LG’s C Series is back on top with a big upgrade on last year’s C3
OLED TV | £2700| whf.cm/LG_C4
This is the big one. Each new C-series OLED TV from LG is a big deal on account of the range’s near-legendary reputation for balancing performance, features and price; but there is even more interest in the C4, thanks to an uncharacteristically lacklustre showing from last year’s C3.
The good news for everyone but Sony is that beneath the familiar design and specification from the C3 lie big performance upgrades to both picture and sound that put the C-series back on top.
Most of the chassis is exceptionally thin – around half a centimetre. LG has managed to squeeze all of the connections, speakers and processing hardware into an enclosure that is much more compact than that of rival TVs, making that exceptional thinness all the more striking. At its thickest, the TV is still just 4.7cm, thicker than the G4 which is a uniform 2.4cm, but thinner than rivals from Sony, Philips and Panasonic.
More impressive is how extraordinarily light it is. The 65in model weighs just 16.6kg without the stand and 18.5kg with it. That’s significantly lighter than the G4 and Sony A80L, and it makes the C4 much easier to handle during installation and far less of a strain on your wall and fixings. Despite this impressive lack of weight, the C4 still feels solid and well made.
The C4 still has four HDMI 2.1 ports, which is good news for gamers, as even with a soundbar plugged into one of them you are still able to get a full-fat gaming experience from three consoles and/or gaming PCs plugged in simultaneously.
There are some minor gaming upgrades, too, including full Nvidia G-Sync VRR certification, and 144Hz compatibility, which will be music to the ears of hardcore PC gamers. Dolby Vision gaming is apparently supported up to the new 144Hz limit, too, but there is currently no source available that can take advantage of that. As with previous models, the C4 does without a brightness-boosting heatsink, although ahead of launch, LG did promise the new C4 would be brighter than the C3.
While the G4 features an all-new Alpha 11 chip, the C4 gets an upgraded version of the Alpha 9 that powered last year’s C3. So, while the C4 will benefit from some new processing features, such as virtual 11.1.2 sound upmixing (up from the 9.1.2 of the C3) and enhanced voice remastering for greater dialogue clarity, it misses out on big G4 processing features such as the ‘Peak Highlighter’, which boosts the intensity
