LG OLED65G6

LG’s ‘G’ series of OLED TVs have become the darlings of home cinema fans in recent years. Since 2023 they’ve combined a premium ‘Gallery’ design with whatever the latest cutting-edge OLED technology of the day might be, while the step-down (but still also wildly popular) ‘C’ series models have been left to work with mid-range EX-type OLED panels.

The job of the G Series has suddenly got harder, though, for three reasons. Firstly, the panel technology at the heart of the 2026 is an iterative improvement over the Primary RGB Tandem design introduced in 2025, rather than the more-or-less completely new panel design we’ve come to expect from LG’s G models.

Secondly, LG surprised all and sundry in January by announcing a wireless successor to its legendary ultra-thin ‘Wallpaper’ TV that uses the same panels and processing found in the G6, stealing a good chunk of the G series’s customary thunder.

Finally, for the first time in years some of the more affordable new C6 models will get the same panel technology the G6 uses, taking away a key reason for home cinema enthusiasts to make the financial leap into G6 ownership. 

So has this £3299 65in G6 really lost its expected lustre? Actually no, it hasn’t. Not by a long chalk.

Picture Quality

While the 2025 OLEDG5 series introduced a new Primary RGB Tandem panel technology that delivered the goods in most ways, and served up unprecedented brightness and colour range by LG OLED standards, it did have one Achilles heel: subtle colour blends looked stripey rather than smoothly graduated. So I’ll get my 65OLEDG6 love-in rolling right away by saying LG has essentially completely fixed this problem.

Cruelly feeding LG’s new G6 all the scenes that exhibited banding before finds it suddenly outperforming every other OLED TV in this key picture-quality area. Blends are now more or less flawless. And at the same time it has been able to resolve the OLEDG5’s biggest flaw, LG has also handily ramped up the OLED65G6’s core capabilities. 

Peak brightness in small screen areas is up almost a third, while the brightness the screen can maintain over key 10 percent and full 100 percent test windows are both up by around 10 percent in test conditions - and in the real world,  this translates as noticeably punchier HDR images that keep OLED’s famously inky-black colours at one end of the light spectrum while extending the brightness peaks the screen can hit at the other. The intensity this extreme contrast infuses into such OLED-friendly home-cinema highlights as street lights, star fields, sun glinting off sunglasses, or the panels of gleaming sports cars is truly remarkable. Though crucially, it’s not so extreme that the result feels overplayed or unnatural. 

In its relatively aggressive picture settings, LG’s latest processing engine ensures HDR pictures spread their expansive light range evenly and intelligently across every nit the OLED65G6 makes available, thanks to an outstanding and improved high dynamic tone mapping system that knows exactly when, and where, to push things when it comes to optimising the way HDR pictures take advantage of the TV’s prodigious capabilities.

LG has also leaned into Primary RGB Tandem OLED technology’s ability to keep expanding colour volumes as pictures get brighter, resulting in 99 percent coverage of the so-called DCI-P3 colour spectrum used for the vast majority of today’s HDR content creation. The ‘Standard’ and even ‘Vivid’ picture modes look gorgeously vibrant, rich and dynamic as a result, with no fading or thinness in even the brightest parts of the picture.

Nor do any shades stand out too strongly against any others, ensuring that while the resulting pictures in ‘Standard’ mode might not be measurably accurate in the way a certain kind of AV purist might like, they actually feel natural and immersive. 

Of course, though, if you are an AV purist the OLED65G6 wants to keep you happy too. In fact, the OLED65G6’s ‘Filmmaker’ mode is so keen to lean into the ‘as the director intended’ side of things that it actually looks a little less bright than the same mode on its predecessor. This is entirely deliberate, though, with LG tuning the ‘Filmmaker’ mode to more closely resemble the look of professional mastering monitors and to hit all the right numbers when put through measuring software. 

Don’t think, though, that because ‘Filmmaker’ mode is a little duller than last year’s equivalent that it’s not good. The OLED65G6's innate qualities when it comes to colour, contrast and the ability to pick out and deliver every last nuance - right down to single pixel level - contained in a beautifully mastered film make the OLED65G6’s ‘Filmmaker’ mode nothing short of gorgeous.

