LG OLED evo G4 review: A stunning entertainment hub

To paraphrase a completely overused saying, with so much power comes a lot of responsibility. That’s a bit how I felt when testing out LG‘s best and newest flagship TV, the 2024 OLED evo G4. It can do so much, with different settings based on whether you’re watching a cinematic movie, playing a game, or just watching TV at night. It boasts a lot of artifical intelligence help, offers voice-control, and a plethora of settings that can be changed manually or set up to automatically adjust based on not just what’s on the TV, but the time of day and the immediate environment. You can just start watching what you want, sure, but you would be doing yourself, and the TV, a disservice.

It’s a tricky proposition. With so much to offer in terms of visual quality, I was at times overwhelmed, confused, and excited when watching content. As the top TV LG offers, I wanted to make sure I made the most of it. It can take some time, but it’s absolutely worth it. Here’s what I found out.

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LG G4 OLED evo

Top-tier OLED TV boasts incredible brightness and contrasts, and includes myriad settings to optimize film, TV, and gaming, making it an ideal companion for all forms of entertainment.

Pros

• Array of image enhancements and presets
• Impressive brightness and contrast
• Myriad gaming features
• A.I. suite assists viewing

Cons

• Options require effort
• Some screen glare
• Expensive investment
• Remote is lacking

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Price, availability, and specs

The G4 retails for around $3,300 and is available directly from LG’s website, as well as from Amazon, Best Buy, and Walmart. This 2024 model supplants the G3 from last year, making it the top TV from LG’s premiere G series of models.

There are a few specs of note. While the TV supports Filmmaker Mode, Dolby Vision, and HDR10, it does not support HDR10+. It boasts a native refresh rate of 120Hz, and includes a suite of AI enhancements and gaming support.

Design

Slim and simple

The TV looks impressive before you even turn it on. It’s slim and boasts very thin bezels that are hard to notice from a distance. You have a choice of a pedestal stand, or you can opt to mount the TV on the wall. As I was only temporarily testing it out, I didn’t have the opportunity to mount it, but under normal circumstances I would do so and thoroughly recommend it as well; the slender design lends itself to sitting nearly flush against a wall. Still, the pedestal was easy to put together and offered two height options, though the difference was only an inch or two.

There are plenty of inputs, including 4 HDMI 2.1 ports, and they are easily accessible on the back left side of the unit. I have a setup in which it’s easy to block out most external light, which is a huge benefit for OLED TVs in general and the G4 in particular. During the day when watching content with darker scenes, I could see my nearby window glare in the screen at times, and there is a definite reflective quality that could hinder viewing content with dark scenes during the day. I didn’t find that extra hint of light particularly problematic, but it was present while I was watching Jaws in the afternoon.

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Software

WebOS is fine, if lacking

WebOS, LG’s operating system found exclusively on its smart TVs, is suitable and practical, and plenty adequate for navigating content. But it could be better. After toggling off the sponsored content that occupies the top of the home page (and will annoyingly start playing if you have to scroll over it), the top portion of the home hub is left empty. The center row of apps is well-placed, and the order can be arranged, but most of what else occupies the home page is unnecessary.

Scrolling down leads to rows of suggested content, either based on a specific streaming service or popularity, but nothing is particularly useful or specific to me. For me, I don’t care what is on YouTube, and while some might, I want the option to get rid of that. I would also like to be able to have a lengthy watch list accessible from the home page — I downloaded the JustWatch App, but it does crash sometimes when used on the big TV. WebOS works well enough, but I’m still left wanting for the customization and integration of Google TV.

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I do like that my recent source pops up on the home screen, so I can quickly return to my PS5 or Chromecast. I also enjoy how the settings menu comes up. You can arrange a sort of quick menu of options so that when you press the settings button on the remote, you can quickly toggle a short list of frequently-used settings instead of winding your way through the menu.

Remote is complicated

I developed — and continue — to have a complicated relationship with the remote. The ability to create a cursor out of the remote, and move it around the TV like a Wii controller, is both a blessing and a curse. There is a bit of a learning curve, in part because the cursor will sit on the TV for a while if you don’t manually turn it off. It comes in handy for some uses, such as any time you need to type something in on screen, but it can also be tedious settling in on a small icon.

I found the voice control on the remote much more useful. Holding down the microphone button brings up the voice search, and you can request a title, ask about what you’re watching, or generally inquire about entertainment news. Sometimes the TV misheard me, or sometimes it heard me all too well, responding with a bit of sass telling me it sounds like I’m really fond of Barbie, which is true, but really I was just trying to find out which service it’s on. There are also buttons to directly access Disney+, Prime Video, and Netflix, which are useful, though the Sling TV and LG Channels quick access buttons are less important to me.

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Still, I find the remote is too bulky, noisy, and poorly laid out. I think we can safely forgo having an entire keypad on the remote. However, there are plenty of ways around that, namely having a button that brings up a keypad on the TV.

I also admit that the loud click of the buttons also becomes annoying over time, especially if I’m scrolling through titles, hearing a noise each time I rapidly click. The home button is curiously placed directly below the volume button, and with a similar feel, it’s easy to head to the home page when you’re simply trying to make the TV quieter.

