LG UQ9000 TV Review

The LG UQ90 has a simple design, with thin bezels on three sides. The light gray borders are a bit dated, and it doesn't look as premium as LG's NANO and QNED TV lineups.

The 'v'-shaped feet are wide-set and support the LG UQ90 well, but you'll need a large table if you aren't planning to wall-mount the TV. The feet lift the display about 2.5" above the table, so most soundbars fit underneath it without blocking the screen. There's also a variant of this TV, known as the LG UQ91 in Europe, which comes with a curved center-mounted stand instead.

The back of the LG UQ90 is very plain. There are hooks on the back of the TV to help with cable management. Most of the inputs face to the side, but they're inset into the back of the TV, so they're difficult to access if the TV is wall-mounted on a fixed stand.

The LG UQ90 has decent overall build quality. Most of it is plastic, so it's quite light, and the feet support the TV well and keep it stable. There's a bit of flex on the back panel, especially near the inputs, but it isn't an issue. Also, there are a few quality control issues with our unit, including a gap on the top of the display where the panel meets the border.

Unfortunately, the LG UQ90 has inadequate contrast, so blacks look gray and patchy if you're in a dark room, and dark scenes lack shadow detail. There's also no local dimming feature to improve the appearance of dark scenes.

Note: The 50, 60, and 70-inch variants of this model use a VA panel and have much better contrast, so blacks look darker in a dark room.

The LG UQ90 has just passable brightness in SDR. It's bright enough to overcome a bit of glare, but it isn't recommended for a bright room. On the other hand, there's no variation in brightness with different scenes, which is great.

These measurements are in the 'Expert (Dark Space, Night)' Picture Mode, with Panel Brightness at 'Max' and the Color Temperature set to 'Warm 50'.

If you want the brightest image possible, switching to the 'Vivid' Picture Mode, with Adjust Contrast at 'Max', Auto Dynamic Contrast on 'High' and the Color Temp set to 'Cool 50' results in a noticeably brighter image, reaching a peak of 356 cd/m² with a 10% window.

Unfortunately, the LG UQ90 has disappointing peak brightness in HDR. Combined with its low contrast ratio and lack of a local dimming feature, bright highlights in HDR content don't stand out at all and display at the same luminosity as the rest of the scene. There's no variation in brightness with most scenes, but very small highlights are dimmed considerably. The TV tracks the PQ EOTF accurately, as most scenes display at the brightness level the content creator intended, but near-black scenes are a bit too bright due to the TV's low contrast ratio. There's a smooth roll-off near the TV's peak brightness, so there's no loss of fine details in bright scenes.

These measurements are in the 'Cinema' HDR Picture Mode with Panel Brightness and Contrast at their max settings, with Color Temperature at ' Warm 50' and all other image processing disabled. The 'Vivid' Picture Mode with the 'Cool 50' Color Temperature is a bit brighter, reaching a peak of 372 cd/m² with a 10% window. If you find HDR too dark, setting Auto Dynamic Contrast to 'High' with the Color Tone set to 'Cool 5' increases the brightness of most scenes, as shown in this EOTF, but the overall peak brightness of the display is the same.

There's no noticeable difference in brightness between 'Game' Mode and the most accurate HDR settings.

The LG UQ90 has excellent gradient handling. You'll notice some banding in areas of similar color, but it's not too distracting. There's also a Smooth Gradation feature to reduce banding, and it works well with real content. This setting works by averaging out areas of similar color, causing a loss of fine details with high-quality content, so we don't recommend leaving it enabled.

The LG UQ90 has mediocre gray uniformity. There are noticeable jailbars across the screen, which is distracting when watching sports or using it as a PC monitor, or any other time you have large areas of uniform color on the screen. The sides of the screen are also darker than the center of the screen.

Unfortunately, the LG UQ90 has mediocre black uniformity. The entire screen appears blue due to the low contrast ratio, and near-dark scenes are patchy. There's no local dimming feature to improve this.

Note: The 50, 60, and 70-inch variants of this model use a VA panel and have much better contrast, resulting in better black uniformity.

The LG UQ90 is a decent choice for a wide seating arrangement, as the image remains accurate when viewed at a moderate angle. Beyond about 30°, there's a noticeable decrease in brightness that causes colors to appear washed out.

Note that the 50, 60, and 70-inch variants of this model use a VA panel and have much worse viewing angles. Those sizes look best when viewed directly in front.

The LG UQ90 has good reflection handling. It can handle a bit of glare, but because it has limited peak brightness, it can't overcome intense glare in a bright room. The semi-gloss finish reduces the intensity of direct reflections a bit, and unlike anti-reflective coatings found on high-end TVs, there's no purple tint on the screen.

Out of the box, the LG UQ90 has okay accuracy. The white balance is mediocre, but most colors have great accuracy. Cyan is noticeably off, though, and the color temperature is very cool, giving everything a bluish tint. Gamma is close to the target of 2.2 for a dark room, but dark scenes are a bit too bright.

After calibration, the LG UQ90 has fantastic accuracy. The white balance and color accuracy are both fantastic, and gamma is perfect. Sadly, the color temperature is still a bit too cool.

