LG - 65" Class - OLED - E8 Series - 2160p - Smart - 4K UHD TV with HDR

The LG E8 is without a doubt the best TV I have ever owned or seen. The design, picture quality, performance, and software are all top notch. If you would like to read more I outlined some areas of interest, but honestly it is the best TV currently available. Design LG designed a beautiful TV. The display and glass combined are less then 1/2 an inch thick, making the TV appear deceivingly thin. The glass bezel extends almost to the bottom of the stand providing an elegant floating appearance. The speaker grill is below the display and adds a larger black bezel where otherwise the glass design could have been emphasized more. The glass display features an anti-reflective coating that reduces reflections, a nice touch. The metal stand is understated in a good way, with a refined brushed anthracite finish and small LG OLED branding. Dimensions of the stand are 1.5” at it’s highest point, 27” wide and 8.5” deep, extending 4 inches out front and back. Behind the display the components are housed in an attached enclosure that is only 2” deep, 50” wide, and 14” tall. The enclosure also provides the VESA interface for mounting the TV on a wall. I would of liked to see a slightly slimmer component enclosure to match the thin design of the E8, thankfully it is hidden from view and will be soon forgotten after you set it up. Picture Quality Amazing. Rich, vibrant colors combined with inky blacks provide the most beautiful display I have seen. Of course 4K HDR content looks incredible (Apple TV 4K) but I am equally impressed with the upscaling of 1080P material, practically making everything eye candy. Being my first OLED, I never understood why people enamored about the black levels of a TV. I assumed there is no detail in black so what is the point of worrying about how black the display is? I couldn’t have been more wrong, the deep blacks combined with infinite contrast make a display that is not even in the same league as LED-LCD TVs. My previous less then a year old TV had FALD (full array local dimming) and it can’t hold a candle to this TV. Again it is hard to appreciate until you experience it but the viewing angle of this TV is practically 180 degrees making every seat around this TV a great one. The 2018 LG OLEDs also have numerous picture improvements thanks to the new a9 processor. The LG E8 offers improved motion handling, black frame insertion, and dynamic tone mapping to name a few. I don’t use some of the settings such as BFI, but it is nice to know the features are there if you need them. Brightness I was concerned about the TV not being bright enough after reading some critics of OLEDs but I couldn’t disagree more. I believe LG tweaked the ABL on the new models but I don’t have an older one to compare. I can say it is every bit as bright as my recent LCD TV. In fact, initially my wife and I found it too bright! We turned the brightness (OLED light) down considerably but eventually settled on setting the OLED light to AUTO (energy saver) and let the sensor adjust based on ambient lighting. Gaming With low input lag, 4K HDR support, and dynamic tone mapping, the E8 makes a perfect display for your console. The dynamic tone mapping does a fantastic job enhancing HDR content not only for movies but games as well. My PS4 Pro looked fantastic when playing 4K HDR games such as Far Cry 5. The TV also supports BFI at 60 FPS which is a feature some may prefer over the default interpolation method. Inputs/outputs The E8 features 4 HDMI 2.0 ports with one port dedicated to ARC. It also has 3 USB ports for external media (120 FPS HFR content), optical (toslink), composite, and RF(coax). I would of liked to see HDMI 2.1 on board for future proofing, but I don’t think the spec was finalized during production. Fortunately all four HDMI 2.0 ports supports HDR, though you will have to enable it for each port initially. Sound I found the built-in speakers to be better then average. I don’t think it will negate the desire to have either a sound bar or AVR for most enthusiasts but I think some people will be satisfied with the quality. The E8 does a good job of providing spatial audio thanks to Dolby Atmos but ultimately it lacks the bass provided by a subwoofer. The good news is the ARC via HDMI 2 works flawlessly. Image retention / Anti-Burn in New to the 2018 LG OLEDs is Logo Luminesce Adjustment which dims static pixels to further reduce the chance of the dreaded burn-in. The E8 also has additional prevention features such as Pixel-Refresh and Pixel Shift. I welcome all of the mitigation provided by LG but from what I have read I don’t think burn-in is a widespread issue on OLEDs. I game/watch various content and have never noticed any indication of image retention much less burn-in, it’s a non-issue for me. WebOS/Smart TV LG WebOS is a very refined and speedy interface. It took me a little time to get accustomed to the remote (movement is Wii like), but I can now quickly access and change settings as needed. The app variety for WebOS is a little thin, but all of the big content providers have their apps on the platform (Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Google Play, etc). WebOS now features LG’s AI ThinQ platform that can be initiated by holding down the microphone on the remote, instead of always listening which I think most would prefer. I found the “AI” to be very helpful in locating content or settings but periodically the Google Assistant would interrupt and return the results instead of the LG AI ThinQ. Ultimately, I found the Google Assistant to be less helpful and tended to provide answers out of context (searching for a movie would bring up local or web results instead of the movie with ThinQ). WebOS also provides Alexa/Echo integration which can provide a nice set of ubiquitous “Alexa” commands to control the TV. Despite the fantastic offering of voice control options, I tend to prefer using the remote.