Performance

Supberb, rich, and vibrant brightness

To put it bluntly, this is a bright TV. I first turned it on late in the evening, with the sun already down and lights in the room soft and dim. The screen lit up the whole area. The OLED brightness setting was one I returned to frequently to tinker with. I tend to watch most movies and prestige content with blackout curtains drawn and some faint strip lighting for balance and color, so I don’t need a ton of brightness. The general knock against OLED TVs is that they don’t achieve the same peak brightness as QLED TVs, but this TV was a reminder that there are a lot of factors that play into that judgment, including personal sensitivities, how dark the environment is, and how close you are to the TV. I was also reminded that so much conjecture about brightness and contrast is more about subtle differences than sizable issues.

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Granted, the G4 is the newest and top TV, and it brings with it a second-gen MLA display that purports 3000 nit peak brightness. When researching and reading about TVs, numbers can be opaque, which is why it helps to witness a TV in person before buying it. But it was still staggering just how bright it was in the evening. I frequently turned down the OLED brightness below 50, and even below 20 at times when watching TV late at night. During the daytime with the sun shining, brightness wasn’t an issue with most content.

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I enjoyed that the TV knew when it was nighttime and the immediate area was dark; it adjusted the brightness automatically so that my eyes weren’t overwhelmed. When casually watching TV at night, I quickly turned on the eye-care feature to remove the excess blue light. Small touches like that are helpful because all content consumption isn’t created equally, and sometimes I just want content playing in the background.

Cinematic content impressed

I watched some major blockbusters and there were details I feel like I’d never seen before. I was reassured when, in the corner of the screen as whichever title played, the TV was optimized for HDR, Dolby Vision, or Filmmaker Mode. I watched select scenes from Marvel movies on Disney+, from recent Mission: Impossible films on Prime, and from Netflix original action films. I tried to stick with content that was made with the newest technology in mind best suited to be watched on an equally formidable TV like this one. Across the board, what I saw was stunning.

OLED TVs are championed for their contrast: with individual pixels able to turn off, portions of the screen can achieve true black. I re-watched The Long Night, the infamous dark and hard to see Game of Thrones episode featuring the much-anticipated battle against the White Walkers. Despite watching on Crave, one of the worst streaming services in Canada, which unfortunately, has a monopoly on HBO content and doesn’t support the best video or audio quality, the episode was detailed, visible, and compelling. I was particularly impressed with the contrast, especially as fire or flames lit up portions of the screen amid darkness.

I also watched Rogue One, and was taken by just how black the screen was when the famous opening Star Wars line ran across the screen. The background was so black and clear that it really did look as if bright yellow words were just floating down from a black-out galaxy far, far away. Additionally, the mission to Eadu was atmospheric and detailed amid the darkness, while the assault on the beaches of Scarif was mesmerizing. So if you do buy this TV, 10/10 recommend watching some Star Wars content.

Gaming is immersive

A quarter of HDMI ports support ALLM and VRR, and the G4 automatically adjusts its settings when it detects a console. You can pull up a gaming hub whenever you’re using your console to reveal yet another suite of features to toggle and adjust. The gaming dashboard is vast, though I found a lot of default settings were suitable for the PS5 games I was playing, none of which were connected for online play. I played around with brightness and frame rate, and particularly enjoyed the nice feature that allowed me to change the color of the gaming hub. The worlds in Spider-Man 2 and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth felt even more immersive and detailed on the G4, and made me want to simply explore the scenery and hang around in this settings.

AI assistance abounds

If it wasn’t overwhelming already, it started to get that way when going through the all the artificial intelligence enhancements. The G4 comes with a suite of AI boosts and bonuses meant to cater to dedicated film buffs in order to completely immerse themselves in a faithful recreation of the cinematic intention. In general, I decided to trust my future robot overlords and turn on all the potential help that was offered, though I did tinker for a while.

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Notably, TruMotion, LG’s motion smoothing technology, offers four different settings, and I saw quickly that the notorious and polarizing tech maybe had some worth when tweaked just the right amount. Instead of always keeping it off, I did play with the Cinematic Movement option, which uses AI to assist films shot at 24fps in realism without any blur, shadowing, or soap opera looks. You can also manually adjust the judder as you see fit. It’s just one of many examples of the great extent to which you can adjust settings to your immediate environment and personal preference.

Verdict: Is the LG G4 worth it?

The G4 is an impressive feat, a combination of powerful brightness, near-perfect contrast, and immense power. It’s not for the casual content consumer, though. It’s for those who want to enjoy a lot of different entertainment, and who aren’t shy about setting up the TV to optimize everything on it. The G4 will do a fair amount on your behalf to make the content look the best it can, and there are quite a few automatic settings you can set up, but there are still a lot of options worth exploring and tinkering with.

It’s a particularly worthy TV for those with a high-end gaming console and anyone who enjoys cinematic TV and the latest films. Take your time to check out everything this comprehensive TV has to offer and ready yourself to be immersed in everything you consume.

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LG G4 OLED evo