Hands on: LG M5 (OLED65M5) review

Cables, eh. What a pain they are, ruining the clean lines of even the loveliest TV designs with their tangles of demonic spaghetti.

They’re just so 1980s, honestly. If only there were a way to enjoy perfect pictures and sound without them, we’d have consigned them to the bin of TV history years ago.

Cue LG’s M5 OLED: a TV so successful at dodging the cable bullet that we almost wish it shipped with a bin to put said now-redundant cables in.

LG wasn’t terribly keen to send a sample of the M5 to us for review in our test rooms, but was happy to host a testing session in its UK offices. Given our enthusiasm for the concept, we naturally accepted.

This means, however, that we couldn’t check the M5 over in the full range of carefully controlled conditions we normally apply to TV reviews, or feed it quite as expansive an array of testing equipment and content as we usually would – so we haven’t quite given it our full review treatment here or, therefore, a star rating.

That said, the location we found ourselves looking at the M5 in could be fully blacked out, and also featured an artificial light system bright enough to at least simulate the sort of light levels you might get in a sun-drenched living room.

Plus, we were left entirely to our own devices for many hours to do with the TV exactly as we pleased – so we feel what follows can be considered representative of what anyone who buys an LG M5 OLED will experience in their own homes.

Price

The 65-inch LG M5 launched for a very premium price of £3799, but it can now be bought for a significantly discounted £2799.

There are also 77-, 83- and mammoth 97-inch versions of the M5, which currently cost £4099, £6299 and (oof) £24,999 respectively.

We’ve only been able to find the 77-inch version of the M5 in the US, where it currently costs $3800. The full range is available in Australia, though, priced at AU$5995, AU$6199, AU$8199 and AU$39,999.

The UK prices mean the M5 models command premiums of £300 to £500 over the equivalent G5 sets in the 65-83-inch sizes – though the price hike at the time of writing between the 97-inch M5 and G5 models is a rather inexplicable £5000.

The 97-inch price becomes even harder to swallow when you consider that this set doesn’t benefit from the latest generation of ultra-bright Primary RGB Tandem OLED screens that the smaller versions of the M5 have.

With those smaller screen sizes, though, the M5 price difference really doesn’t seem unreasonable at all for the extra tech and design purity you’re getting.

Design

The M5 looks pretty sweet. Shorn of the need to carry the usual bank of connections and internal image controls and processing systems, its strikingly monolithic design is only 24.3mm deep from front to back, while the width of the bezel around the screen has also been kept to a pretty bare minimum.

We’re not quite in ‘pictures from nowhere’ territory, perhaps, but it’s pretty close. Especially as the only cable running into the TV is the power cord – a single cable that would be relatively easy to channel into the wall beneath the TV if you really wanted the ultimate minimalist look.

Of course, the screen isn’t the only part of the LG M5; it also ships with the rather important external Zero Connect Box. Named for the fact that it’s claimed to deliver its wireless picture and sound to the screen without any significant lag/delay, the chunky black Zero Connect Box is considerably less sleek and easy on the eye than the screen it feeds.

It’s a fair bit smaller than its predecessor from 2024, though, and since its wireless range is now rated as capable of delivering lossless picture and sound quality over a range of up to 10 meters, you can hide it pretty much anywhere in your room.

This year’s Zero Connect doesn’t even require a direct line of sight with the screen as its predecessor did – though LG does state that some materials, especially metal, could interfere with the signal, as could placing it fully inside a cabinet.

The M5 ships with one of LG’s classic ‘Magic’ remote controls. These feel a bit plasticky as partners for such premium TVs, but their rounded-off and well-balanced shape makes them comfy to hold. Plus, they famously add both ‘point and click’ wand-like functionality and a spinning vertical menu navigation wheel beyond the usual remote control options.

Features and specs

The two star attractions of the LG M5 are its completely wireless picture and sound capabilities, and the fact that its screen uses LG’s latest Primary RGB Tandem OLED technology.

