2017 OLED TV Best Buy Comparison Guide

Thanks Steve, this is really useful. :thumbsup:
 
Hi Steve,

in Singapore the LGC7 can be found $3100 and the Panasonic EZ952 for $2999. Given this pricing which would you pick?

I mainly watch 4k netflix, 4k youtube and Singapore is still using 1080i for TV transmissions. Also, I don't anticipate starting a Blu-ray collection anytime soon. I guess upscaling performance is a big criteria.

Another concern I have whether the Panasonic works as well in bright rooms as the LG C7 does, given the lack of black filter and lower brightness compared to the C7. Thanks for your help!
 
Thanks Steve, good read and I know you can only comment on what you have seen but mentioning some banding on anything but LG has not been the case for me (I hope I am in the minority).
Hopefully the banding issue is small out there, but if you check the LG forums you will see a few of us having issues.
I have had a 55" E7 and now a 65" C7 and the banding and tint was/is poor (in my AV anal eyes) on both of the sets I received. They do improve after a few comp cycles, but I clearly see visible bands on the 65" C7 in a lot of content (not just the usual 5% slideshow or banding torture tests) and its quite distracting, in fairness the 55" I couldn't see it in content, but could see the yellow tint (so GoT had some lovely yellow snow scenes).

I don't want to put a downer on this thread (hopefully swap out for a good one and there are members that have really good uniformity so its far from bad).
The Oled technology is amazing, upscaling fantastic and UHD HDR content is just a joy and the prices keep tumbling, so for anyone sitting on the fence, jump right in, you will have a large grin on your face. WebOs is simply ... running out of words, such a great OS.

Just wanted to note that banding and tint may affect your Oled no matter what manufacturer you choose, but if you see it, the retailer will sort it out for you with no hassle so its just a slight annoyance.
 
Hi Steve,

in Singapore the LGC7 can be found $3100 and the Panasonic EZ952 for $2999. Given this pricing which would you pick?

I mainly watch 4k netflix, 4k youtube and Singapore is still using 1080i for TV transmissions. Also, I don't anticipate starting a Blu-ray collection anytime soon. I guess upscaling performance is a big criteria.

Another concern I have whether the Panasonic works as well in bright rooms as the LG C7 does, given the lack of black filter and lower brightness compared to the C7. Thanks for your help!
For its all-round feature set the C7 is hard to beat, even at $100 more, but given your criteria I think I might go for the EZ952 with it's incredible image accuracy. The best thing to do would be for you to go along to a store and demo both models yourself, ideally with some familiar content.
 
For its all-round feature set the C7 is hard to beat, even at $100 more, but given your criteria I think I might go for the EZ952 with it's incredible image accuracy. The best thing to do would be for you to go along to a store and demo both models yourself, ideally with some familiar content.

Thank you for the advice Steve! I will do just that...
 
Thanks Steve, good read and I know you can only comment on what you have seen but mentioning some banding on anything but LG has not been the case for me (I hope I am in the minority).
Hopefully the banding issue is small out there, but if you check the LG forums you will see a few of us having issues.
I have had a 55" E7 and now a 65" C7 and the banding and tint was/is poor (in my AV anal eyes) on both of the sets I received. They do improve after a few comp cycles, but I clearly see visible bands on the 65" C7 in a lot of content (not just the usual 5% slideshow or banding torture tests) and its quite distracting, in fairness the 55" I couldn't see it in content, but could see the yellow tint (so GoT had some lovely yellow snow scenes).

I don't want to put a downer on this thread (hopefully swap out for a good one and there are members that have really good uniformity so its far from bad).
The Oled technology is amazing, upscaling fantastic and UHD HDR content is just a joy and the prices keep tumbling, so for anyone sitting on the fence, jump right in, you will have a large grin on your face. WebOs is simply ... running out of words, such a great OS.

Just wanted to note that banding and tint may affect your Oled no matter what manufacturer you choose, but if you see it, the retailer will sort it out for you with no hassle so its just a slight annoyance.
Yes I can only comment on what I've seen but there was more noticeable banding on the Sony 65A1 and Panasonic 65EZ1002, compared to the LG 65E7 and 65G7. I also feel that banding is more noticeable on the 65" panels because I really can't see any on my 55B7 with actual viewing content and the Panasonic 55EZ952 and Philips 55901F didn't have any problems in this area either. I'm sure it's a bit of a lottery but, as you say, thankfully retailers are willing to address any banding issues.
 
Was mooching around Curry's etc and they had the LG B7 65 inch for £2999 I mean that is just phenomenal good offer at the moment, just could not justify it but I am willing to wait for awhile and will get sometime next year.
A quick question is the Sony 55A1 my current preferred Oled, is that using the latest LG 2017 panels.
Thanks in advance.....
 
