Why You Shouldn't buy the 2023 LG UR7300, UR7500, UR8000, or UR9000
Why You Shouldn't buy the LG UR7300, UR7500, UR8000, or UR9000
Date Updated: June 2023 | Written by: u/Bill_Money | Edited & Maintained by: u/htmod
Why You SHOULDN'T Buy the LG UR7300 (UR7000)
UNDER CONSTRUCTION
Why You SHOULDN'T Buy the LG UR7500 (UR7600)
UNDER CONSTRUCTION
Why You SHOULDN'T Buy the LG UR8000 (UR8100)
UNDER CONSTRUCTION
Why You SHOULDN'T Buy the LG UR9000 (UR9100)
Most major European markets carry the LG UR91 (UR91006LA) instead, which performs the same but has a center-mounted stand.
- Bottom Line (Rtings)
"The LG UR9000, also known as the LG UR90, is an entry-level 4k TV in LG's 2023 TV lineup. It's the successor to the LG UQ9000 and is LG's highest-tier budget model, sitting above the LG UR8000 and below LG's NanoCell and QNED series. It's a simple model and lacks support for most advanced features available on LG's higher-tier models. It has LG's α5 AI Processor Gen6, which is pared down from the α9 AI Processor Gen6 found in the LG C3 OLED or LG G3 OLED and is meant to provide audio and video upscaling through AI technology. The TV is limited to a 60Hz refresh rate at all resolutions, has no Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) support, and doesn't support Dolby Vision or HDR10+. It does come with the same LG Magic Remote found on all of LG's 2023 releases and runs the 2023 version of LG's proprietary webOS smart interface with all of the usual streaming apps you're used to."
Mixed Use: "Still, it's just not bright enough to fight glare from strong light sources. It's also not a great dark room TV, as its contrast is terrible, and it's not helped by its awful local dimming feature, which adds massive blooming in dark scenes. Due to the TV's middling HDR brightness and terrible contrast, highlights don't pop, and any HDR content looks washed out and lifeless. "
TV Shows: " it's not bright enough for bright rooms. The TV isn't great at upscaling low-resolution content, so low-resolution shows aren't sharp and look a bit muddy, but fortunately, they're free of macro-blocking in dark scenes due to the TV's good low-quality content smoothing. "
Sports: "there's blur on fast-moving objects, like players or the puck in hockey, but it's not excessive to the point of being annoying. Its gray uniformity is good, but in extreme cases, like on an all-white hockey rink, there are noticeable uniformity issues in the form of some dirty screen effect and color differences between the top and bottom of the panel."
Video Games: "The LG UR9000 delivers a mediocre gaming experience. It has poor contrast and unremarkable SDR brightness, so games don't pop even in a dark room. It does have good reflection handling, so gaming in a moderately-lit room is a bit better as the TV's poor contrast, with its blue-ish blacks and patchy clouding, is not as noticeable in that context, although the TV's brightness can't keep up with very bright rooms. The TV's gray uniformity is good except in extreme cases, like playing a game with a mostly white background. Then, noticeable uniformity issues crop up, like vignetting and color differences between the top and bottom of the panel."
HDR Movies: "The LG UR9000 delivers a sub-par movie-watching experience in a dark room. It has an abysmal contrast ratio, mediocre HDR brightness, and middling black uniformity, so blacks look blue and patchy in a dark room, with noticeable uniformity issues. Its local dimming feature is awful, and while it slightly improves contrast and brightness when enabled, it also causes severe blooming issues in the form of vertical bars of light, which are very noticeable in dark scenes. "
- Build Quality
"The LG UR9000 has a functional design, with thin bezels on all sides except the thicker bottom edge. It doesn't look as premium as some of LG's higher-end models, but it works."
