Tested: LG QNED85 | Good price, good picture… but it’s not an OLED

Almost half the cost of that used for OLED TVs, a new technology called QNED was launched this year by LG. On the menu: colors and contrasts superior to those of conventional liquid crystal screens, high-end processor and sound quality. But we forget at this price the infinite contrasts of OLED, and the LG interface still has some weaknesses.

Karim Benessaieh
The Press

WE love

Each television manufacturer has its own jargon, so a short, very brief course is in order to describe the novelty offered by LG this year, the QNED, of which we tried the QNED85 model with a 55-inch screen.

As with common flat screens, these are two light-emitting diode (LED) panels. The first gives the colors and the second, the backlight which, in the case of LG’s QNED85, can reach for the 86-inch model 30,000 diodes called Mini LEDs, which is 7.5 times more than the number of pixels offered by a TV. 4K.

This is therefore an improvement of the classic technology based on the two panels of light-emitting diodes, not a radical change. But it is clear that these small innovations signed LG fulfill some of their promises with our QNED85. Whether it’s a 4K movie or a video game, the contrasts and colors are much richer than with two other 4K TVs we had on hand. Brightness was satisfactory, even in broad daylight for low-light scenes, and the 120Hz variable refresh rate keeps the action smooth.

The operating system alone detects the source of the video signal and adapts to it. Films will be entitled to a cinematic mode which slightly fogs the image to remove the sometimes disturbing ultrarealism of 4K. A game optimizer additionally gives the best possible configuration when it comes to latency, frame rate and brightness.

Sound quality from the speakers delivering 40 watts in total is very good, with rich bass and well-defined sound. The mid frequencies did strike us as a bit garish, however.

We always have the Magic remote control in our hands, which allows classic navigation with the physical buttons or by the cursor which moves on the screen according to your movements. For inputs, there are four HDMI ports, an eARC, an Ethernet input, two USB 2.0 ports and an optical digital audio output. The QNED85 is compatible with the Google Assistant, Alexa and accepts AirPlay to mirror screen and sound from Apple devices. The A7 processor of 5^e generation is powerful enough to respond quickly, with a split-second delay, to commands.

Finally, at $1213.99 for the 55-inch model, we have all of this at a very reasonable price.

We love less

We’ve been sold on LG OLED TVs for a while now, which is our main TV. So switching to QNED85 for two weeks for this test was a step backwards: no, the picture quality of this new TV cannot be measured by the infinite contrast of the single panel of organic light-emitting diodes. LG admits this itself in its first announcement press release in December 2020: “OLED is the pinnacle of LG’s TV offering, but the LG QNED Mini LED offers an irresistible alternative for the consumer. »

While much less sophisticated devices know how to automatically connect to headphones that have been paired for the first time, those from LG, and the QNED85 here, each time require a long session of browsing through the preferences.

The WebOS interface is very difficult to configure. You have to wander through complex sub-menus, and certain functions – in particular the simple restart – are practically impossible to find.

One buys ?

The arguments for buying the QNED85 from LG can be summed up in one sentence: better, but a little more expensive than most LED TVs on the market, cheaper, but less impressive than the high-end OLED and QLED models. Here we have the definition of an excellent mid-range television, well designed and reliable, which should satisfy the vast majority of minimally demanding users. True enthusiasts will not hesitate to put a lot more for the “pinnacle”.