Normally when I write a review I like to attempt to compare it to a similar product that some people may be familiar with. However, that may prove difficult to do because I have not personally experienced a television like the LG E8PUA 4K HDR Smart OLED TV 65". That being said, the smart 4K LED television I replaced was a high end 8 series model from a well-known manufacturer and is only a year old so that should put things into perspective. For starters, the new 2018 LG OLED that is now an OLED panel set under actual glass is pretty heavy in comparison to other LED models but after using it the glass just felt like it should have been there all along. I found the glass also does not reflect nearly as bad as my other OLED which was unexpected. I find that many people in the TV market still ask about refresh rate which is really obsolete in this category; comparing a 120/240 hertz refresh rate to this is no comparison and I did not notice any “image drag” during fast pace scenes, sports, gaming, etc. The A9 processor makes using the TV and all of its features so fluid; there is barely any wait time to load apps, switch inputs, adjust settings, etc. LG’s operating system and features are so easy to set up initially and use that walking and average user through it did not seem like a chore but it also allows for the more advanced tech savvy users to tweak the settings and give us something to play around with. There are several video and sound settings to adjust quality depending on what you’re displaying however you could also potentially set and forget it using their intuitive auto adjusting features. Somehow they managed to squeeze in a 4.2 sound system on this TV that measures only a fraction of an inch thick at its smallest point. Unfortunately, with that much sound built in and the TV inputs, processor, etc. that’s where the bulk is near the bottom of the TV may take away from showing off how thin it is. I have a full stereo surround sound system optically wired to the TV but find that I’m actually using the TV speakers to conserve energy because it actually has impressive acoustics and deep bass for an on board sound system. The magic remote, as LG calls it, acts as a pointing device (think computer mouse) for your TV which is very convenient for pointing and clicking on what you want or when typing. The remote also has a scroll wheel and shortcut buttons for Netflix and Amazon Prime Video which I find using very often instead of having to use the home menu. However, the remote is really the only thing for me that falls short and that’s only because it’s not back lit if you’re in the dark and don’t know your way around the buttons. Overall, there truly is nothing I’ve seen that compares to the image quality this TV displays and was unexpectedly impressed with the built in sound for such a thin TV. This OLED TV is absolutely stunning to look at even when it’s not on; and when it’s on, the image is so impressive that even someone not into TV video quality like I am is taken back by its beauty. It’s almost as if the images jump out at you in true color and life.