A new low-reflection screen contributes to the G6’s incredibly immersive qualities too. It clearly reduces the potency of onscreen reflections compared with the G5, without losing that glossy finish some AV fans love. 

The OLED65G6’s pictures are beautifully sharp and detailed with native 4K images, and thanks to the superlative efforts of LG’s ultra-powerful Alpha 11 AI Gen 3 processing system, upscaled HD images look almost as clean, detailed, sharp and natural as the real 4K McCoy. This same processor also helps LG provide some of the best motion-handling in the business. Purists will leave motion-processing off with 24p film sources just on principle, of course - but if you happen to find judder a little distracting the ‘Cinematic Movement’ motion-processing option does an outstanding job of taking the hardest edges off judder without turning films into soap operas by over-smoothing them. Or by creating other distracting side effects, either.

It’s genuinely tough to find issues with the OLED65G6’s images. There’s a slightly green tinge to ‘Filmmaker’ mode images that becomes stronger if you have to watch the TV from an angle. There can also be minor double-line edging in the ‘Standard’ picture preset around very starkly defined edges - though the pay off for this is really outstanding sharpness and detailing. And really, that’s about it.

Experience suggests the OLEDG6 may not be quite as bright or deliver quite such a wide colour gamut as upcoming QD OLED TVs. But that’s purely hypothetical at this point - and in any case, simply having massive amounts of brightness and colour at your disposal isn’t a guarantee of success, it’s what you do with them that counts. And what the OLED65G6 does with the raw materials at its disposal is exquisite.

Sound Quality

The OLED65G6’s sound quality isn’t as scintillating or immersive as its pictures. This is especially true of its ‘Standard’ sound setting, which sounds small and swallowed - even at almost maximum volume with a Dolby Atmos source. The best you can say about it is that it plays things safe in terms of not succumbing to distortions or driver breakdown. 

Fortunately, the ‘AI Sound Pro’ mode LG has developed for the OLED65G6 expands the soundstage considerably, developing a virtual 11.1.2 mix that throws sound beyond the TV’s edges with reasonable conviction and presence. Effects are placed quite well around and within the screen, making film soundtracks feel more alive and involving.

The ‘AI Sound Pro’ mode also tries to inject more bass into proceedings, which is welcome for most of the time. The only problem is that when a scene features a really deep and/or protracted bass sound the G6’s output becomes too dense, causing the speakers to crackle slightly and the low frequencies to start sounding artificial and forced.

In the end the ‘AI Sound Pro’ mode isn’t bad, but most people keen enough on home cinema to buy a premium TV like the OLED65G6 will almost certainly feel the need to add some kind of external sound system sooner rather than later. 

Living with the LG OLED65G6

The OLED65G6 is a beautiful-looking TV. From the silver metal trim wrapped around all four of its edges to its trim screen frame, excellent build quality and slender, wall hanging-friendly rear, it feels every inch a premium TV. No, it’s not as thin as the new ‘Wallpaper’ TV - but it really isn’t far off. LG goes the extra mile, too, by recessing the fitting for its wall mount into the TV’s rear, so the screen can hang flush to the wall.

LG sells the G6 with a desktop stand option, and this too is extremely well built from heavy-duty metal. It features a mounting neck with a detachable rear panel so you can thread your cables through it.

The OLED65G6’s new low reflection screen makes it easier to position in your room without having to worry about reflections, while on the connections front all four of its HDMI sockets support every feature - including 4K/165Hz gaming feeds - the TV is capable of. 

Smart features are provided by the 2026 version of LG’s webOS system,. This features a crisp, well-designed and responsive menu system, and uses heavy-duty AI to deliver a combination of intelligent content recommendation (based on analysis of your viewing habits), inter-connected search engine results, and voice recognition options. The system can support multiple user profiles per household too, and carries all the video streaming systems most people will ever need. WebOS has become a bit overwhelming to look at and complicated to navigate these days, though (there are even multiple AI engines to choose between), and it doesn’t help that some of the remote control’s buttons have multiple functions depending on how long you press them. An ‘AI Concierge’ menu can be summoned to give ideas of things you might want to try - but a smart TV interface that essentially has to be learned rather than just instantly understood could prove frustrating for some users.

