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LG 55EA9800 Curved OLED TV Preview

LG's Curved OLED promises a paradigm shift for the world of television, but it's trapped behind a price wall.

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{{boy_banner}}The LG 55EA9800 was selected as our 2014 Best Television of the Year. To find out why, check out our 2014 Best of Year Television Awards.{{/boy_banner}}

Yesterday, fellow writer and television enthusiast Virginia Barry and I took a trip to sunny Lincolnshire, IL to get some hands-on time with LG's newest toy: a 55-inch curved OLED TV. Last week, the company announced the new product's presence in the US, and we were lucky enough to be able to fly out and see it. After a bevy of Blu-rays, a plethora of pictures, and a gamut of gamut tests, we have a lot to say.

First of all, though, I feel I should make clear that this is strictly a preview of the TV. We weren't able to run all of our tests, so this TV won't be receiving an overall score. The tests we did run, however, were the important ones. Expect to have a pretty solid idea of this TV's capabilities by the end of the review.

Secondly, I'd like to explain a little about OLED. Almost all modern TVs are divided into two types: LCD and plasma. "What about LED TVs?" Well, all LEDs are LCDs. What makes OLED so unique and interesting is that it's structurally more similar to plasma tech, but still allows the hyper-thin panels and enormous light output that LED TVs are prized for. It's also, as you'll see, capable of being curved.

That said, this terrific tech is going to cost you. At its current MSRP of $15,000, the 55EA9800 is too expensive for most consumers. At this point, it's more an exciting look at the future of TVs than a smart investment. I'd wager CES 2014 will be bubbling with the stuff.

The Looks

[insert obligatory idiom about curves here]

When it comes to design, the 55EA9800 is kind of like a folk song that's been re-harmonized. You know the lyrics, but something's just different about it. From a distance, it looks a lot like any other 55-inch TV. It's still smart, 3D, 1080p, all that jazz. As you cross the room, however, you start to notice some seriously cutting-edge fashion.

First and foremost, the curve. How is it possible? Well, that's just one of the many cool traits of OLED technology. I'll save the science jargon for another time and simplify: The design of an OLED TV requires less transistor layers than LCD or plasma, and the organic nature of the cells allows the panel to curve. In the case of the 55EA9800, the curve is subtle, but it makes a difference during viewing.

The curve helps the screen look bigger than it actually is... the image is preserved as far as 90 degrees off-center.

Sitting directly in front of the TV, you don't notice the curvature so much. Its topmost corners peak a little, which creates an optical illusion—the curve helps the screen look bigger than it actually is. From horizontal off-angles, the curve becomes more apparent. The image is preserved almost perfectly as far as 90 degrees off-center. This is a huge plus, as LCDs have always struggled to produce wide viewing angles.

You may also notice: Wow, this thing is so [expletive deleted] thin. This again owes to the nature of OLED, which uses a cell-based light emission. This means no bulbs or LEDs behind the panel, fattening your telly like a Christmas goose. The EA9800 is thus thin and very lightweight, but does not have the same light-bleed issues as equally trim edgelit LED TVs.

Perhaps the most outrageous design charactertistic is the stand, which is a semi-clear crystal-like material.

Perhaps the most outrageous design characteristic of LG's OLED is the stand, which is a semi-clear, crystal-like material. This means that the TV cannot be wall-mounted, as the stand is fused into the screen's design. Opinions may vary as to its attractiveness, as the milky quality could really suffer in certain living rooms. This clear stand houses 8 speakers with a total 40-watt sound output, which is twice the standard television. The speakers are stacked and clear, however, so they melt like ghosts into the design.

Is the 55EA9800's design definitively good or bad? That's a truly subjective topic, but the advantage of the curved screen and boosted audio are not up for debate. They are awesome, trust us on this one.

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The Experience

A truly futuristic experience

Being on-site with LG, we didn't have access to all of our usual playback methods. We weren't able to view cable, video games, or any sub-1080p content on the 55EA9800. We did watch a few Blu-rays, however, and the effect was striking.

First, we popped in a Blu-ray of 300, which features a lot of middle tone browns and grays, as well as a few very dark scenes, and plenty of motion. While keeping in mind that we haven't run our standard motion tests yet, I can say that this TV's handling of faster scenes and more complex on-screen content is pretty impeccable. Unfortunately, we noticed some grainy banding in certain transitions, but that was likely due to the age of the movie at hand.

