First look at LG OLED TVs for 2022: The best TVs get brighter and bigger
TVs
Speaker 1: O led TVs have the best picture quality and LG makes more OED than ever. In fact, they make my favorite high end TV of the year, the C1 series. Now we're getting a look at the C2, its successor, along with LGS entire 2022 lineup.
Speaker 1: So first off we're here at LGS brand. New is in New Jersey. No, this is not Las Vegas, even though it kind of looks like a CES booth. The thing is that CES 2022, this year will be mostly virtual for [00:00:30] LG. So this is where we're gonna get the first and only look at the brand new televisions before we can check 'em out in earnest later this year. So you see a lot of TVs around me. A lot of them are Ole TVs, but LGS mainstream, its best seller. And my favorite last year was the C1. Its successor is the C2. You can see it here in a 65 inch size. Now the new addition of the C2 compared to the C1 has LGS Evo panel not only started by telling you that that Evo panel LG says it's brighter, but when I tested the G one last [00:01:00] year, that has the same panel, it really wasn't that much of an image quality improvement that said the C1 was an excellent television.
Speaker 1: I think the C2 is gonna be right there among the best TVs of the year. New for 2022. It does have a 42 inch size, which is again, the smallest O led TV. You're gonna find on the market horse. There's a 48 55, this 65, a 77 and even an 83 inch size. So massive range of sizes in the C1 series. They've improved their video processing. It's got [00:01:30] a new gen five alpha nine processor. They say that improves HDR performance and it uses AI and natural learning algorithms to do that. So LG also improved gaming for 2022, the 2021 C one was my favorite gaming TV on the market. The C2 looks to be even better. There's the game optimizer mode that I really like last year. LG is adding a sports mode as well as a dark mode for when you're playing in a dark room and you experience eye fatigue.
Speaker 1: So it's gonna reduce brightness and kick in a blue light filter. Of course it [00:02:00] has full HTMI 2.1 inputs, including 4k hundred of 20 Hertz and VRR on all four inputs. So that's a feature not found on a lot of its competitors. Couple other improvements this year, O TVs are incredibly thin, but LG says that it's improved its manufacturing with a new carbon fiber material to make the C2 about 47% lighter than the current generation model, which would improve, especially on those larger screen sizes. Now here we see L G's web OS smart TV system for 2022. It's very similar to last year. I don't love [00:02:30] all the space taken up by these promo things, but I guess that's what everybody's doing now. You can kind of see 'em scrolling really easily with the, uh, remote here. It's got the same kind of movement on the cursor, but new for 2022, you can actually create user profiles.
Speaker 1: So you can go in and rename certain profiles according to family members and things like that. And it'll repopulate different areas. You can add a kid's profile, for example, to only show, uh, the movies and TV shows that work for children. So that's a new feature this [00:03:00] year, another new feature that we're not gonna be able to see here. LG says you can actually get two LG TVs and have one put in another part of the house and they'll communicate via wifi. So you could plug in, for example, a cable box into one TV and watch that cable box on the other TV completely wirelessly. So that's a pretty cool feature, but again, and it requires a second 2022 LGTV. So O led TVs have spectacular picture quality and that's because they can produce perfect black levels and also get really bright. The thing is they can't get as bright as [00:03:30] some of the competing LCD based TVs out there.
Speaker 1: LG says new for 2022, they're addressing that issue in the G2 series. Now this is the gallery series, step up models compared to the C2. We were just talking about the real difference from my opinion, at least, is that they do have an improved Evo panel. So LG says that in addition to processing, there's a new physical component to the panel. That'll improve heat dissipation. The idea is to be able to get the whites and the brighter parts of the image evil and brighter [00:04:00] than they were before. So with that new Evo panel, LG G two can get 20% brighter. They're saying, and of course we'll measure that when we review it, but that's a pretty bold claim and could allow OED picture quality to be even better. So another improvement on the G2 is it's gallery design. That means the panel can hug the wall.
Speaker 1: There's no bulge sticking out in the back. It can be completely flat against the wall, even thinner than it was last year. And yes, LG added a larger size to the G2 as well. There's a 97 inch model. Now [00:04:30] we don't know how much it's gonna cost, probably more than 10 grand, but it is the largest O lid TV yet. And again, it's in a 4k resolution. 97 inches should be pretty tremendous, but again, reserves only for the richest rich. So let's say the G2 is too rich for your blood, particularly that 97 inch size. This is the a two. This is L G's entry level O led TV. Now it has all the video quality benefits of OED, namely that perfect black levels, 4k resolution, everything you'd expect, [00:05:00] but it's gonna cost a lot less. So the 55 inch size this year of its predecessor, the a one is about 1100 bucks.
Speaker 1: We expect the, a two to be around the same price range. Now what you don't get on the a two is that peak gaming capability. So it doesn't have the 4k hundred 20 Hertz input or VRR. It'll still be a very good gaming TV, but not quite on the same level as the C two. It also lacks 120 Hertz refresh rates. So this is a 60 Hertz television motion handling. Won't be quite as good. We also don't expect it to be quite as bright as the C2 [00:05:30] or especially the G2, but again, very, very good picture quality, especially for the money that's LGS entry level a two. So we've seen a lot of Ole TVs this year, including the entry level and the higher end models, larger sizes, smaller sizes, higher brightness entry level pricing. So LG is really trying to get even more Ole TVs sold this year than they have in the past as my favorite high end TV on the market this year, we're gonna wait to see how they do, but we'll test them against all the other TVs on the market and let you know, later in the year, [00:06:00] I'm David Kat, Seyer for CNET, and this was LGS pre CES 2022 showcase.