Regarding the former, remarkably, LG states that 4K video at frame rates up to 144Hz can be transmitted from the Zero Connect box to the TV, along with soundtracks up to and including Dolby Atmos, without any compression or other loss of signal quality.

The latest OLED panel, meanwhile, uses two blue-emitting layers to separately illuminate the red and green layers, drastically improving the brightness LG’s new premium OLED screens can achieve without causing colours to thin.

On paper, then, there’s precious little reason why the 65-inch M5 should perform differently to the 65-inch G5 we tested a while back.

The only clear spec difference in performance terms, assuming the wireless transmission system actually performs as LG claims it should, is that the M5’s frame rate support tops out at 144Hz versus the G5’s 165Hz. This seems to be down to limitations of the wireless transmission system rather than differences in the actual OLED panel capabilities, though – and 4K/165Hz gaming is, of course, very niche at this point.

The Zero Connect box does feature, though, a connectivity downgrade from the G5, in that it only carries three HDMI ports rather than four. These are all high-bandwidth HDMI 2.1 ports, though, capable of supporting up-to-the-minute features such as 4K/120Hz (actually, 144Hz), VRR (including both the AMD FreeSync Premium and Nvidia G-Sync systems), and ALLM switching.

The HDMI 2 socket supports eARC, too, so that you can pass sound up to lossless Dolby Atmos out via HDMI cable to a soundbar or AV receiver.

Other connections include a pair of USBs, satellite and RF tuner inputs, a LAN port, an optical digital audio output, and an IR Blaster jack so that you can add a remote control extender. There’s wireless support, too, for Google Cast and Apple AirPlay streaming.

As with the G5, the M5’s self-emissive OLED panel is powered by LG’s latest Alpha 11 processor – a processor amusingly claimed to be so much more powerful than its Alpha 9 predecessor that LG had to skip the expected 10 denomination.

Key among the claimed new tricks of this processor are much-expanded AI and machine learning capabilities aimed at further improving picture and sound quality. So, for instance, it’s reckoned to achieve much better upscaling of low-res and low-quality source images by applying much deeper and more contextualised real-time analysis of the incoming video signals.

New options have been provided, too, to allow calibrators and confident/competent end users to customise LG’s dynamic tone mapping system for optimising HDR sources to the OLED panel capabilities.

The Alpha 11 processor’s advanced pixel colour and light control is also claimed to be key to unlocking the brightness potential of the M5’s new panel design – which is why LG’s marketeers prefer to describe its newfound brightness talents under a Brightness Booster Ultimate moniker rather than expressly talking about the Primary RGB Tandem OLED panel.

On the sound front, Alpha 11 is capable of upmixing all audio formats, even stereo, to a virtual 11.1.2 surround mix. Though the TV’s actual speaker set-up is only a 4.2-channel affair, driven by a decent 60W of claimed total power output.

An AI-based acoustic tuning system is onboard too, to optimise the TV’s sound to your room set up, while LG’s WOW Orchestra feature means the M5 can ally its own speakers with those in an LG soundbar, rather than the soundbar just taking over all sound duties by itself.

The tendrils of Alpha 11’s AI elements extend into the latest incarnation of LG’s webOS smart system, too.

In fact, the remote control now features a dedicated AI button that provides instant access to a whole suite of AI-driven features including AI Voice ID (for automatically recognising who in your household is using the TV so the TV can switch to their individual user profile); an AI-bolstered content search engine; an AI Chatbot that functions as a sort of automatic customer services call line; an AI Concierge feature that provides a simple ‘how can I help you today’ pathway into the TV’s more advanced AI features; and AI Picture and Sound Wizards that optimise the TV’s performance to your tastes based on your responses to a series of multiple choice picture and sound samples.

Inevitably, for a modern smart TV, the M5 supports voice control, including a far-field mic so that you can operate your TV without needing the remote control.

The latest webOS platform provides a comprehensive lineup of video streaming services, including the catch-up apps for the UK’s main terrestrial broadcasters, plus Netflix, Prime Video, YouTube, Disney+ and Apple TV+. Also, as hinted in the previous paragraph, webOS 25 supports multiple individual user profiles so that the TV can present personalised content recommendations based on each user’s viewing habits.

