LG has announced its latest flagship OLED televisions at CES 2025. The company lead the charge with the earlier announcement of a transparent model, the OLED T, claiming a world’s first for a transparent model – although it’s not going to be available until December in the US.
But the OLED T isn’t a mainstream model: for those we have to stick to LG’s core – the OLED evo models that are widely considered to be some of the best TVs you can buy. When I reviewed the 2024 LG OLED C4 I was hugely impressed and it’s in this vein that LG continues – but there is a difference coming for 2025 that’s worth knowing about.
It’s all about brightness for LG in 2025…
For a long time, the downside of OLED televisions, compared to LED, was the lower peak brightness. This isn’t about blasting you with a really bright picture, it’s about the ability to firstly, cut through reflections in bright daytime viewing while maintaining picture fidelity, and secondly, to have the power to deliver striking HDR visuals. With little real change in resolution demands over the past few years, HDR – high dynamic range – has been the go-to for increased picture performance.
LG claims that its new OLED evo M5 (the wireless model) and the OLED evo G5 are three times brighter than a conventional OLED TV. Diving into this claim, LG refers to the LG OLED B5 as a “conventional OLED”, so the brightness boost isn’t going to be as dramatic as you might initially think. However, sticking to the line that more brightness is better, then the M5 and the G5 are certainly on the right track.
IMAGE CREDIT: LG
Interestingly, LG says that the boost comes from a technology it is calling “Brightness Booster Ultimate”, which is comprised of both “light control architecture and light-boosting algorithms”. Little else has been said about the tech, but according to details from Vincent Teoh over at HDTV Test, this isn’t MLA – micro lens array – which has been the go-to solution for brightness boosting on LG’s recent high-end models.
Instead, Teoh suggests that it’s thanks to a stacked OLED panel, rather like the tech deployed by Apple in the latest iPad Pro. Stacking panels, each delivering different colours, would have the advantage of boosting both brightness and colour volume.
That’s not the only brightness change however. LG also offers Filmmaker Mode with Ambient Light Compensation. Filmmaker Mode was designed to deliver the experience that the director intended, by adjusting your TV’s panel to the settings the original studio intended. It’s lauded by many for “accuracy”, but there’s no avoiding that Filmmaker Mode is sometimes just too dark for home viewing in normal conditions.
That seems to have been recognised the UHD Alliance that governs Filmmaker Mode performance, taking into account the ambient conditions (on TVs with a light sensor), rather like Dolby allows through Dolby Vision IQ.
…but not all TVs benefit from the latest tech
LG’s line-up for the G5 (its conventional flagship) expands to include a 48-inch model in 2025, bringing high-end performance into a smaller size, although it’s worth noting that the smaller model doesn’t get the same brightness boost – only the 55, 65, 77 and 83-inch models can make that claim.
It’s also worth noting that LG’s real mainstream models, like the OLED evo C5, don’t have the same processor as the G5 and are unlikely to have the same display technology. LG has a habit of showcasing its top televisions before revealing all the details of those slightly lower down the range, so it’s likely that you’ll have to wait a little longer for the full details of the TV you’ll actually end up buying to be released.