"The TV uses a pair of V-shaped feet which support the panel well. You can set the feet at two different positions; a wide position 46" apart or a narrower position with the feet only 16.6" apart, so it's easy to find an apt media stand or table to fit the TV on. The feet are otherwise 11.8" deep. They lift the display about 3.3" from the table, so almost every soundbar fits under it, although the soundbar might block the centrally-mounted infrared sensor, as it's about 2.5" from the table."
"The back of the LG UR9000 is plain but functional. The inputs are recessed into the back panel, making them hard to reach when the TV is wall-mounted. The back has removable cable management clips just above the feet on the left and right, through which you route cables and into the feet. It works, but it also means that you have two sets of cables coming out of opposite ends of the TV if the feet are set at their widest position. You can't move the clips toward the center if you prefer to have the feet set at their narrowest position."
"Even though the back of the TV is made of metal, it flexes quite a bit"
- Contrast & Brightness
"The LG UR9000 has terrible contrast. Blacks look gray, and dark scenes lack shadow detail. Unfortunately, the local dimming feature is awful, and we recommend you turn it off."
HDR - Hallway Lights (~1950 cd/m²): 310 cd/m² | Yellow Skyscraper (~700 cd/m²): 298 cd/m² | Landscape Pool (~300 cd/m²): 126 cd/m²
"The LG UR9000 has mediocre HDR brightness. Due to its poor contrast and awful local dimming feature, bright highlights in HDR content just don't stand out, even in a dark room. Note that our measurements are with local dimming set to 'Off', as the feature is terrible. You gain some brightness with local dimming set to 'High', but this comes at the expense of image quality due to significantly increased blooming and unpleasant lighting zone transitions."
"The HDR brightness in Game Mode is nearly identical to its brightness in 'Cinema'. Again, you gain some brightness with local dimming set to 'High', but this comes at the expense of image quality due to significantly increased blooming and unpleasant lighting zone transitions."
"The PQ EOTF tracking on the LG UR9000 is decent. All content is over brightened in very dark scenes but then is too dark for the rest of its EOTF tracking. Content mastered at 600 and 1000 nits hard clips when the TV reaches its peak brightness, leading to a loss of bright detail, although this TV doesn't show any truly bright detail anyway as it's just simply not bright enough. For content mastered at 4000 nits, a slow roll-off preserves details well."
Real Scene Peak Brightness (SDR): 267 cd/m²
"The LG UR9000 has mediocre brightness in SDR. It's bright enough to overcome a bit of glare, but it isn't optimal for a bright room. Brightness is consistent from scene to scene with no dips, so that's great."
- Color Gamut/Volume
"The LG UR9000 has an okay color gamut. It can't display a wide color gamut, so HDR content looks washed out. The tone mapping is also bad throughout, as the TV can't maintain accuracy when trying to push the brightest images possible."
"The LG UR9000 has sub-par color volume. Its color gamut in HDR is very narrow, so it can't display a wide range of colors. It also can't display very bright colors or dark saturated colors well due to its terrible contrast ratio."
"The black uniformity on this TV is middling. The entire screen has a blueish tint with white patches, almost like a dark blue cloudy sky. Dark scenes are patchy and distracting. The TV has an awful local dimming feature"
"The TV has an adequate HDR native gradient. There's a lot of banding in dark grays and noticeable banding in dark reds, greens, blues, and bright greens. It's not as noticeable in real content, but it's noticeable in scenes with different shades of similar color."
- Other
"The TV has good low-quality content smoothing. There's very little noticeable macro-blocking in dark scenes, which is very good, but unfortunately, it struggles with preserving details."
"The LG UR9000 has inadequate sharpness processing capabilities. Upscaled content looks blurry, text isn't sharp, and small details are lost."
- OUR TAKE (/r/htbuyingguides):
Hard Facts - Edge Lit, Poor Local Dimming, 60 Hz, Horrid Brightness = No Thanks
There are better choices.
For the US - TCL S546, TCL S555 | For EU/Asia/Australia - TCL C745
Posted Jun 19, 2023, 10:11 PM UTC · edited · locked