Unlike the UHD TVs we've recently reviewed, the 1080p EA9800 does not feature a dedicated upscaling engine or processor. That means that, even with its terrific picture specs, older content is still not going to look mind-blowing. It does, however, still make use of LG's triple XD upscaler, so expect the same content handling you'd find on LG's HDTVs. The TV's expanded color gamut, which will be discussed below, adds to the richness of many scenes. In certain instances, however, it looks unnatural. Playback of Into the Blue cast already-bronzed actors and actresses in a weird, Snooki-esque hue.

The most impressive thing we saw were scenes rich with dark or black content.

The most impressive thing we saw were scenes rich with dark or black content. OLED tech allows pixel cells to be turned off and on individually, like a plasma TV. This means that black is truly black, which really makes things pop. A night scene of a bungalow lit precariously with hanging lanterns dropped my jaw. When the TV displays black, it blends almost perfectly into an unlit viewing environment.

This adds to a feeling of three-dimensional viewing, without using 3D modes or glasses. While watching an IMAX disc about underwater life, one scene showed a school of black-and-white fish feeding along the dusty bottom of the ocean. The massive contrast between the fish's monochrome pattern made them seem to float just in front of the background, rendering an appearance of depth akin to the true black and white you see in real life. It was absolutely incredible.

The only other TVs that we've seen this kind of stunning playback were from our top-rated models: Panasonic's ZT60 and Samsung's F8500, both of which are super high-end plasma displays. Seeing this kind of picture quality off of LG's curved OLED is a swoon-worthy promise of things to come.

The Picture

More contrast, more color, more real

The two biggest things in TV right now are UHD (Ultra High Defition) and OLED. We've seen a couple of really capable UHD TVs this year, but they lacked full-resolution content to truly impress. The LG 55EA9800 is a 1080p television, meaning there's ample content that maxes out its full capabilities.

The first thing we tested was the EA9800's dynamic range, or contrast ratio. Contrast ratio is determined when dividing a TV's peak brightness by its minimum luminance level, and it's a very telling number as to how immersive a TV will look. Using the industry standard checkerboard pattern, we maxed out the TV's light output and got up close and personal with its curved screen. The result is, for the fourth time this year, the largest contrast ratio we've ever tested: 32,000:1.

This kind of contrast efficacy has traditionally only been possible on plasma televisions.

The biggest takeaway is that the TV maintains a very impressive black level, even when displaying a screen that is 50% illuminated. This kind of contrast efficacy has traditionally only been possible on plasma televisions. Yet the super-thin, lightweight, healthily bright EA9800 makes it possible. It's a real testament to the power of OLED technology.

Next, we tested its color production. LG's curved OLED is capable of a few different color gamuts. While it can (and does) display the traditional color gamut quite easily, it's also capable of a wider color gamut, about 20% more saturation than TVs have previously claimed. This means colors closer to some of the super-vibrant hues you see in real life. A candy-apple red electric guitar or the light-blocking green of summer leaves can now be shown on screen with more richness than ever before. Holiday specials will never look the same.

The EA9800's heightened color production is easily visible and consistently impressive.

While our initial readings revealed that the EA9800 needed a little calibrating to approximate picture perfection, its heightened color production is easily visible and consistently impressive, even without any fancy test equipment. The result during playback meant heavily saturated colors without loss of detail in subtler parts of the picture. This is TV color we've been waiting on for years.

This heightened color and intense contrast are immediately visible and useful when applied to current content, unlike the extra resolution of UHD. It makes OLED all the more attractive, even if it's still priced at a premium. For a look at the EA9800's gamut results, and the actual contrast numbers, navigate over to the science page.

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The Verdict

We can't wait until this tech is affordable

There's no doubt about it: OLED technology is very exciting. While LG's EA9800 is still way too expensive for 90% of consumers, the beautiful design and picture we saw yesterday made most other TVs feel dated. LG in particular deserves accolades for being one of the first companies to assemble and show-off a unique, working OLED TV.

Truly spellbinding picture quality is on the way; colors from real life can now be employed to make TV, movies, and video games look absolutely spectacular. Real black levels, side-by-side with luminous light output, add so much realistic depth as to almost render 3D a thing of the past.