Was mooching around Curry's etc and they had the LG B7 65 inch for £2999 I mean that is just phenomenal good offer at the moment, just could not justify it but I am willing to wait for awhile and will get sometime next year.
A quick question is the Sony 55A1 my current preferred Oled, is that using the latest LG 2017 panels.
Thanks in advance.....
Yes the Sony A1 uses the latest LG panel, as do all the other currently available OLED TVs.
 
Yes the Sony A1 uses the latest LG panel, as do all the other currently available OLED TVs.

Except the Philips? Review suggests that's a 2016 panel?
 
I didn't see any prices for Richersounds on the list. They have the TVs I looked from the list (obviously I didn't check all) at the same prices as the list but £100 off any TV over 1k which I seen on there Facebook page.
 
how does my 55eg920v compare to them? i guess i should have waited one more year :(

btw, I don't care about Dolby Vision.
 
Is OLED at prices £2000 and up really worth the money? It sometimes represents between 3 and 4 times the price of an equivalent size LED/LCD. I'm all for advances in technology but I find this apparent obsession for more and more Nits and complex sound matrixes which depend on additional high sums for extra speakers and associated AV equipment is getting beyond ridiculous. I've seen OLEDs in operation and agree the results are nice, but not beyond the odd quirk or two.

When material to give full rein to these specifications is limited, unless you cherry pick your way through 4K BluRays which don't always come up to the mark what is the point?. For day to day television it makes no sense at all and the danger is that with every coming year this current range of tech will be upstaged by the 'next big thing'. The marketing departments will make sure of that. So why waste your money?

I seem to recall reading a while back the Chinese were about to go into production of their own OLED panels. What happened there, or have LG got the patents thing so sewn up that there is no room for competition?
 
Is OLED at prices £2000 and up really worth the money? It sometimes represents between 3 and 4 times the price of an equivalent size LED/LCD.
n?
It's like anything in life if you think it is worth it then you'll buy it..if you don't you won't.

Personally I'm still very happy with my KURO 600krp the picture still looks great to my eyes ,all this latest tech still has faults and until my tv packs up I can't see myself changing it.
Seems there hasn't been a reference tv in years and the constantly changing tech makes this unlikely.
 
It's like anything in life if you think it is worth it then you'll buy it..if you don't you won't.

Personally I'm still very happy with my KURO 600krp the picture still looks great to my eyes ,all this latest tech still has faults and until my tv packs up I can't see myself changing it.
Seems there hasn't been a reference tv in years and the constantly changing tech makes this unlikely.

I recently moved from a Kuro to a B7. It's a very different experience. Some things look better, some things worse. I'd say if you watch things in a dark room, then OLED with its flawless black levels is a huge upgrade. If not, less so. 4K is nice but far from essential and HDR is pot luck at the moment. It often makes things look worse.
 
I recently moved from a Kuro to a B7. It's a very different experience. Some things look better, some things worse. I'd say if you watch things in a dark room, then OLED with its flawless black levels is a huge upgrade. If not, less so. 4K is nice but far from essential and HDR is pot luck at the moment. It often makes things look worse.
I was wondering about dipping into the oled range as like spacecat have a krp600 in a dedicated den but it's only used for bluray in a dark room.. I know 3d is not available on the new oleds but would have been nice to of had it there for the price... how bad is banding and what's motion like.? what would you say the oled surpasses the kuro at and doesn't. . Hope dont mind asking but if I do go down the road of changing tv new 4k bluray player and shelling out a couple grand I need to know it'll be worth it..
Many thanks :rolleyes:
 
I was wondering about dipping into the oled range as like spacecat have a krp600 in a dedicated den but it's only used for bluray in a dark room.. I know 3d is not available on the new oleds but would have been nice to of had it there for the price... how bad is banding and what's motion like.? what would you say the oled surpasses the kuro at and doesn't. . Hope dont mind asking but if I do go down the road of changing tv new 4k bluray player and shelling out a couple grand I need to know it'll be worth it..
Many thanks :rolleyes:

Banding is pretty much a non issue. It exists of you really, really look for it on very dark scenes, but it's very rare.

Motion is kind of rough. The combination of sample and hold with lightning fast pixel response means you see 24fps for what it really is - a very low frame rate. Plasmas are impulse displays and the constant flickering somehow masks low frame rates. OLEDs just show you the cold, hard reality. In truth I've got used to it now. It took a while, but it doesn't bother me (much) anymore.

