This unique approach to TV ranging does mean that neither the OLED55B7 nor OLED55C7 feature the jaw-dropping ‘pixels on glass’ design of the $3,500 OLED65E7. Nor do either of them carry the built-in soundbars of LG’s E7, G7 and W7 OLED TVs. But as I’ll discuss later, their picture quality is basically identically brilliant to that of LG’s much more expensive OLED sets.

It’s important to stress, too, that despite not having their OLED pixels attached directly to sheets of glass like LG’s premium models, neither the OLED55B7 nor OLED55C7 have been within a thousand miles of the ugly stick. They’re both incredibly slim in a way that LCD TVs - which have to use external backlights to light their pixels - just can’t manage.

The frames around their screens are both ultra-thin too, and since they’re black they tend to meld seamlessly into the stunning black level response their OLED panels are capable of. Both TVs’ different stand designs look and feel premium too, with their gleaming metallic finishes and comfortingly meaty weight.

Personally I prefer the wider ‘sheet’ stand design of the OLED55C7, and also its uniformly black bezel (the B7 introduces a sliver of silver trim that slightly spoils the ‘bezel-free’ look). In truth, though, either set will cut a stunning dash in any room it may find itself in.

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Until this year there were two things I thought I knew about OLED TV technology. First, that it was notoriously difficult to mass produce and so would likely always be prohibitively expensive. Second, that while it’s consistently stunning when it comes to delivering rich, deep, even black colors, its brightness limitations would likely mean it was always going to struggle to do the latest high dynamic range (HDR) picture format justice.

The second of these assumptions has already been unceremoniously knocked on the head by the dazzling, brightness-enhanced performance of first LG’s incredibly designed W7 ‘Wallpaper’ TVs (reviewed here), and then the OLED65E7 (reviewed here). Now I’m looking at not one but two LG OLED TVs that take on the price ‘thing’ too: the OLED55B7 and OLED55C7.

LG's OLED55B7 in my living room yesterday. I wish.

At the time of writing these two 55-inch OLED TVs are available for $1,700 (£1,500). This makes them the cheapest 4K OLED TVs we’ve ever seen, and injects them right into the very heart of what’s previously only been mid-range to high-end LCD TV territory.

Seeing 4K, HDR OLED TVs hit such prices is pretty extraordinary in itself. But it becomes even more mind-boggling when you realize that essentially both the B7 and C7 TVs deliver the same picture quality as their (much) more expensive LG OLED siblings. This is because LG’s 2017 OLED TVs follow the same policy the brand adopted with its 2016 range, whereby every TV in the range gets essentially the same panel and picture technology, with different series being defined along purely design and audio quality lines.

How come they're so cheap?

This unique approach to TV ranging does mean that neither the OLED55B7 nor OLED55C7 feature the jaw-dropping ‘pixels on glass’ design of the $3,500 OLED65E7. Nor do either of them carry the built-in soundbars of LG’s E7, G7 and W7 OLED TVs. But as I’ll discuss later, their picture quality is basically identically brilliant to that of LG’s much more expensive OLED sets.

It’s important to stress, too, that despite not having their OLED pixels attached directly to sheets of glass like LG’s premium models, neither the OLED55B7 nor OLED55C7 have been within a thousand miles of the ugly stick. They’re both incredibly slim in a way that LCD TVs - which have to use external backlights to light their pixels - just can’t manage.

The frames around their screens are both ultra-thin too, and since they’re black they tend to meld seamlessly into the stunning black level response their OLED panels are capable of. Both TVs’ different stand designs look and feel premium too, with their gleaming metallic finishes and comfortingly meaty weight.

Personally I prefer the wider ‘sheet’ stand design of the OLED55C7, and also its uniformly black bezel (the B7 introduces a sliver of silver trim that slightly spoils the ‘bezel-free’ look). In truth, though, either set will cut a stunning dash in any room it may find itself in.

