[Music]
when last we saw our intrepid lg qned
998k tv it was
in pretty bad shape but now we have a
replacement and it's time to put it to
the test stay tuned because i honestly
can't believe what i'm about to say
about this tv
[Music]
welcome back everyone i'm caleb dennison
and if you saw our last video on this tv
then you know we got right to the end
only to determine that it was hurting
for certain and i had to hold off on
offering any first impressions well lg
was johnny on the spot with sending a
replacement and i'm pleased to report
this tv is in fine shape so we can
finally move forward with this review
we're going to need to talk a little bit
about what qned means dig into this tv's
features and of course we're going to
talk picture quality and gaming maybe
toss in a few comparisons to the samsung
neoq lids and tcl 8k6 series and
ultimately try to decide if this tv
might be right for you before we get
into it though oh my god were some of
you ever pissed at the unboxing video
hey look i'm sorry to get under your
skin that was a tricky thing we were
humming right along through the setup
and then bam we had some nasty screen
issues staring us in the face and it
became clear that that tv was toe up
from the flow up i'm sorry and also not
my fault i hope you can forgive me once
you see this video can you let me know
down in the comments if we can still be
friends and while you're down there
smash that like and subscribe button
more of you viewers out there are
subscribed but not enough how am i
supposed to achieve world domination
without your help thanks in advance for
your support now here we go
[Music]
before we dig into this tv we have to
talk about qnet or qned if you prefer
there's just so many acronyms these days
and i just like to go with whatever's
easiest to say besides every time i say
qned i think of flanders from the
simpsons and i get a little chuckle out
of it
anyway for those of you may be confused
about qned here's the story before lg
made its tv lineup announcement back at
ces 2021 most of us in the tv biz
understood qned to stand for quantum
nano emitting diodes it referred to a
potential future tv technology that
samsung display is rumored to be working
on which would eliminate the need for
led backlights or oled compounds for an
emissive display that would have perfect
blacks like oled but killer brightness
and no chance for burn in that very
futuristic forward thinking tv
technology is not what this or any of
lg's other so called qnet tvs is all
about it looks like lg basically
hijacked the acronym for its marketing
purposes tacked on mini led as a
clarifier and now it markets these tvs
as qned mini led display so forget the
qned part and hone in on the mini led
backlight part because that's all that
really matters with any lg qnet mini led
tv the mini led backlight which could
potentially make for a brighter tv with
better backlight control improving black
levels minimizing blooming and halo and
really just taking a tv closer to the
awesomeness of oled but without any of
oled's limitations the other reason that
many led backlighting and the addition
of quantum dots to lg's premium tv
lineup is important in that historically
i have not thought much of lg's ips lcd
base displays at least not in its tvs
i've always felt like the better off
access experience wasn't worth the milky
black levels and lack of contrast that i
saw in those tvs which is why i haven't
reviewed many of them and those that i
did review didn't get very good scores
that's why i and many of you out there i
know have been curious about whether
these qnet mini led tvs are a
breakthrough for lg
[Music]
now normally this is where i would put
in a teaser and make you wait for the
big bomb drop but i'm not gonna do that
let me just tell you right now this tv
is fire this is a huge step in the right
direction for lg's tv business and now
it's competing directly with samsung's
neoq led tvs and tcl's new mini led
backlit 8k6 series tvs now that i've
given up the goods it's time for me to
back up that stance and don't think this
tv is perfect either there are a few
negatives as well so let's get into it a
quick word on webos yes it has been
redesigned and it looks better than it
has for a long time but dang it if these
smart tv systems aren't starting to feel
like one big advertisement in fact i
wouldn't be surprised if at one point we
might have to pay a subscription fee
just to get an ad free version of our
smart tv interface anyway just as with
lg's oleds i feel like the navigation is
a little sluggish this mostly makes
getting through the tv menus a little
tedious but most folks don't have to do
a ton of that so i'm not going to say
it's that big of a deal more of an
annoyance for me as i make a million