We had an LG 65" 4K LCDTV in our main room. It was nice to watch movies on our Apple TV 4K, Sony UHD player and PS4 / X-Box One. As nice as it was, we were always a bit wary since we got it as a Best Buy floor model / return. It didn't have a remote or anything. I'd been researching OLED vs LCD technology to understand the difference. Let me say, it's visually striking. In a nutshell, LCD uses a backlight to create the image, so you'll never get true black. With OLED TVs, each pixel illuminates on their own, so if a pixel needs to show black, it doesn't light, meaning you get true blacks. This also allows for the TV to be amazingly thing since there's no backlight to accommodate. Our previous TV also only supported HDR in a single HDMI input, my guess is because it was still in it's infancy in the consumer space. We saw this TV and my wife and I both fell in love with the design, picture, and features. This TV is a SmartTV, meaning you'll be able to access things like Hulu, YouTube or Netflix without having to connect a dedicated streaming device. It's also billed as a TV with AI - but you can relax, it's not true AI, but it does support a deep integration with Alexa / Google Home. Our Echo is paired with a Logitech bridge, so I didn't have any need to activate that particular feature in the TV. The TV speakers support Dolby Atmos audio which sounds fantastic. I push the audio into a sounder setup that I have, but honestly, the TV sounds just as good as the sound bar in our room. I'm sure I could get much better quality sound if I hooked it up to a premium system, so something to save up for! One thing I love with this TV setup is the inputs. It comes with 4 HDMI inputs that support HDR as well as one that supports HDMI-ARC. Oddly enough, it also comes with a connection that allows an old-school composite connection. In case you're curious how a PS2 game looks on a 4K screen, it's not that great. But I was able to play my old PS2 games, which was cool. It does upconvert content to 4K, but with some hits and misses. For example, the PS2 picture looked bad because it's an older, analog signal. But our regular Blu Rays and HD movies on iTunes, Netflix and Amazon Video looked amazing. If you're an Apple TV user like I am, you should also know that this TV supports Dolby Vision for the Apple TV 4K. The motion, contrast, colors, they're all freaking brilliant! This is a premium TV with premium features. At $4,000 it's certainly not a cheap investment, but this TV makes us feel like we have a real theater in our house. We decided that we'd make the investment and enjoy some premium features. In hindsight, I'm so glad my wife agreed!

I consider myself a TV professional. I've had 6 flagship TVS over the last 15 years. I have owned Samsungs up until now. I researched for weeks between the Samsung Q9FN and the LG E8. I decided on the Q9FN. Unfortunately, the TV had an issue with the panel in which the perimeter appeared faded. The second panel, that Samsung installed, made the quality noticeably lower and the viewing angles became unbearable. I returned it and bought the LG E8. I will tell you two things....the Samsung can pretty much hit oled blacks and the motion is super smooth. Other than that, this LG E8 is unrivaled. The picture looks fantastic! I have a PS4 Pro hooked up to it and it looks better than even the Samsung Q9FN did. A couple of things to keep in mind. This TV is the same as the C8 performance wise. I wanted the luxury look and feel. All of my sources are tuned by me and are using Audioquest Chocolate HDMI cables.

First, I want to thank Best Buy for allowing me to return a few TVs (2017) that had vertical banding. I waited patiently for the E8 to come out and finally made the purchase. So happy I did. No vertical banding at all! Some people prefer LG OLED, others Sony OLED. Both are amazing TVs. I recommend seeing each in person, then make your decision. You will be satisfied with both. I just LOVE the picture on glass look and no angled screen (why I chose LG).

I would recommend it to anyone who wants to see a big difference in 4K viewing on Netflix, Amazon & Vudu. I also use Xbox for 4K movies. I have had this TV for about three weeks now and still am amazed at the picture.