The sound situation relative to LG’s step-up OLED sets is more of a concern. For while both the C7 and B7 models I tested benefit from built-in Dolby Atmos decoding, their lack of any soundbar technology makes them even less equipped than the E7 and, to a lesser degree, the G7 and W7 to do the scale and multi-channel precision of Atmos sound justice.

But then really it’s hard to imagine any built-in TV sound system doing Atmos justice. What’s more important is that neither the C7 nor B7 sounds nearly as rubbish as you might have expected given a) how insanely thin their bodywork is, and b) how you can’t see any visible speakers when you’re watching them from the front.

I’d argue that pictures as good as those produced by the OLED55C7 and OLED55B7 probably justify being partnered with at least a soundbar at some point. But the key point is that they both sound more than functional right out of the box.

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Budget variation

LG has recently added a variation of the OLED55B7 to its range that takes OLED even cheaper. At the time of writing, in fact, the 55B7A sneaks under that magic $1500 barrier - something it achieves by ditching Dolby Atmos audio decoding (no great loss) and reconfiguring its speakers to a rather less precise and bass-rich set up (something of a loss).

I haven’t been able to test this new model for myself, but LG claims that it still delivers the same picture quality as the ‘original’ B7. And given the truth of this statement across the rest of LG’s 2017 OLED range, I have no reason to doubt that it holds true with the B7A too.

So far I’ve only danced around the main attraction of the OLED55B7 and OLED555C7: their picture quality. So let’s get into more detail on that now.

Well, sort of. The thing is, there’s no point going to go into my usual level of detail here, since both models perform in picture terms pretty much exactly the same as the previously reviewed OLED65E7. For those of you can’t be bothered to pop over to that review, though, the key details are as follows.

First and most important from my HDR-loving perspective, the B7 and C7 OLEDs really do deliver a substantial boost in HDR brightness compared with 2016’s 6-series models (reviewed here). I measured the maximum brightness from both screens for smallish high dynamic range light peaks at around 740 nits - an increase of around 15-20%.

Putting the HDR in HDR

This might not sound a lot on paper, but it has a transformative effect. No longer does HDR feel slightly dull in its upper brightness and color registers. On the contrary, since the extra brightness has been achieved without compromising the stunningly profound black levels that OLED is famed for, extreme contrast content such as lit windows against a night sky glow with an intensity that actually seems to go beyond even the brightest LCD TV.

After all, if an LCD screen has to render a very bright highlight against a very dark backdrop, it’s use of external lighting means it will have to compromise either the blackness of the dark areas or the intensity of the bright areas - or, more likely, both. With LG’s latest OLED TVs, with pixels which create their own light, no such compromise is necessary.

It’s also great to see with the B7 and C7 that LG has managed to deliver its critical brightness increase while simultaneously reducing the amount of noise and sudden infusions of ‘just above black’ grayness that occasionally popped up on 2016’s models.

You do still, to be clear, occasionally see a bit of speckling in some dark background areas if you’re using the (generally best) Standard picture preset. Also, you can’t push either set’s brightness more than a notch or two higher than its default 50 level without black levels suddenly plummeting. But these are seriously small gripes against all the general HDR splendor the set delivers.

Making pixels count

Both sets also make strong use of their native 4K resolutions, leaving high quality 4K sources looking suitably pristine and rich in detail and texture. The clarity and sharpness remain decently intact during action scenes, too, thanks to improved motion reproduction versus previous LG OLED generations.

There’s still room for improvement where motion is concerned, in terms both of the way motion looks in the screen’s ‘native’ state, and the way LG’s motion processing options work. But at least the motion issues have been reduced from 2016’s models, and so are less liable to be distracting.

The 2017 improvements also include crisper upscaling of HD content to the OLED panels’ native 4K resolutions, and impressively low input lag (the time they take to render image data) of around 22ms when using their Game picture preset.

OLED’s already outstanding (versus LCD) viewing angle support has also been improved for the C7 and B7 models, since now there’s no slight infusion of green into pale tones as there was in 2016.

