, require the HDMI ULTRA HD Deep Color setting to be enabled for the port in use.
This TV has 3 HDMI ports, all of which are HDMI 2.0 ports. It doesn't support any advanced HDR formats, like HDR10+ or Dolby Vision.
The LG 55UM7300PUA can pass through both DTS and Dolby Digital, which is great, but it doesn't support eARC for higher quality audio formats.
Sound Quality
The LG UM7300PUA has mediocre sound. It can't get very loud, and the bass can't produce any thump or rumble, and has very little body. It has a well-balanced sound for clear dialog, but it lacks some airiness. For a better sound, a dedicated speaker setup or soundbars is recommended (see our recommendations for the best soundbars).