The OLED65G6 supports the HDR10, HLG and Dolby Vision HDR formats, but not HDR10+. So it’s not quite as universal in its HDR support as some rivals.

If your home entertainment hobbies extend to gaming as well as movies, the OLED65G6 is about as good a gaming screen as the TV world has to offer. With a ‘Game’ mode lag time of just 12.8ms, support for frame rates up to 165Hz, and variable refresh rate support that includes the AMD FreeSync Premium and Nvidia G-Sync systems, it delivers a wonderfully responsive experience that actually ups your, erm, gaming game. 

Conclusion

Worries that the G series might have run out of road prove unfounded. Looking at the trio of concerns I raised at the start of this review, the OLED65G6 delivers a substantial picture performance improvement over last year’s G5 model, and it turns out the 65in C6 model won’t be getting the key Primary RGB Tandem panel hardware the G6 uses -  only the 77in and 83in C6 get it. So the OLED65G6 is the cheapest 65in model that carries LG’s latest, greatest TV picture capabilities. And finally, the OLED65G6’s design is plenty premium and slim enough to prevent  me constantly wishing it was the new ‘Wallpaper’ TV instead.

The OLED65G6’s audio isn’t in the same league as its pictures, it has to be said. Adding an external audio system is thus pretty much a requirement rather than an option. For most premium TV buyers, though, picture quality is what really counts - and in this respect the OLED65G6 is a spectacular success. 

Editor's note

For reasons best known to itself, LG is still not certain of the retail price of the OLED65G6 in the UK, despite having made production samples available for review. A price is available in the United States, though - it's the same price the OLED65G5 launched at last year. So Sound Advice has decided to review the OLED65G6 on the basis that it will cost the same as last year's OLED65G5 did at its UK launch. Of course, if the UK price turns out to be significantly more than the £3299 we're working to, we reserve the right to think long and hard about this TV's 'Exceptional' award...

Test Samples

Sinners 4K Blu-ray
With a second half that takes place almost entirely in and around a dark bar at night, Sinners is the perfect 4K Blu-ray to show off what an OLED TV as talented as the OLED65G6 can do. Black levels are perfect, the lights illuminating the bar look dazzlingly intense, no details are lost in the darkest corners, and Ryan Coogler’s fluid camera work looks crisp and clean.

‍Weapons 4K Blu-ray
Weapons on disc features an unusually detailed 4K image with an unusually extreme combination of bright and dark scenes, the latter of which tend to look quite grainy. So obviously the OLED65G6 laps it all up, handling all the extremes with gorgeous potency but also enough subtlety and imaging intelligence to make sure the world feels disconcertingly real and lived-in.

‍Call of Duty Black Ops 7 PS5
The OLED65G6 is an outstanding gaming screen. Its ultra-fast response time and support for both high- and variable refresh rates deliver an experience so fluid and responsive that it actually seemed to improve my CoD online numbers. Either that or 42 years of gaming have finally started to pay off… Its sharpness, colour and contrast enjoy spectacular impact from the impressive HDR and 4K/120Hz graphics, too.

The OLED65G6 delivers easily the best picture quality of any LG OLED TV to date. Which is really saying something, considering how good LG OLED TVs have been over the years. It’s an awesome performer for gaming as well as movies and TV shows, too, and its ultra-trim design is a glorious addition to any living room.

A TV as brilliant as the OLED65G6 deserves to be fed as high a quality diet of content as possible. So as well as subscribing to as many premium quality tiers of streaming service as you can afford, I’d strongly recommend adding a good quality 4K Blu-ray player. Ideally a Panasonic UB9000, or if that’s a bit too much after you’ve just coughed up for such a premium TV, the UB820. If you’re into gaming, add the best quality console or PC you can afford, too.

The OLED65G6’s challenged audio would clearly benefit from the addition of an external soundbar. And funnily enough, LG has an ideal option in the eye-catching shape of the USG10TY. This is specifically designed for wall mounting, with a large front surface area and ultra-thin rear, and a meaty subwoofer also provided to deliver the bass such a slim main bar can’t manage itself. The OLED65G6 can even feed lossless Dolby Atmos sound to the USG10TY wirelessly, preserving the TV’s beautifully minimalistic looks.