There’s a Home Hub screen to help you monitor and access all your connected (both physical and wireless network) devices, too, while a Game Hub screen brings together your connected game devices and all the game streaming services LG supports – including 4K/120Hz streams via Nvidia GeForce Now.

The M5 also supports the LG Gallery+ subscription service that gives you access to more than 4,000 digitised artworks to use as screensavers when you’re not watching the TV in earnest. This feature, which essentially turns your TV into an artwork, works particularly well with TVs as specifically designed for wall mounting as the M5 is.

We did notice while exploring the M5’s smart features that its menus could become a bit sluggish at times, suggesting that they’re putting a lot of strain on the TV’s processing core. But there’s certainly no questioning the scope and ambition of LG’s latest webOS efforts.

One last feature of the M5 to report is that, as well as carrying a Filmmaker Mode designed to deliver a particularly pure and accurate picture, in keeping with all LG OLED TVs, it supports the HDR10, HLG and Dolby Vision high dynamic range formats, but not HDR10+.

Picture quality

We had expected to be able to pretty much boil the picture quality part of this hands-on report to a simple ‘it’s basically the same as the G5’ and move swiftly on. Actually, though, things didn’t turn out to be quite so straightforward.

We arranged for a 65-inch G5 to be set up right alongside the 65-inch M5, and fed the same signals into each TV using an HDMI splitter. Our main intention for doing this was to check that the M5’s wireless transmission system really does deliver pictures and sound with no reduction in quality versus the hard-wired G5, but what the head-to-head actually revealed was differences between the pictures of each screen that didn’t appear to have anything to do with their wired and wireless delivery.

In fact, on the wireless quality point, the M5 passed with flying colours. Try as we might, we couldn’t spot any signs that its pictures were being affected by their journey over the Wi-Fi airwaves. There’s no extra picture noise, no evidence of compression blocking or mosquito noise, no extra softness, no smearing or frame rate stuttering.

In fact, if anything, the M5’s pictures looked slightly sharper and more detailed than those of the G5.

This unexpected and actually slightly puzzling difference in the M5’s favour (which was achieved with every picture option on both the G5 and M5 set exactly the same) alerted us to look closely for more. And we actually found quite a few.

For one thing, the M5’s pictures carried a slightly browner overall colour tone across all presets than the G5, which tended towards a greener look to things. The G5’s colours could look generally a touch richer than those of the M5, especially with skin tones – chiefly, we think, because of the wireless screen’s slight red leanings. The M5, though, exhibited slightly less posterisation than the G5, especially in Filmmaker Mode.

Neither screen was as completely free of this slight colour banding effect during complex sequences containing lots of subtle colour blends (such as the aerial spinner shootout and subsequent watery gun-fight as Agent K rescues Deckard towards the end of Blade Runner 2049) as we’d ideally like, but it’s good that the M5 seemed slightly better in this respect.

With extremely dark shots, black levels looked deeper and more neutral on the M5 when the red tinge didn’t get in the way, but a little subtle shadow detail could go AWOL compared with the G5. With mid-dark shots, though, the G5 hit deeper blacks in the darkest parts of the picture, but suddenly suffered with slight shadow detail crush.

Since there’s no reason why a physical versus wireless delivery system should deliver such differences, our best guess as to what was going on is that we were seeing differences in the two TVs’ out-of-factory panel conditions. Certainly, we were able to get the screens looking a bit closer together by spending time with their advanced colour and white balance management tools.

It’s also more than a little important to stress that while the out-of-the-box conditions of the G5 and M5 screens were more different than we would have expected, both sets, in their slightly different ways, still looked spectacularly good by the standards of the TV world at large.

They hit levels of peak brightness that we once thought OLED could never achieve, for instance, surpassing by some margin the intensity of brightness peaks with HDR content that last year’s then-groundbreaking premium LG OLEDs managed. Partner this with the screens’ stellar black level performance and pixel-by-pixel lighting, and you’ve got pictures that enjoy both an amazing contrast range and some gorgeous luminance-based insight and subtlety.