You can see our recommended settings here.

The LG UQ90 upscales 480p content, like from DVDs, well.

The LG UQ90 upscales 720p content, like from cable TV, with no visible artifacts.

1080p content, like from Blu-rays, is upscaled well and looks nearly as good as native 4k.

The LG UQ90 displays native 4k content perfectly.

The LG UQ90 can't display an 8k signal.

Most sizes of the LG UQ90 use an IPS panel. The RGB subpixel layout helps ensure text from a PC is clear and easy to read. The 50, 60, and 70-inch variants use VA panels, which likely have BGR subpixel layouts, which causes text clarity issues when used as a PC monitor.

Unfortunately, the LG UQ90 has just an okay color gamut, and it can't display a wide color gamut, so HDR content looks muted. The tone mapping is also very bad with bright scenes, as the TV sacrifices accuracy to push brighter highlights in HDR. In dimmer scenes, the tone mapping is much better:

• DCI-P3 - 60% Stimulus
• Rec. 2020 - 60% Stimulus

The LG UQ90 has poor color volume. It's mainly limited by its narrow color gamut in HDR. HDR content looks flat and dull overall, as colors aren't as bright as pure white, and it can't display dark saturated colors well due to the low contrast ratio.

Sadly, the LG UQ90 has a poor response time. Most transitions are slow, resulting in a long blur trail around fast-moving objects. The low-frequency flicker of the backlight also causes a double image to appear, so this isn't ideal for fast-paced action gaming or for sports.

The LG UQ90 uses pulse width modulation (PWM) to dim the backlight, causing it to flicker at 120Hz at all brightness levels. It causes a double image when watching 60fps content, and it can cause headaches and eye strain in people sensitive to flicker.

The LG UQ90 doesn't have an optional backlight strobing feature, commonly known as black frame insertion (BFI). The backlight always flickers at 120Hz, which reduces the appearance of persistence blur, but it introduces a distracting double image.

The LG UQ90 has an optional motion interpolation feature, but unfortunately, it doesn't work.

Thanks to this TV's slow response time, there's very little stutter when watching low frame rate content, like movies.

The LG UQ90 can remove judder from any source, which is great. It ensures a clear and smooth movie-watching experience.

Unfortunately, this TV doesn't support any advanced gaming features like variable refresh rate technology (VRR), and most sizes are limited to a 60Hz refresh rate. The 70 and 75-inch models have a 120Hz refresh rate, but still don't support VRR.

Despite its limited selection of gaming features, the LG UQ90 has incredibly low input lag, resulting in a responsive gaming or desktop experience.

The LG UQ90 supports most common formats, but only at 60Hz on the smaller sizes. Chroma 4:4:4 signals are displayed properly with all supported formats, which is essential for clear text from a PC, but you have to set the input label to 'PC'.

The LG UQ90 can't take full advantage of the Xbox Series X and PS5. The smaller sizes don't support high frame rate gaming at 120Hz, and it doesn't support variable refresh rates at all. On the other hand, it automatically switches to the low latency 'Game' mode when you start playing a game, so you don't have to worry about changing settings when gaming.

Sadly, this TV is limited to HDMI 2.0 bandwidth, and unlike LG's higher-end TVs, it doesn't support Dolby Vision or HDR10+, so you're limited to HDR10. It doesn't change much overall as this TV can't display HDR well anyway.

Unfortunately, this TV doesn't support any DTS formats, which is disappointing as many Blu-rays use this format for their main audio track. If you're planning on using the TV with a UHD Blu-ray player, you should connect the audio from your player to your home theater system instead of using eARC.

The LG UQ90 has an okay frequency response. Like most TVs, the low-frequency extension (LFE) is very high as it has very little bass, with very little thump or rumble. Above the LFE, the frequency response is well-balanced at moderate listening levels, so dialogue is clear and isn't lost in the background. At max volume, there's a bit more compression, especially in the mid and high treble range.

This TV has decent overall distortion performance. There's relatively little distortion in the mid to treble range, which is where most people are likely to notice it. Even at max volume, there's very little total distortion.

The LG UQ90 runs the 2022 version of LG's webOS proprietary smart interface. The interface is fast and easy to use, and the updated version now supports user profiles, meaning you can customize the home page for different users. LG advertises this as version 22, which is a shift from the previous versioning system. 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.

Unfortunately, like almost all smart TVs on the market, there are ads throughout the smart interface, and you can't fully disable them.

The LG UQ90 has a great selection of additional apps, so you're sure to find your favorite content.

This TV comes with the same LG Magic Remote found on high-end LG TVs, like the LG C2 OLED. You can use the remote like a pointer, making it easy to navigate through menus. It also supports voice control, which works well. You can use voice commands to change inputs, open apps, search within apps for content, and even adjust basic settings.

There's a single button located on the bottom of the TV in the middle. You can turn the TV on or off with it, change inputs or channels, or control the volume.

• Power cable
• Remote (with 2x AA batteries)
• Cable management clips and cable tie
• User manuals