settings adjustments throughout a tv
review as for sound quality this tv is
not bad i like the tcl r648 a bit better
it's more balanced and doesn't sound as
boxy but this tv does sound respectable
in its standard audio mode i do not care
for any of the other audio presets and
that includes no especially includes the
ai sound sorry lg i'm just still not a
fan but in the standard mode the tv
sounds full adds some punch to explosive
sound effects and even the fake surround
processing works fairly well stereo
effects are especially noticeable and
dialog clarity is no issue at all so
from a sound perspective the tv gets a
thumbs up but again a tv this expensive
probably deserves at least a quality
soundbar system with a subwoofer if
that's an option a little dolby atmos
with this tv would go a long way to
delivering that cinematic experience
[Music]
now let's get into some picture quality
stuff for this review i did what i
normally do with lg tvs and i chose the
isf brightroom mode for sdr content and
the cinema mode for both hdr10 and dolby
vision content now normally i would go
with cinema home because it's a bit
brighter out of the box and that might
make more sense for most people but as
we've discovered with oled tvs we tested
cinema home forces on cinematic movement
which is a form of motion smoothing that
i personally can't stand so i go with
cinema mode then you can change the
color temp to warm 30 to match cinema
home if you want and true motion is
turned off by default yay either way
both modes put the led local dimming
setting on low by default and that's
going to be really important later so
remember that now let's get to some
numbers specifically around peak
brightness i did make some two-point
white balance adjustments in sdr hdr and
dolby vision and there wasn't a ton of
work to do there but i did manage to get
some more accurate color measurements
after i did still i'd say the out of box
settings were acceptable if not quite as
accurate as i've seen with say sony tvs
which are notoriously accurate out of
the box anyway the pre-calibration and
post calibration peak brightness numbers
weren't all that different about 30 nits
were lost in hdr but this tv can pull
off just over 1600 nits peak on a 10
window that's very impressive but here's
what's even more awesome the tv pulls
off that peak brightness across all
picture presets so it isn't as if you
have to go into standard or vivid mode
to get that performance it's available
in cinema cinema home game optimizer
it's awesome and i love it and i
honestly can't recall the time i saw
that being the case with any other tv so
you can have accuracy and the best peak
brightness for hdr you don't have to
choose between the two that's fantastic
i want to talk a little more about the
brightness of this tv in a moment but
let's dart to the other end of the
spectrum and talk about black levels
because frankly that's where lg's ips
tvs have suffered the most in my opinion
well as you may have guessed i'm finding
myself very impressed by the black
levels and shadow detail displayed by
this tv it's always amazing to me just
how much superior black levels can
affect contrast no matter how bright a
tv can get and this tv is delivering the
richness of deep blacks that highly
impacts color whether you're watching an
hdr or not of course material that is
made to show off black levels like this
lg footage which is made to promo lg's
own oleds really shows off those black
levels and as you can see on footage
like this halo and blooming is very
effectively mitigated that would point
to effective use of the mini led
backlight system but not everything is
perfect with this tvs backlight as part
of my testing i watch the notoriously
difficult to display ozark on netflix
which is delivered in dolby vision on
some oleds this show is so dark you
really can't watch it in anything but a
completely black room anyway on the
whole this lg qned 99 does a great job
making even the darkest moments of this
show reasonably visible however since i
have closed captions on by default i
watch a lot of tv at night with the
volume down for reasons i noticed this
issue when i had the led backlight
setting on medium or high here the tv is
elevating the light level for a brighter
average picture level while maintaining
all the deep blacks in the surroundings
but when the closed captions come up
suddenly the picture dims and it's
annoying because it's a significant
dimming now if i have the led backlight
setting on low which it is by default or
even on high then nothing really happens
but as soon as there is more contrast
added in by the backlight setting we get
this dimming problem and what's odd is
that you'd expect the opposite to happen
and i did see the opposite happen at