Pros: Beautiful images Great looking TV A mountain of options to fine tune image quality Built in Apps – Netflix/YouTube – easy to use Built in speakers are decent Wall Mountable Integration into home theater system Dolby Vision! Magic Remote works well with TV Cons: Audio Return Channel is buggy Simplink overrides receiver settings Unable to tell if content is Dolby Vision or some other HDR format Mounting holes on TV are on the bottom third of the TV instead of dead center Magic Remote does not integrate well with LG 4K Player Proprietary power cable First off, the TV is gorgeous. The pane of glass covering the front of the TV does add a little extra something to the classiness of the TV. There is about two inches of extra glass hanging off the bottom of the screen that fits into the wedge-shaped TV mount. LG went for the floating TV illusion. I am unsure if they succeeded because I hung this TV on my wall. The extra glass does look a bit out of place when the TV is hanging but nothing that detracts from my enjoyment of the TV and the home entertainment center it is integrated into. The picture quality is also first rate. All content served up by the TV, such as Live TV and Netflix, look fantastic. If some piece of content does not look as good as I think it should then there are plenty of picture presets and granular controls to adjust the content to my liking. This TV is capable of Dolby Vision. This is one of the reasons why I got the TV. In order to enjoy Dolby Vision content, you must also have a Dolby Vision capable source. In my case I picked up the LG UBK90 4K Blu-ray player. The first movie I tested was Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2. The eye candy in this movie is a visual feast. It is mind blowing on the OLED65E8PUA. Everything was vibrant, rich, and some of the best image reproduction I have ever seen on a TV screen. As a follow-up, I streamed the movie Coco from the built in Netflix App! Holy Cow did that movie look amazing! The kicker is that the movie was streamed at 1080p. The TV did an incredible job with color reproduction and motion control. I did play several other pieces of content from regular Blu-ray, live TV, and streaming services. In a few instances I did cycle through the picture presets and in a few cases modified the motion controls, OLED Brightness settings, and a few other settings. Essentially, I adjusted the TV to my personal taste. One place where imaging enhancement options proved import for tuning certain content. For example, I found that I had to turn the judder control, under the TruMotion menu to 10 to watch certain scenes in Star Trek Beyond. Specifically, towards the beginning of the movie, Kirk and McCoy walk onto the bridge of the enterprise. The camera then pans around the bridge. The scene is complete garbage without Judder turned all the way up. For most movie content, this has become my default setting. For live events I turn Judder off. It is not a technology that does well with content such as sporting events. I did notice a few quarks during 4K playback. When a 4K movie starts, the HDR format is displayed in the upper right-hand corner of the screen. Sometimes it would display HDR and sometimes Dolby Vision. This is with Dolby Vision disks such as Guardians 2 and Black Panther. I could not find an option that would report which HDR format was being used during movie playback. The images were still amazing. Though, I would like to see a feature that reports to the user which HDR format is being used. Maybe even allow me to choose which format to use. Though, the later is more of a curiosity than a need. I would like to be able to see the actual difference between formats demonstrated on the same TV. I hope LG gets on this one and releases an update. One final thought regarding HDR. Be sure that your cables are Ultra HDMI cables or 2.0x compliant. They need to support 18gb throughput. Otherwise, you risk degraded image reproduction. You can look up HDMI standards on Wikipedia or other sources for more information about the different HDMI standards. My system is using Ultra HDMI cables from Rocketfish. I did mount this TV onto a pre-existing TV mount. The mounting holes are located on the bottom third of the TV instead of dead center like most other TVs. I dropped the wall mount by six inches so that the TV is at the same viewing level as my older Sony. The speakers, connectors, and components that drive the TV are in a bump out on the lower third of the TV. There are several connectors that face directly out of the back of the TV. These include the HDMI 4, two USB ports, RS-232, Optical out, LAN, and an audio/video connection that is unfamiliar to me. The other connectors are hidden behind a removable panel and point to the side of the TV. If you plan on mounting this TV, and need access to the back facing connectors, then I recommend that you pick a mounting kit that keeps the TV away from the wall. The sound quality of this TV is pretty good as far as flat panel TVs go. The sound was clear and held good volume. This will be more important to me as the summer heats up and I shut down the home theater to save on home cooling costs. There are six speakers in this TV. They are all located in the bottom third of the TV. I cannot tell you specifically where they are located because it is difficult to tell the difference between a speaker grill and an air vent. There are holes on the bottom of the TV facing the floor and vents on the top of the equipment housing. I cannot be more specific without taking the TV apart. LG states that this TV is Atmos capable. I cannot imagine that the TVs speaker arrangement will give any Atmos effects as is. I am sure the answers are in the TV user manual that you can find in magical fairy unicorn land because the manual that comes with