LG E9 (OLED55E9) OLED TV Review & Comments

Thank you for another very informative review. I currently have a C7 and would be interested in just how much better the new gen TVs are. I find the motion on my set a little jarring.
 
In the last 8 years I bought 3 LG TV's. The last one being the 65 LG C6 (the last model to support 3D alas). Although I have no complaints about picture quality, I do have complaints about the satellite tuning system. It is a complete disaster, and of course these kind of reviews never look at this part of a TV.

As usual the help-system is abundant about trivial controls, but as soon as it gets a bit difficult you are out in the cold. Several contacts with the LG help-desk made it clear the customer service doesn’t know one iota about this problem, and they invariably suggest to revert to factory settings…

So what goes wrong ?

The most common thing to happen is that some channels suddenly disappear completely, so there is no way you can put them in your favourites again, you have to scan the satellite (waiting patiently because BBC four only starts transmitting at 7 o’clock), and then waiting till the scan is completed.

Luckily I found that I can save the channel list to an external disc, and if channels disappear (I guess this happens because of bad memory management when updates to apps are installed) you can restore the channel list and your favourites from the disc. Fine (although you also have to re-enter the permanent recordings of a series you may have programmed), this week the TV found a new way of annoying me : when I switched to BBC2, after a few moments it changed to BBC1, again and again.

Restoring the channel list did nothing to remedy this problem, so I had to go back to zero and scan the satellites. LG why can I blind-scan Astra 19.2 and 28.2 but not Astra 23.5 ? If you forget to uncheck blind-scan Astra 23.5 the system hangs when it reaches that satellite and you have to restart the TV to get out of it (you get a warning when you try to abort the scan normally, but if you answer yes or no, it makes no difference : you are stuck)

How can I get updates for new transponder lists ? I suppose LG has them to put in new TV's ?
How do I know the transponder list is up-to-date, because some transponders just seem dead (although I have a 100 % signal, and 100 % quality on all transponders that do work.

You think I could manually edit the transponder list… but if the first transponder doesn’t give a signal then my LG doesn’t look any further, it thinks the whole satellite has left orbit… and there is nothing to edit.

The automatic scanning does not find all channels, because when I manually scan transponder by transponder (quite a chore) it always find a number of channels that the automatic scan didn’t.

Also, LG, if by some miracle you are looking to these kind of comments : please give us a list with the frequencies, and the possibility to sort channels by satellite and by frequency. And a way to sort favourites by letting the user give in a number, instead of the laborious bubble sort you implemented.

So finally would someone brave it to test this satellite system in the newest LG, just to know if this system has evolved (I spare you the flaws of the first LG in that regard), because scanning channels and rearranging favourites takes the best part of a day.

When I am at home I can eventually fix these problems, my wife (and most users I guess) would have to pay for assistance.

Forgive me the long rant.
 
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Not sure what your definition of "not a lot more is" £1999 v £1399 is quite a bit more in my book!
RRP, yes but if you keep an eye on deals then one for £17-1800 or less shouldn’t be too hard to find in the boxing day/January sales. During Black Friday most retailers had the 55 inch E9 between £1600-£1800, and I got one for £1400 brand new from Crampton&Moore who were selling them at that price for about 16 hours before they sold out completely while other retailers were still pushing their C9 for £1300-1400 deals.
 
Thank you for another very informative review. I currently have a C7 and would be interested in just how much better the new gen TVs are. I find the motion on my set a little jarring.
Motion is reasonably improved over the C7 which I had previously. I now have a C9 and E9 (split my time between two homes) for comparison. But you still will get judder sometimes with low frame rate content unless you enable motion compensation. I was watching the new season of the Expanse and there was one particular scene which required me to set dejudder to about 7 or 8 out of 10 before it was eliminated. This however introduced soap opera effect. In fact, anything above level 1 was too much for me so I just make do. If this is a problem for you then either go with Sony who still have the best motion handling around or wait to see if LG and other brands improve their motion handling next year.

I would say that there’s no point in upgrading to another LG this year just for moderately improved motion. It is however absolutely worth it if you want HDMI2.1 features like eARC and variable refresh.
 
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Nice post @Bruggelink,

With regard to satellite tuning in many respects the pre-2014/15 televisions running LG's Netcast OS offered more logical functionality. And you could create your own channel number lists....

Indeed. Some time ago after the bizarre loss of Channel 4 HD on the Freesat platform I decided to back up the Freesat TV channels list (using the 'Copy Programmes' function) and manually re-edit all the channel numbers to match Sky's channel number list and create an all new GlobalClone00001.TLL file (which took many hours to do).

Anyway, after uploading the all new GlobalClone00001.TLL file, the TV rebooted itself and 'all' the free-to-view satellite channels available via 28.2E were working fine. However, and this is the bit I don't understand, the Freesat logo/icon is still displayed, which also has the knock on effect that the 'manual tuning' option has been removed too!
 
With regard to satellite tuning in many respects the pre-2014/15 televisions running LG's Netcast OS offered more logical functionality. And you could create your own channel number lists....

I am looking around for a second TV because the wife and I have rather different TV interests but before I fork out a lot of money for another LG I think I will have a look at Philips or Panasonic first. Anyone with experience on satellite connection with those brands ?
 
Hi @Steve Withers , I'm still waiting on RS to deliver my E9 but have a question on sound output on the inbuilt speakers . I have a 5.1.2 Atmos set up but as a shift worker I tend to only ramp this up during the day watching UHD BDs . In the evenings we tend to use the displays inbuilt speakers for general TV,Netflix and the like as to not upset the neighbours. Now I realise the E9 inbuilt speakers are and upgrade over say the C9 for example . Is it possible to run a wireless Sub from just from the TV to add a little LFE to the inbuilt speaker soundstage ?
 
Hi @Steve Withers , I'm still waiting on RS to deliver my E9 but have a question on sound output on the inbuilt speakers . I have a 5.1.2 Atmos set up but as a shift worker I tend to only ramp this up during the day watching UHD BDs . In the evenings we tend to use the displays inbuilt speakers for general TV,Netflix and the like as to not upset the neighbours. Now I realise the E9 inbuilt speakers are and upgrade over say the C9 for example . Is it possible to run a wireless Sub from just from the TV to add a little LFE to the inbuilt speaker soundstage ?
Not as far as I'm aware, although I didn't review the E9. However the C9 definitely doesn't, and I'm fairly sure the other OLEDs in LG range don't either.
 
Thinking of buying a e9, what are members opinions of the anti screen burn options on the set?

It's as good as your going to get with an oled and I'd say just go and buy one .
 

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