Adventures in AV: LG's flagship OLED TV hints at a bright future – but not in a good way

No one likes a broken record. So if you’ve read any of my recent rants about TVs and their bizarre focus on nits, I apologise.

But, after helping review the LG G6, the firm’s latest flagship OLED TV, I can’t help myself. Why? Because many TV makers still aren’t listening.

To catch readers up, the LG G6 is a particularly big deal if you’re looking to upgrade to a top-tier OLED TV this year. This is because two key players aren’t expected to release flagship OLED TVs in 2026.

Sony – because its two-year re-release cycle and new partnership with TCL, means it is very unlikely we’ll see a successor to the Award-winning Bravia 8 II arrive any time soon. Panasonic – because it’s selling its TV division to Skyworth and only has one new OLED set arriving this year, the entry-level Z86C (Z85C in mainland Europe).

So if you’re planning on buying a new OLED at this level in 2026, you’re likely only going to be able to pick between the LG G6, Samsung S95H or Philips 911.

And I had high hopes for the LG G6, mainly because, though the company shouted about how the set could go 20 per cent brighter than the outgoing LG G5 at launch, it spent far more time talking about changes it has made to let it offer a more true-to-life picture.

So, unboxing it in our test rooms and plonking it right next to the G5, ready to run our standard suite of comparative tests, I was legitimately excited.

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Not to spoil our review, but immediately the TV proved that the first of LG’s claims is true. The TV was noticeably brighter and delivered a truly spectacular performance that will delight fans of blow-your-socks-off experiences.

But the problem is, it does so at the expense of other picture quality metrics that I, and many others, would argue are equally if not more important than brightness.

First up is colour accuracy. Like many of the Mini LED sets I’ve reviewed over the past two years, skylines in particular suffer. For example, during a scene from our Civil War test disc, the skyline is much brighter than what’s on show with the G5, but the G6’s colours look washed out.

The oomph the extra nit count offers comes at the expense of richness, making the scene look flat, by comparison. Honestly, it gave me flashbacks to when I was testing the since-replaced TCL C855K, which suffered from similar issues.

Problems with the G6’s black level continue this theme. Flipping to Sinners, the TV artificially raises the black level in a bid to offer more dark detail. Yes, it adds some detail but, concurrently, it makes parts that are meant to be pitch black look a little grey.

Considering perfect blacks and pixel-level light control are two reasons OLED sets can justify their premium prices, this feels like an odd decision by LG. Again, it’s something I normally worry about with Mini LEDs not OLEDs.

And what’s worse is that there’s no way to fix it. After hours of fiddling with the TV’s settings, including Filmmaker mode, which is meant to turn off all processing, nothing worked.

Yes, people like pop. And yes, the G6 is still a good TV that will delight people who want that punch. But, for cinephiles and more serious movie fans, who value accuracy and consistency, it feels odd, and a move in the wrong direction.

Hence, the need to repeat my rant against peak brightness chasers and pen this piece. Here’s hoping the S95H and OLED911 don’t make the same mistake. It’ll be a bad year for premium OLED buyers if they do.

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