First Impressions: LG OLED65G3

Though it is still early days for LG’s latest premium OLED screen, the LG G3 seems to have every chance of making a significant impression

Introduction

It was an unusual year for the biggest TV brands at CES 2023, inasmuch as quite a few of them didn’t say much at all about new models and some didn’t say anything at all.

Of course, no one ever accused LG of being shy – and the company used the world’s biggest consumer electronics trade show to whip the covers off quite a few upcoming new models.

Each is interesting in its own way, but for our money the new G3 OLED TV represents the Korean specialist’s sweet-spot where a combination of performance, design and (likely) price is concerned. That’s why we spent as much time as we were allowed getting our hands (as well as our eyes) on it.

You won’t be staggered to learn that LG has yet to finalise the pricing of its new G3 range. The outgoing G2 cost £2399/$2199/AU$4799 for the 55-inch model when it launched, which is now yours for more like £1599 as it approaches the end of its life.

Like the G2, the G3 will also be available in 65-, 77- and 83-inch variants – but the 97-inch G2 soldiers on, as economies of scale surely dictate it must.

It’s a little early for a firm on-sale date as yet, but the money’s on April or May. That’s been the way of things with LG (and almost all of its main competitors, to be fair) for a good while now.

Design

• Goodbye ‘gallery’, hello ‘on-wall’
• Also hello ‘zero gap’ wall-mount
• Impressive remote control

LG described the G2 as its Gallery range, but apparently this was too obtuse a way of suggesting it was designed to be wall-mounted. So the G3 range is instead referred to as on-wall – and if that doesn’t get the message across, we doubt anything will.

Like the G2, the G3 is only supplied with a wall-bracket (which is now called zero gap) – a stand is a cost option. The screen is super-slim in profile, with similarly discreet bezels, and its relatively light weight means not only is it suitable even for partition walls (well, some of them anyway), but it should be relatively easy for just one person to install.

Control is via a handset that looks a lot like last year’s G2 remote – which can only be a good thing. It’s a fairly chunky object, but its combination of scroll-wheel, sensible button layout, and point and click on-screen cursor makes it one of the most effortlessly usable handsets around. 

Features

• Micro Lens Array technology
• Alpha 9 Gen6 picture processor
• New webOS user interface

By including a layer of microscopic lenses to concentrate the light output of the screen’s pixels towards the viewer, LG is able to boost light output without increasing power consumption. Like all the best ideas, it’s elegant and simple – and if LG’s claim that the G3 is 70% greater peak brightness than the company’s more mainstream B3 OLED range is in any way accurate, the G3 is in line to be one of the brightest OLED TVs ever offered for sale.

It is worth noting the Micro Lens Array technology can boost the big 83-inch model’s brightness by only 30% compared to the equivalent B3 model, though. 

Overall picture performance is governed by LG’s well-regarded Alpha 9 processing engine, here in its sixth generation. As well as taking care of 4K HDR picture quality (the G3 is, as is usual with LG, compatible with HLG, HDR10 and Dolby Vision HDR standards), the processor is brawny enough to make what is already one of TV-land’s most compelling gaming options even tastier. The G3 will apparently support Dolby Vision Gaming all the way up to 4K/120Hz, which is far from common.

Remarkably, LG has managed to take its webOS interface (which was among the most comprehensive and daunting operating systems around) and make it simpler and yet even more in-depth.

Two decks now cover everything from recommendation to integrated streaming services, while a ‘personalised picture wizard’ simply needs you to select some preferences to achieve a workable picture balance. Of course, if you like to get down and dirty there are numerous sub-menus where you can tweak gamma settings, motion control and all the rest…

Picture Quality

• Increased brightness
• Wide colour performance

Imagine your ideal environment for having a critical, searching look at an OLED TV – and now imagine your ideal content for doing the same. If you said “a brightly lit Las Vegas hotel room, surrounded by quite a few other TVs all doing their thing at the same time, and all displaying demo-friendly shots of landscapes and flowers”, then CES is the show for you.

So of course it’s difficult in the extreme to tell exactly how capable the LG G3 is until a review sample arrives. But what I can say, without fear of contradiction, is that the G3 is no lemon – if it was, I’d have probably mentioned it by now.

It’s bright, stable, disciplined where movement is concerned, has a very extensive colour palette, draws even the tightest, most complex patterns with a steady hand, generates impressive contrasts… you name it, the LG G3 is pretty good at it. As soon as a review sample arrives, we’ll tell exactly how good, where in the OLED TV pecking order it sits and whether or not it represents proper value for money. 

Sound Quality

• 60-watt, 4.2-channel system
• WOW Orchestra support

The G3 features the same audio system as the G2 – that’s a 60-watt, 4.2-channel arrangement that’s about as good as it gets for a TV that doesn’t feature the words Bowers & Wilkins or Technics somewhere on its chassis.

But the Alpha 9 Gen 6 processor brings some AI Sound Pro smarts to the party too. The WOW Orchestra feature is a slightly hectic way of describing the G3’s ability to pair with compatible LG soundbars to deliver a bigger, more detailed and more dynamic presentation that the TV (or the soundbar, for that matter) is capable of doing by itself.