Both screens also retained more brightness with full-screen bright HDR content than previous generations have, too, making for a more consistent HDR experience, and colour saturations in the Standard and Cinema presets were gorgeous, with really no trace of the washing out effect that was once thought to be an issue with making LG’s OLED technology as bright as it is here.

It’s important to stress, too, that the way LG’s new OLED panel technology works should ensure that the extra brightness is delivered without the screens becoming more likely to suffer with the permanent image retention issues that were once such a problem for OLED technology.

The M5’s pictures joined those of the G5 in adapting beautifully both to the relatively accurate look of their Cinema and, especially Filmmaker Mode presets, and the punchier look of the Standard preset that many users will find it hard to turn away from once they’ve experienced it.

Viewing angles were still exemplary versus the vast majority of screens that use LCD technology instead of OLED, and while there was a slight difference in sharpness in the M5’s favour, both TVs actually looked properly 4K with native 4K content, and enjoyed LG’s cleanest and most detailed-looking upscaled HD pictures to date.

LG even has a motion processing mode now in the shape of its Cinematic Movement option that can take the edge off OLED’s hardware judder with 24p sources without leaving the results either looking so smooth they turn big-budget movies into cheap TV soap operas, or being ruined by distractingly obvious processing artefacts.

Both screens reacted spectacularly to being fed Dolby Vision sources, provided we stuck with their Dolby Vision Cinema or Dolby Vision Filmmaker Modes (the Dolby Vision Standard option could flicker a bit), and finally, the M5 joined the G5 in being a superlatively vibrant, crisp and responsive gaming display.

If you’re the sort of gamer for whom literally every millisecond counts, we found that the wireless transmission system of the M5 model did cause a tiny extra 1.3ms of delay in rendering 60Hz images than the 12.9ms of input lag recorded using the G5’s wired connection. While generally interesting, though, this tiny difference seems irrelevant considering any input lag of less than 20ms is considered more or less imperceptible.

Sound quality

Despite its trimmer design versus the equivalent G5, the M5 delivered a pretty much identical audio experience, complete with all the same strengths and weaknesses.

Starting with the weaknesses, the default Dolby Atmos setting felt muted, trapped in and lacking in dynamic range, projection and general impact. It also tended to fall away when the loudest movie moments hit rather than rising to meet their challenge, and everything sounded as though it was happening behind the screen.

Deep bass sounds caused a little crackling distortion, too, while very dense, layered soundtrack moments started to become congested and slightly muffled.

Fortunately, LG’s AI Sound Pro mode improved things. Activating this instantly increased both the M5’s potential volume reach and sound stage scale, with sound effects spreading much further beyond the edges of the screen.

This enhanced projection created a more convincing sense of the placement of specific effects and the 3D sound field effect that we look for with Dolby Atmos mixes – especially as the acoustic processing involved with AI Sound Pro also created a more pronounced sense of sound coming forward towards us. We even felt a slight sensation of sound effects stretching down the sides of our seating position with AI Sound Pro active.

Dialogue was clear and sounds quite accurately positioned on the screen with AI Sound Pro active, too. That said, sometimes this mode’s ambitions reached a little far, causing the occasional rich, detailed sound stage to feel a little incoherent and/or harsh.

AI Sound Pro is still far preferable to the ‘locked in’ sound you get without it, but ultimately, a TV this impressive needs to be partnered with a dedicated audio system.

Verdict

While the performance of our M5 test sample wasn’t quite identical to that of the G5, the differences weren’t related to the M5’s wireless technology – and, crucially, they didn’t stop it from being, in its own slightly different way, every bit as beautiful to watch with both video and gaming sources as its sibling.

The LG M5 is a truly premium performer, genuinely uncompromised by its cutting-edge convenience features.

A few super-hardcore gamers may be deterred from the M5 by its lack of 165Hz support and slightly higher input lag versus the G5.

For many home cinema fans, though, especially those looking for a TV to hang on a wall, we reckon the relatively small extra cost of the M5 will feel like money very well spent.

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