9.5

LG CX 55″ OLED TV Review

Near enough perfection, particularly for gamers looking for a great couch experience.

Launched in 2020, the LG CX immediately caught the eye of many with a spec sheet that seemed to tick just about every box. An OLED TV offering 4K quality with 120fps performance? It sounds like a gamers’ dream.

Setting you back up to £2,800 for the 65” option on launch, it’s a premium option with a premium pricepoint to match. But it’s been in the market a couple of years now, so does the LG CX still stack up as a great TV for gamers?

simply put

Even for a TV a couple of generations old, the LG 55CX is an incredible screen that will deliver excellent results at home. Breathtaking visuals coupled with a high refresh rate make this a home theatre powerhouse, particularly for gamers. 

the good bits

Stunning 4K picture quality
Brilliant gaming performance
Super thin bezels and screen thickness

the not so good bits

Clunky stand
Inputs can be tricky to access if wall mounted

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LG CX 55″ OLED TV

design

I’ve been using the 55” variant from the middle of the LG CX range and like the 48”, 65” and 77” options it’s almost entirely screen. With bezels of just over half a centimetre and an almost non-existent physical frame the LG CX is incredibly sleek. It’s incredibly thin too, just under 5cm deep in the bottom half and an almost alarmingly thin 4mm as you move up into the screen only top half.

This makes it ideal for wall mounting, and while the super slim top half is metal backed so feels premium, it does rather get the heart rate going anytime you need to move it and there’s not much to grab on to. It’s also worth noting the VESA mounting points sit lower down than I’ve ever seen on a TV before, so if you’re recycling an existing wall mount you might find yourself a funny viewing angle.

This is a TV you’re going to want to wall mount too because the included stand is entirely impractical. Not only is it a whopping 25cm deep, a majority of this space exists as a bulky black unit behind the screen. The result is a side profile that’s comically unbalanced, leaving a load of dead air behind the panel which sits awkwardly far off the wall. 

performance

With the screen on though, the LG CX is magical. Thanks to its 4K OLED panel it delivers a stunning image with perfect blacks and vivid colour. Unlike LED or LCD panels, each pixel of an OLED panel is powered by its own backlight, meaning incredible contrast and an image that looks particularly impressive in dark rooms.

Enhancing that is the addition of Dolby Vision and the HDR experience is excellent across both gaming and watching. I’m not going to rattle off raw specs of peak brightness and colour gamut (mainly because I don’t understand them), instead I’ll say this; on more than one occasion I lost track of what I was watching because I was more focused on how good it looked on the LG CX. Sorry David Attenborough, I love your voice but it played second fiddle to the visuals here. 

As impressive as the LG CX is for watching movies and TV, it’s gamers that’ll be particularly interested in what it has to offer. With four HDMI 2.1 inputs allowing 4K content at 120fps and full variable refresh rate support, the CX is capable of delivering anything a console can throw at it right now.

The CX ticks every box on my Xbox Series X’s TV checklist and is just a joy to play games on. Forza Horizon 5’s Mexican landscape is breathtaking and games that run happily at 120fps like Rocket League play silky smooth. Even older titles like Shadow of the Tomb Raider look astonishingly good on the CX and it’s going to be a while before this screen falls behind. Despite the LG CX being ready for it, you won’t find many titles that max out both resolution and frame rate simultaneously.

Even at the other end of the spectrum the LG CX impresses. Nintendo Switch games look notably better on the CX than they do on other screens, thanks largely to LG’s α9 Gen3 AI Processor and its clever upscaling. It does a remarkable job of making lower resolution content look better than it is, a very welcome feature particularly on larger screen sizes.

summed up

Simply put, the LG CX is a phenomenal TV. In terms of pure eyecandy and enjoyment you’ll be hard pressed to find a better option, even from newer models that have been released in the two years since its launch. There’s just not much that needs improving.

A mixture of crisp visuals with a high refresh rate lets it go head to head with high spec PC monitors and even gamers with next gen consoles will still struggle to max out what LG are offering here.  

It’s not the easiest unit to find new anymore though, so if you’re in the market for a new TV and happen to spy one hiding in the corner of a retailer you’d be wise to snap it up.

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