the TV is a waste of effort on LG’s part. The TV does have a built-in help system but it is also minimal effort at best. It would have been nice to have a better explanation of how this TV supports Atmos along with a solid write up covering all the other TV’s options. As wonderful as this TV is, I did run into some annoying challenges. First, Simplink is overly aggressive in how it manages other controllable equipment. This TV is integrated into a home theater system. For example, the when I tell the TV to use the receiver input, the TV automatically assumes I want to connect to the BD input and then switches on the Blu-ray player. If, instead, I really wanted to use my Xbox, then I am forced to fight with the receiver for control of the BD input. It will keep picking the BD input and player for a good two minutes. Yikes! Second, when I do turn the input back to Live TV, the receiver input will not automatically change back to TV. The LG also will not engage the Audio Return Channel, ARC, when I do manually turn the receiver to the TV input. I have to reset the receiver input connection in order to re-engage the ARC. Pain in the butt. CEC, ARC, and Simplink was enabled on all devices. I also tried multiple combinations of these connective technologies enabled/disabled. I did some research on a few AV forums that I frequent. Apparently, issues like this have been around for a few years. One possible solution is to ignore the ARC all together and bypass it with a toslink cable, also known as a fiber optic cable. I have not tried this myself, yet, but many folks reported success with this work around. There were no reports specific for this TV. The magic remote does not integrate well with any other device other than the TV. LG did tell me to try the magic remote with the LG 4K player connected directly to the TV. According to LG, sometimes a receiver will disrupt or misinterpret the commands from the remote. I did not connect the 4K player directly to the TV for two reasons. First, I want the receiver to manage my device relationships. Second, I have limited space in the cable cover running along my wall for cables. A second HDMI cable would be impossible to hide with my current setup. It is a nice to have but not a must have feature. Even if I could achieve full system integration, the Magic Remote only has a play and pause button. Not exactly a robust set of options for controlling other LG devices or compatible home theater equipment. In LG’s defense, it does appear an effort was made for system integration with the Magic Remote. If you go into the Input selector screen (press the image of the cable and then choose edit from the menu) you will find that you can setup multiple devices including home theaters, BD players, DVD players, Game systems, etc for magic remote compatibility. At best I can setup the LG 4K player to recognize play, pause, and the directional buttons. The select button, however, is not recognized regardless the settings chosen. I can manage power on/off for almost anything. TV management with the magic remote is pretty good. The pointer takes a little getting used to. I found it easy to navigate between menus and options using the remote. I know a lot of people are complaining about the remote’s cheap look and feel. I do not mind it much. It fits in my hand well. All buttons, except the power buttons, are accessible with my thumb without having to change my grip on the remote. Finally, the power cable is a disappointment. The connector to the TV is a proprietary plastic connector that has more in common with a circuit board connector than a traditional three-pronged power cable connector. I am sure there is a good reason LG chose this design. However, this does lock me into a power cable that is about five feet long. If you need a longer cable, like me, then you will need to contact LG directly to see if they will sell you one. Over-all, this is a beautiful TV. Hopefully LG is working through the integration issues. Otherwise, this TV is a pretty awesome

This TV was my first OLED TV so I will review based on other 4k TVs I have owned. When I opened the box at home I was very nervous that the glass would be broken because this thing is like two car windows (thickness wise) pressed together. Surprisingly the TV is very sturdy and in fact, more sturdy than my last 65 4k TV. As soon as you open the box there is an unpacking instruction sheet conveniently right there to ensure you remove it properly. The functions on the TV are way better than my old LG. WebOs has come leaps and bounds from the original. With the pointer remote, you can fly through your apps and select what you want to view. Picture is absolutely stunning! This first thing I noticed was the blacks are truly black not a dark grey. When you are watching singing shows or concerts you can really see how good the contrast is with all the flashing lights and blacks. Other than that, unless you are watching 4k content from a DVD or Amazon, its the same old cable feed and there is only so much you can do with making that picture any better. The 4k content is absolutely better but if you are just buying this to watch cable, I would save your money and go with something cheaper as you won't get the full potential out of this TV. The one issue I had was since the TV is so thin, the only way you can attach you wall mounts are at the very bottom so that raises the TV significantly even with my brackets adjusted to the lowest setting so I did need to drop the wall plate about six inches so it fit the same spot as my older TV. Overall, this TV is a piece of art! There is no LG badge on it anywhere and it just looks like a piece of glass hanging on your wall, it's awesome. The price seems a bit steep but overall I am very happy. This TV is truly the top-of-the-line!