Affordable OLED TV at home is now a less-distant horizon, in part due to LG's work with the 55EA9800. If you're one of the few who can afford it, I advise early adoption, as this curved OLED is a fully-functional product of the future. For the rest of us, a glimpse like this sweetens the waiting.

Behind the Screens

Our on-site time with LG's EA9800 didn't allow us to run our full suite of tests, but we were able to gather most of the necessary results in order to determine this television's picture quality. What makes LG's OLED stand out from the arguably thin crowd is the company's WRGB pixel setup.

Most OLED TVs use transistors to send a signal to red, green, and blue cells, which transfer through a masking layer to create a picture. The EA9800 is equipped with a fourth pixel, which is white. The white pixel allows the layer to be subtracted from the build equation, making for a four-part color refiner. The result? Richly-saturated colors beyond traditional HD, and a gigantic static contrast ratio.

Picture Dynamics

The best of both worlds

For those in-the-know about TVs, OLED is a very exciting technology. It takes the traditional deep blacks of plasma TVs and the sun-bright whites of LED TVs and combines them into a sort of super TV, capable of both. The 55EA9800 is a testament to that dream: It really does it.

Using the Konica Minolta LS-100 light meter, I took black and white readings from an ANSI checkerboard pattern. According to ISF's display expert Joel Silver, this pattern gives the truest representation of the actual black and white levels you'll see during normal viewing, as it forces a balance of light output across the panel. Clustered areas of black and white can be misleading, as most content is never going to look like that.

The results I gathered are stunning. From the EA9800's middle-left black square, I gathered a reading of 0.005 cd/m2 . This is one ten-thousandth of a candela less-dark than the heavily praised Panasonic ZT60, which holds our record for darkest black level ever tested. Needless to say, the EA9800's black level is very true-to-form. It simply looks like true black, with no luminance to speak of.

Next, I took a reading of the EA9800's middle-right white square. The result was 160 cd/m2 , which isn't super bright, but is still much brighter than any TV in the past that could produce that kind of black level.

The EA9800 employs a similar white falloff to plasmas, too. This means that it displays more light when a smaller area is white, and less when, say, the whole screen is white. At 100% white, it was closer to 70 or 80 cd/m2 , which is dim, but is not a realistic representation of much content, save maybe a hockey game. At smaller levels of white, during content playback, I gathered results ranging from 250-350 cd/m2 , which is quite bright indeed.

The final result is a static contrast ratio of 32,000:1. Due to the nature of OLED's on/off cells, this number could dynamically shift as high as 60,000:1 and beyond.

Color Saturation

This TV produces 20% more of your daily color

Like most things expensive and scientific, TVs have standards for the color they produce. These standards are expressed as coverage of a color space. For most displays, that color space is discussed in terms of a percentage of NTSC. The NTSC color space shows the primary digital colors, extending out to the limits of human vision.

Traditional HDTV coverage is only about 35.9% of the NTSC space, expressed in a gamut called Rec. 709. Our first test result revealed that the EA9800 is very capable of producing standard HDTV color. While imperfect, it hits the primary colors (red, green, and blue) accurately.

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Next, I set the TV to display its wider gamut. This gamut is made possible by LG's four-pixel OLED engineering, and pushes red and green beyond their usual saturation to more heavily saturated hues. In turn, related secondary colors (like yellow) are also more saturated.

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LG has engineered the wider color gamut to take human vision into account. In the company's own words, it has been "optimized" for the way we see color. From the look of it, that is the case. Human beings see green the best, followed by red, and then blue. The secondary colors, made up of the primaries, are effected in tow.

The wide gamut above reveals that the 55EA9800 adds a considerable amount of saturation to green, some to red (the most saturated reds we can see), and just a little to blue. The result adds richness of color to red, green, blue, cyan, and yellow. Magenta's hue is shifted towards blue and away from red.

While lots of TVs have oversaturated color in the past, most of them do so while capping luminance at a certain point, which results in a flatline, so that your top 20-30 hues of a color are all the same. This means subtler, "below peak" details are glossed over. The EA9800 does not do this, however; its individual OLED cells and color refining allow for preserved detail and richer color, at least from what we saw during our time with the TV. This is because the EA9800's color production is powered by 10-bit color capable processing; most, if not all other TVs use 8-bit color.

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