I never thought I wanted another “Smart TV” again. I’ve bought a few of them over the years, only to be utterly disappointed by the lack of any functionality even remotely resembling anything “smart”, software updates languishing, features not working after a year, and generally just utter disappointment. On top of that, the user interfaces I had experienced with Smart TVs were… anything but.
This summer, though, I had to suffer through getting a Smart TV in order to test the Dolby Atmos functionality of the new Sonos Arc soundbar. Turns out the only HDMI switch box I could get that would pass Atmos signals is baked inside of a Smart TV, so I asked myself, “who makes the best OLED TV?” and quickly found myself selecting something from LG.
Sure enough, when the 65″ LG OLED65CXPUA arrived, it functioned spectacularly as the necessary HDMI switch box and I was finally able to experience Atmos sound as Sonos intended. It was glorious. What happened next was the biggest surprise, though.
This LG TV is actually smart. webOS turns out to be a very mature, up-to-date, cared-for platform that truly stands on its own. On top of that, the TV’s support for AirPlay 2 is the most reliable video AirPlay implementation I’ve experienced yet, and that includes working with various models of Apple TV.
Oh, and the TV has its own, built-in Atmos support, too, which was another pleasant surprise, especially if you don’t have a Sonos Arc to test.
webOS
LG’s webOS app store is robust, and includes apps for all the services you’d expect: Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, YouTube, and countless others. Among those countless others were some lovely surprises: Apple TV+, Plex, Xfinity Stream, and, once it was released, NBC’s Peacock. Almost without realizing it, we stopped using the TV as a switch box, not because there were any problems with that, but because we didn’t need to feed much of anything into the TV other than an Ethernet (or Wi-Fi) signal. From there we could basically watch anything we wanted, all in glorious 4K (where available) and, of course, with the aforementioned Dolby Atmos sound.
Sure, we occasionally fire up the TiVo to watch something it has recorded, but we just as frequently let our (mandatory-to-have-with-our-plan) Xfinity X1 box record something and just watch that via the webOS Xfinity Stream app directly via the TV. Live TV is also supported that way.
The only time I turn on my Apple TV now is when I want to use an app on there that’s not available on my TV itself: the WWDC app for videos, Testflight to test something for a developer, the “Apple Events” app to watch special events (though YouTube has those, too, now), and the occasional Apple Arcade game on Apple TV.
For most of our viewing, though, the TV quickly became our preferred streaming device, which made things super-simple. Smart TV for the win! At least when that Smart TV is from LG.
What about Samsung?
Because of the pandemic, we didn’t do any “normal” vacation travel to cities or other places-of-interest. We did, however, want to get away with the four of us, which simply meant renting an AirBnB in some (other) remote corner of New England and enjoying some lockdown time together “over there”. The scenery was different. We had a lake outside our back door. But TV was still important for those evening wind-down activities… like binging a show together or watching a movie.
The AirBnBs we wound up in both had new Samsung TVs. “Perfect,” I thought, “I get to test and compare.” Samsung’s Smart TVs also have the Apple TV+ app in their stores, but they don’t have Peacock. They also don’t have anything close to the simplicity of the user experience of LG’s webOS. Managing apps on those came with a much more difficult learning curve for us, and this was all just a few weeks after we adapted to the webOS on the LG TV. It was all still fresh in our minds.
You can make ’em both work, but the Apple-esque simplicity of LG’s webOS beats Samsung’s offering for us every day of the week.
AirPlay and HomeKit
Speaking of Apple-esque, the LG Smart TV supports both AirPlay 2 and HomeKit. We’ve always had hit-or-miss experience streaming from our iPhones to our Apple TVs. Streaming to the LG TV is frictionless, and we find ourselves using AirPlay for those quick little, “hey, let me show you something” moments when we’re all in the living room.
As listeners of Mac Geek Gab know, I’ve recently dug back into using HomeKit proper (HOOBS is great for those devices which don’t natively support HomeKit!), and having the LG TV as a first-class citizen on my HomeKit network is stellar. Volume, power, input source, and more can be controlled and automated along with everything else.
It’s always delightful to find a non-Apple device which integrates with my Apple “network” like a native. LG’s webOS makes their TVs do just this.
Adding the LG TV to HomeKit is a snap, and then you can configure, automate, and trigger to your heart’s content.
Let’s not forget that OLED Screen
Some would accuse me of burying the lede, but hopefully you understand that my path into this world here meant I had different priorities. Of course, I chose LG because of all the great things I knew to be academically (and anecdotally) true about their OLED panels. Experiencing one in its 65″ glory at home, though, is another matter entirely.
We came from a decade-plus of Panasonic Plasma displays (LED’s viewing angle just doesn’t work for our living room), and were quite spoiled in that world. The first week or two with the LG OLED screen was almost distracting because of the increased realism. Yes, there’s a quality difference, of course, but the effect is that everything just looks that much more real. It’s almost as if the perceived depth looks more three dimensional because of the enhanced clarity and contrast of the OLED screen.
To this day, months later, I’m still often amazed when I turn this thing on and see the image again. You definitely won’t go wrong selecting an LG OLED panel for your next TV, that’s for sure.
Realistic Affordability
Our family goal was to coast through on the last of the Panasonic Plasmas until OLED came down into our price range. At $2,300 for the 65-inch version (or $4,000 for the 77-inch version), these prices are realistic and affordable if this is what you’re looking for.
And I highly recommend you take a look!
The Link LonkSeptember 19, 2020 at 02:17AM
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LG’s webOS OLED TV: The Best Accessory for Your Apple TV+ Subscription - The Mac Observer
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