Thomas J. Norton

PRICE $8,000

AT A GLANCE
Plus
Jaw-dropping black level and contrast
Wide viewing angle
Thin, thin, thin. And light
Minus
Expensive
Must be wall-mounted

THE VERDICT
We could argue with the mandatory inclusion of an outboard soundbar, the lack of a stand-mount option, and a lower (but still perfectly satisfactory) peak brightness for HDR than the best of the LCD competition provides. But it’s hard to imagine that any other 65-inch Ultra HDTV in 2017 will offer overall superior performance, or a more impressive aesthetic, than the best LCD competition.

Dateline: March 2017. Along with several other bit-drenched members of the audio/video press, we’ve been brought to San Francisco for a day with LG. The events will include a briefing on the company’s Ultra HDTV lineup for 2017, a visit to Dolby headquarters for the latest pitch on Dolby Vision high dynamic range (HDR), and several hours of hands-on experience with the 65-inch OLED65W7P, the smaller of the two new 2017 OLED models in LG’s flagship Signature series. (A 77-inch version should be available later this year; no price had been announced as we went to press, but if that’s your ticket, bring money.)

Here's a way to encourage your kids to write on the wall—that is if the wall is an LG Touch TV which functions like a huge, modern-day, multi-colored Etch-A-Sketch. It's also a 2D plasma HDTV. But it's clear that not all of us are Rembrandt.

LG demonstrated the 3D LCoS projector we've seen at a couple of previous shows. The CF3D was unfortunately no better than before. This time the issues were a very slight image softness and, more importantly, a badly skewed white balance. Skin tones looked painfully sunburned. Hopefully this can be calibrated out, the if any effort was made to produce a semblance of accurate color here it did not show.I left after about five minutes as the image was uncomfortable to watch.

Although LG's superb but pricey ($30,000) 88-inch 8K OLED TV and new 4K CineBeam short-throw projection system were the stars of the booth, LG also featured a new LCD-based 8K TV.