There are days when spending a good part of your working life watching TV really doesn’t feel too shabby. Today is one of those days. For parked before me as I tear my eyes reluctantly away from it to write these words is not only a movie-friendly 77-inch screen, but a 77-inch screen from LG’s latest OLED TV range. The OLED77GX, to be precise.
Not that the splendor I’m lapping up now didn’t take a bit of effort and stress to arrive at, mind you. For even though the ‘Gallery’ design LG uses for its new GX range is slightly more robust than the ultra-thin edges of its CX models, manhandling a $5,200/£5,999 77-inch OLED screen onto a pair of desktop feet is not a job for the faint hearted or fragile backed. My heart was in my mouth the whole time - despite the fact that the OLED77GX is not my first tour of 77-inch OLED duty.
What’s more, I’d imagine the installation stress (and time) would escalate massively if you were doing the right thing and hanging the OLED77GX on a wall (where it’s really designed to go) rather than trying to slot it onto its optional extra feet.
The LG OLED77GX 77-inch OLED TV.
Photo: LG ElectronicsAs mentioned in my earlier review of the 65-inch OLED65GX, the Gallery design is a welcome addition to LG’s OLED range. It’s actually a touch deeper at the outer reaches of its rear panel than the CX models, but crucially manages to squeeze all of its connections and electronics into a uniform 24mm depth, avoiding the bigger bulge you get over a good chunk of the CX rear. The result is a highly attractive alternative to the credit-card thin WX ‘Wallpaper’ series that costs far less and doesn’t need the WX’s large external speaker/electronics/connections box.
If anything, the Gallery design is even more persuasive in 77-inch form than it was at 65 inches. Seeing so much screen sat on so little rear is a trick that never grows old - especially given the way LG’s clever GX series mount lets you set the TV flush to your wall.
It’s not just LG’s design work that benefits from the OLED77GX’s gargantuan size, either. Far from highlighting potential picture flaws as can sometimes happen with king-sized TVs, the extra screen inches of the OLED77GX make it even easier to be impressed by LG’s 2020 OLED picture quality. In fact, the extra picture refinement and balance that looked so effective on the OLED65CX and OLED65GX becomes outright drool-worthy on the 77GX.
There’s no point going into a detailed report on the 77GX’s picture quality here; after all, it uses the same processing and 2020 OLED panel design as the CX and GX models I’ve already reviewed. So you can head over to this OLED65CX review for an in-depth picture breakdown. It’s fair to say, though, that the 77GX’s size subtly dials up all the little things that make LG’s 2020 OLED work so good.
Like all LG TVs, the OLED77GX uses the brand's excellent webOS smart system.
Photo: LG ElectronicsDetail levels with native 4K sources look superbly refined, for instance, powered by excellent color tone precision and gently improved (from 2019) per-pixel light management - especially when it comes to dark scenes and shadow detailing.
Motion looks cleaner and more natural without using LG’s TruMotion processing, but that processing also offers subtly but effectively refined options that allow you to finesse the amount of judder you see without having to put up with too much smoothness or too many unwanted digital side effects.
Upscaled pictures look sharp and clean too. They maybe look a touch crisper on the smaller LG screens (native 4K images also look a touch softer on the bigger screen, simply due to its reduced pixel density). But that doesn’t stop the 77GX’s extra scale from making it easier to admire just how well LG’s latest processing takes on the job of conjuring up the millions of pixels required to turn HD into 4K.
LG’s improvements when it comes to reducing noise in its OLED pictures are even more welcome at 77 inches. Even better, LG’s relatively aggressive brightness by OLED standards together with the brand’s potent HDR tone mapping combine with the acreage of screen to deliver an even more lifelike, immersive experience.
It's pretty amazing that a 77-inch TV with all its connections, speakers and electronics on board ... [+]
Photo: LG ElectronicsI’ve always felt as if the step up from 65 to 75/77-inch screens feels like the point where TVs turn into home cinema screens, and the 77GX merely reinforces that feeling.
Although the scale of the OLED77GX makes it easier to appreciate the picture strengths of LG’s latest king-sized OLED, I should stress that in essence the pictures it produced were simply bigger versions of what you get on the 65-inch CX and GX models. As you’d expect given that they all share the same video processor and 2020 LG Display OLED panel technology.