times if the whole screen is slightly
brighter but darker than the closed
captions text then you can see the
entire screen elevate in brightness
sometimes and that's more typical now i
was able to duplicate the issue in other
really dark scenes but to be fair it was
a rare occurrence with most of the
content i was watching and frankly i
like the tv's performance best with the
backlight dimming setting at low anyway
where it's a non-issue but this is an
error that may need to be addressed by
lg i think it can be addressed it just
needs to be looked at by the engineers
and then hopefully we see an update come
along that takes care of it wouldn't it
be interesting though if this was done
on purpose to try to avoid the closed
caption text from elevating the whole
picture this just goes to show i think
that many led backlighting may be more
difficult to control than most of us
think compared to other tvs i think the
backlight algorithm and engine on this
tv is pretty solid i don't see a lot of
luminance variants happening with most
of the content i watch and the backlight
system seems to move fairly quickly
although like most of the other mini led
backlit sets i've watched it can be
sluggish at times as well i hate
thinking these complications may be
inherent to the technology but i'm
beginning to think it might and if it is
that means that mini led may not be the
oled killing silver bullet most of us
hoped it could be
so if i'm going to wrap up the
brightness black levels contrast and
backlight control evaluation oh also we
got a pretty clean screen too very
little dirty screen effect i'd say it's
better than most conventional led tvs
but it doesn't reach the perfection that
i think we'd hoped it would to be fair
though i'm being extremely nitpicky when
i just sit back and watch this tv i'm
extremely impressed it's gorgeous color
looks rich deep and vibrant motion
resolution and smoothness is solid even
without motion smoothing on and the
contrast is fantastic and that peak
brightness is put to excellent use for
both average picture level brightness
and hdr highlights this is one of the
best tvs lg has ever made and certainly
the best lcd based tv the company has
ever made and that's a huge deal now i'm
just wondering how the 4k qnet mini led
tvs look and you know we're going to
find out soon but i digress we still
need to talk gaming and i don't think
there will be any surprises here i've
connected the xbox series x and of
course there are three hdmi 2.1 ports to
choose from if i want to leave the e-arc
port free as you can see the tv can
unlock all of the series x's potential
including dolby vision at 120 hertz the
input lag is extremely low we've got
lg's game optimizer dashboard which is
both handy and just plain fun in my
opinion but most importantly games look
so good on this tv it's got the depth
that i get from lg's oled but it's got a
lot more pop thanks to elevated
brightness and as game picture presets
go this is one of the more accurate
modes you're gonna find just one more
indication that lg really is serving
gamers in a big way and hey when 8k
gaming becomes more common this tv will
handle it natively which brings me to
another point we have to discuss and
that's the resolution performance and
price consideration i've said it before
but in case you missed it 8k resolution
is probably not necessary on a tv of
this size 8k content is scarce outside
of youtube videos like you don't really
need the ak but if you want the hot rod
performance capabilities most
manufacturers are saving their best
hardware for their 8k tvs you want the
best tv performance it's probably going
to come with an 8k screen and that's
just how it is or is it i think the
question is how well does say lg's qnet
90 stack up how about the samsung qn90a
which is also mini led but just 4k
resolution where does tcl's 8k6 series
fit into this well i think some versus
videos will reveal a lot more but where
the tcl r648 is concerned this tv is
clearly much brighter so it delivers
more pop and as for the qn90a well to be
honest it's been a while since i saw
that tv but it does have comparable peak
brightness which makes me wonder how the
samsung qn qn900a the ak version fits
into all this lots to consider when it
comes to value for your money but
there's no doubt that the lg qnet99 is
an excellent tv and the best lcd based
tv i've seen from the company yet i
highly recommend it and think it
deserves to be on the short list for
anyone considering a high-end tv
thanks as always for watching everyone
what do you think if you're on the fence
about the lg qned mini led sets before
where are you now let me know in the
comments don't forget to like and
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think you'll like