More boring is the fact that the TV frozen on several occasions while streaming with Apple TV + and Disney +, generally when you try to review or quickly advance a scene. A streaming box is an easy solution, but I hope LG will address these problems in future update.
The G5 gaming gate is the only place where I couldn’t kill advertisements, but iteration 2025 compensates for the addition of Xbox Cloud Streaming, alongside options like Amazon Luna, Nvidia GeForce Now and others. The television is designed for the game on all fronts, with four HDMI 2.1 inputs with full bandwidth, the support of the VRR at 165 Hz with compatible PCs and the Low Latence Auto mode (AllM). The games seem shiny by default, and LG Game Optimizer offers many personalization options.
There are many other ways to personalize your experience, including several “AI” features such as image modes and LG AI. AI is a great theme with the G5 (it’s even in the full name), including the new concierge of AI, which is a useful but clumsy navigation tool.
Speaking of navigation, the new remote control is more elegant and more confusing. I’m glad LG has kept the Wii -type point and click click cursor, but the absence of a silent key forces you to maintain the volume key to the mute, which I had to search to understand. The absence of a dedicated entry key also triggered me until I try the Home Incirted key, which draws the list of full entries alongside a dedicated intelligent center. In accordance with the theme of the AI, Google Assistant and Alexa are supported, just like streaming on Airplay and Google Cast.
Photography: Ryan Waniata
On image modes
I have a detailed guide to lock a superb image, and you can certainly enter the weeds with the many options and cinema modes of the G5, but the most precise image has proven to be deliciously simple to make. After merging with modes and parameters such as professional mode for a precise tone map at different levels of mastery, the filmmaker mode was almost perfect as it is for the two SDRs (standard dynamic range) and HDR10 (LG does not support HDR10 + darker).
If the filmmaker is too dark, you can raise the backlight in SDR or activate tones map for HDR10 for a serious boost. It is not available for Dolby Vision, so I used the slightly more brilliant cinema house with some minor adjustments, including deactivation of the smoothing of the movement. For consistent tests, I also extinguished the light sensors from the TV in the ECO settings and image mode.
Perfect image
The revolutionary panel of LG Oled pushed televisions to a whole new level, highlighted by the G4 and the Z95A from last year. The addition of a truly impactful HDR brightness to a screen that emits the light of a perfectly black vacuum is a moving experience, with everything, from the menus to a flickering candle seeming to emerge from darkness like ink pulled with a flame. These televisions are sufficiently shiny for almost all use cases, especially since most of the streaming content are capped at only 1,000 nits.
The G5 is even brighter, but as the excellent Bravia 9 of Sony, LG is judicious with its new luminosity booster. Most of the scenes seem refined and even resigned in the filmmaker’s modes. This maintains the movies and prestigious dramas that seem rich, saturated and almost sumptuous while the television follows the director’s intention, saving the real Glitz and Punch for certain protruding facts. But when this television appears, it really appears, especially when you feed it Blu-ray 4K High Nit.