The only unexpected but welcome difference was a little more stability and black level prowess on the 77GX during tough dark sequences such as the one in Georgie’s basement in the opening scene of It, or the later scene in the same film where Patrick Hockstetter gets his Pennywise-shaped comeuppance in a dark sewer drain.
The 77GX’s sound is comparable with that of the 65-inch version - with all the good and bad that entails. On the downside, the sound doesn’t present forward as much as it does with LG’s CX OLEDs, meaning it doesn’t fill the room/embroil you in the soundstage so well. Despite joining the cheaper model in sporting built-in Dolby Atmos decoding.
Spot effects and vocal tracks in movie mixes don’t sound quite as precisely and specifically placed on the GX as the CX either, and there’s generally less impact from the GX’s sound.
Rear view of the LG OLED77GX with exploded connections.
Photo: LG ElectronicsOn the upside, despite the lack of any obvious forward-facing drivers and minimal depth available for cramming in serious air-moving drivers, the 77GX’s sound can get decently loud and spreads a fair distant across your wall beyond the screen’s physical boundaries.
Also, while the 77GX doesn’t attempt to plumb the same bass depths as LG’s CX OLED range, nor does it succumb as much to distortions and buzzing with the most bombastic mixes as the (otherwise superior sounding) CX models can.
I’m not saying the 77GX is immune to bass issues. It can become a bit phutty during, say, the bottom-end extremes of the Dolby Atmos tracks on 1917, It, and Blade Runner 2049. But in general the limitations when they kick in tend to be relatively undistracting.
Feature wise the 77GX is identical to the 65GX, complete with LG’s webOS operating system and excellent gaming tricks such as variable refresh rate support (in the NVidia G-Sync, AMD Freesync or HDMI 2.1’s own VRR variations), automatic low input lag switching, an impressively low 13ms input lag measurement in Game mode, and support for 120Hz 4K gaming.
Spare a thought for potential OLED image retention if you find yourself spending countless hours playing games (or watching TV channels) that feature static image elements.
The LG OLED77GX photographed in the exact opposite of my dark and messy test room.
Photo: LG ElectronicsI did notice a strange bug whereby activating the Freesync mode caused the picture to expand, pushing the edges of the image of the screen. The issue turned out to be related to the Just Scan feature; for some reason you have to manually set Just Scan to On with Freesync, whereas you can leave Just Scan set to its default Auto setting for non Freesync use. This isn’t a major problem though, of course, given that you can fix it yourself via the TV’s menus.
Verdict
The point I made in my review of the 65-inch 65GX about the GX series really only being worth the extra they cost over the CX series if you’re definitely going to be hanging your TV on a wall holds good with the 77GX too. Though it’s worth adding that the impact of the Gallery design is enhanced by the 77GX’s gargantuan size.
My appreciation for LG’s 2020 picture quality was also subtly enhanced rather than damaged by its extrapolation to a significantly bigger screen size.
In truth, I guess I didn’t really need to review the LG OLED77GX. After all, I’ve already seen the 65GX, and there seemed little if any doubt that the 77GX would turn out broadly the same.
The thing is, though, when the chance to check out the OLED77GX came up, I just couldn’t bring myself to turn down the opportunity of spending even just a few days locked up in a dark room with a stack of movies and such a big, high quality OLED TV. And despite the effort involved with setting such a beast up, and the amount of time I’ve spent ogling it that I didn’t really have to spare, I have precisely zero regrets about any of it. OLED at the sort of size offered by the 77GX really does feel like a whole new experience.
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If you found this article useful, you might also like these:
LG OLED65CX Review: Home Cinema Hero
LG OLED65GX Review: Wall Flower
LG’s 2020 TV Line Up Explained And Priced
LG’s 2020 4K OLED And LCD TVs Don’t Support Full 48Gbps HDMI 2.1
Panasonic 65HX800 Review: Just What The Director Ordered?
The Link LonkAugust 11, 2020 at 10:17PM
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LG OLED77GX OLED TV Review: Theater Of Dreams - Forbes
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