Plasmas have a very natural, subtle picture. There's not much 'pop', but it just looks real. For better or worse TVs now have to pop which means eye melting brightness. For all the talk of OLEDs lacking the brightness of LCDs they can still produce absurdly bright images. Even SDR content is far brighter than on a Kuro. HDR often feels like you're getting a tan whilst watching a movie. When HDR is done well, such as in The Revenant, it adds just enough 'pop' to light sources to add a nice little flair. When done badly and turned up to 11 (see Le Mans on Amazon for one of the worst uses) it just looks ridiculous. When HDR TVs hit 4000nits you genuinely will need sunglasses to watch TV. In my opinion is a crazy goal.

For me OLED is only about one single thing - black levels. They really are genuinely perfect. Pure, flawless black. It adds so much depth and contrast to everything, and movies set in space, when watched in a dark room look incredible. It will spoil cinema for you, as cinema black levels are hopeless compared to OLED.

Overall I'm very happy with the upgrade. I got a bigger screen too, up from 50" to 65". HDR is clearly a work in progress, but Netflix's Dolby Vision work shows a lot of promise.

As for 4K bluray, that's a contentious issue as most discs are just upscales with gaudy HDR added. Some people seem happy with that, but I'm happy to skip all of those discs. I have a player pretty much exclusively for Blade Runner UHD, after which it will mostly just play regular blu-rays - which can look absolutely glorious on an OLED.

It's big change but a worthwhile one. Go OLED.
 
Thanks for that I think I'll go and get a viewing of one to make my mind up.. any idea which oleds I should look at ie. LG /Panasonic. . At the moment I am pretty happy with the tvs at home and have tweaked my krp a bit and the 5090 kuro in the front room so blacks are good no red tint, I think also it would be handy with all the smart features too.. I get what your saying about the brightness so would tone it down a bit on viewing.. lastly what made you choose the B7 over say the panasonic or sony..?
Many thanks
All the best
 
@Steve Withers Apologies, Mr Withers, I've been away from 10am on Tuesday until 11:30pm on Thursday, and me no have smartphone, otherwise I would have written earlier. I looked at your (almost) comprehensive prices, but one thing immediately occured to me -can I echo @CrossyX's query at post #11 - why are Richer Sounds not listed among the shops that sell OLEDs? Because Richer Sounds do sell OLEDs .... I can understand why Sevenoaks are not listed, because they are quite a small chain, but Richer Sounds are nationwide, even as far as Edinburgh! And Richer Sounds' prices are in line with the other shops whom you have quoted.
 
For me OLED is only about one single thing - black levels. They really are genuinely perfect. Pure, flawless black. It adds so much depth and contrast to everything, and movies set in space, when watched in a dark room look incredible. It will spoil cinema for you, as cinema black levels are hopeless compared to OLED.

My most recent cinema experience being a fortnight ago at the Cameo Screen 3 (which is definitely not IMAX quality) in Edinburgh to watch Dunkirk, I can say that cinema "black" (ha bloody ha) levels are:
  1. Not even as good as the tolerable, but certainly not exceptional, black levels of my Samsung and Sony LCD televisions;
  2. Nothing like as good as the black levels of my Pioneer and Panasonic plasma televisions;
  3. (So I'm told) absolutely nowhere near the black levels of a top FALD set like Sony's ZD9;
  4. (So I'm told, by many people) Yep, hopeless compared to OLED!
 
Thanks for that I think I'll go and get a viewing of one to make my mind up.. any idea which oleds I should look at ie. LG /Panasonic. . At the moment I am pretty happy with the tvs at home and have tweaked my krp a bit and the 5090 kuro in the front room so blacks are good no red tint, I think also it would be handy with all the smart features too.. I get what your saying about the brightness so would tone it down a bit on viewing.. lastly what made you choose the B7 over say the panasonic or sony..?
Many thanks
All the best

I switched over from a kuro 151 to a 65c7 and was at the uk shootout also. I agree with everything Neko said.

The reason I went with LG. Brightness and HDR performance. Not about how bright it can get but its consistency in brightness of the image without having to resort to ABL.

As most of my sources will be of good quality, (no standard def, DVD, etc) the processing prowess of the Sony aren't worth it to me. After having seen Dolby Vision, I'm not going to buy a next gen TV without it so that takes Panasonic out of the running. Both of these have a notably more aggressive ABL implementation which to me takes away from the overall experience.
 
One you dont even mention the sonys smooth graduation which makes sony the best for an all rounder making poor content look better than the rest.

Your also try to portrait that LG Oleds dont have banding ?? Yet all the other models do. LG make the panels so ALL oleds have banding. Ive yet to see one this year with no banding
 

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