With the extra brightness also enabling the B7 and C7 OLEDs to produce punchier, more ‘voluminous’ colors, we really are talking about sensational picture quality from both sets for their $1700 asking prices. Especially if you take advantage of both TVs' Dolby Vision support, and you’re the sort of dedicated film fan fond of dimming the lights for serious movie viewing sessions.

The last part of that previous sentence does bring us, though, to the B7 and C7’s most significant limitations. For starters, even the extra brightness LG has found for its 2017 OLED TVs still leaves them barely a third as measurably bright as the brightest LCD TVs.

Brightness limitation

This brightness limitation inevitably caps their ability to deliver a full-bore HDR experience. After all, most HDR content has been mastered to 1000 or, in a few cases, 4000 nits. It also means that the very brightest parts of some aggressive HDR content can look a little bleached of detail.

The lack of brightness relative to some high-end LCD TVs (many mid range and low-end LCDs, to be clear, are less bright than LG’s latest OLEDs) also makes the B7 and C7 less satisfying to watch in bright rooms. Something that’s slightly exaggerated by their quite reflective screen surfaces - especially when compared with the startlingly effective light filters built into Samsung’s latest QLED TVs.

However, while these issues could make premium LCD the better option for lovers of HDR’s peak brightness feature and, especially, people with consistently bright viewing conditions, no LCD TV can get close to the jaw-dropping depth and uniformity of black level response that the B7 and C7 can deliver. And for many movie fans in particular, this wonderfully immersive talent is nigh-on irresistible. Especially now there’s at least enough accompanying brightness around to deliver what feels like a genuine and thrilling - if not entirely full-fat - HDR experience.

Verdict

There can be no question that 2017 has been the year of OLED. LG’s engineers have worked wonders on the technology’s performance. Other brands have added universally praised OLED TVs to their ranges in unprecedented numbers. And now, most importantly of all, LG has been able to marry an uncompromised version of OLED’s latest performance quality to a price point you no longer have to have won the lottery to afford.

Where OLED goes from here remains to be seen. But right now the B7 and C7 have established a sweet spot for OLED technology that unquestionably makes them the most exciting and all-round appealing TVs of the year.

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The video game streaming service will be available on LG smart TVs.

LG has announced a new partnership with GameFly to bring the video game subscription platform to LG TVs. The GameFly streaming app will be available in the US in April on LG webOS smart TVs.

'The addition of GameFly to the extensive variety of content options, including leading video and music applications, available on LG Smart TVs further enhances the LG Smart TV experience,' said David VanderWaal, vice president of marketing, LG Electronics USA. 'LG Smart TV owners will have the ability to stream high-quality video games right to their TV and enjoy a next-gen console-like experience in the comfort of their home.'

The GameFly app uses remote cloud servers to stream console video games over the Internet directly on LG TVs. This eliminates the need for customers to purchase multiple consoles, offering a more afforbale gaming option. The service provides new gaming applications at a low monthly price and offers Streaming Packs with bundles for popular action games like 'Tomb Raider: Game of the Year Edition,' 'Batman: Arkham Origins,' 'F.E.A.R. 3,' 'Darksiders,' and 'Red Faction Armageddon.' Additional GameFly titles include 'Lego Batman 3,' 'Pacman Championship Edition,' and 'WRC4.'

LG customers will be able to download the GameFly app as part of a software upgrade in late April. Supported models will include LG's 2016 Smart TVs featuring webOS 3.0 and 2015 Smart TVs featuring webOS 2.0.

The 2016 LG 65UH8500 65-Inch 4K Ultra HD Smart LED TV ($2,998), LG OLED65E6P 65-Inch 4K Ultra HD Flat Smart OLED TV ($7,000), and LG OLED65G6P 65-Inch 4K Ultra HD Flat Smart OLED TV ($8,000) with webOS 3.0 are now available for purchase on Amazon. Recommended GameFly gamepads include the Logitech F310 ($20), the Logitech F710 and the Xbox wired controller ($29).

Source: LG

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