LG OLED 55E8L test and review: new top-end TV from LG

Test results

The 55-inch LG OLED 55E8L has become the “mea­sure of all TV things” in the mid-size TV class by the time it hit the mar­ket. Thanks to OLED tech­nol­o­gy, it presents first-class image qual­i­ty in every respect. The equip­ment here is top-notch, and the sound qual­i­ty does not allow you to wish for some­thing bet­ter. How­ev­er, such char­ac­ter­is­tics require too much ener­gy.

Test results of LG OLED 55E8L

Best technology, top picture

With OLED tech­nol­o­gy, the LG OLED 55E8L’s 55-inch screen dis­plays deep blacks and rich, vibrant col­ors. In addi­tion, this tech­nique guar­an­tees greater dura­bil­i­ty than con­ven­tion­al LCD TVs. For these rea­sons, and because none of the indi­vid­ual scor­ing dis­ci­plines were found to be seri­ous­ly flawed, the TV from LG took the top posi­tion in the rank­ing of devices with a screen size of 44 to 59 inch­es.

LG OLED 55E8L is not a cheap plea­sure. At the start of sales, the mod­el costs about 180,000 rubles.

(Nearly) unsurpassed image quality

As a mat­ter of course for this size class, the mod­el from LG works with UHD res­o­lu­tion, that is, 3840x2160 pix­els. In extreme cas­es, the screen can reach a max­i­mum bright­ness of 595 cd/m2 and deliv­er a con­trast ratio of 221:1. Both indi­ca­tors are top, but not record-break­ing. Com­bin­ing all the mea­sure­ment data, we get a final image qual­i­ty score of 98.2 points out of 100 pos­si­ble. We find the play­back qual­i­ty of Blu-ray con­tent par­tic­u­lar­ly con­vinc­ing.

In terms of sound, the LG TV also out­per­forms most com­peti­tors, in the case of which it often makes sense to pur­chase a sound­bar. This is where you can save mon­ey. How­ev­er, for true home the­ater enjoy­ment, it’s worth spend­ing a cer­tain amount on a sep­a­rate audio device.

In the Image Qual­i­ty cat­e­go­ry, only the Sony KD-55A1 shows high­er results (100 points). But in prac­tice, you prob­a­bly won’t notice the dif­fer­ence, and Sony, even after low­er­ing prices for last year’s mod­els, remains about 15,000 rubles more expen­sive than the mod­el from LG.

exemplary equipment

Lux­u­ri­ous equip­ment is anoth­er rea­son for the high price of the LG OLED 55E8L. The device we test­ed has a full list of tuners (two for cable, satel­lite and DVB-T2) as well as four HDMI inputs. In addi­tion, con­tent can be received via LAN/WLAN and three USB ports. Record­ing to USB media is also pos­si­ble.

Smart-TV func­tion­al­i­ty is imple­ment­ed on the basis of the webOS 4.0 oper­at­ing sys­tem: Ama­zon Instant Video, Max­dome, Net­flix and YouTube are already here. Addi­tion­al sources the user can dis­cov­er on their own, because Smart-TV is expand­able.

Weaknesses in Secondary Estimates

The only scor­ing dis­ci­pline in which the TV does not per­form very well is ener­gy effi­cien­cy. In nor­mal oper­a­tion, our meters show 122 watts. In prin­ci­ple, for a 55-inch mod­el, this is not so bad, and the old­er mod­els of the same size were much worse. Philips 55POS901F, for exam­ple, draws 150 watts from the out­let.

But now most mod­els are able to con­sume less: even LG itself intro­duced the 55SJ8509 last fall, which has a pow­er con­sump­tion of only 84 watts. There­fore, in this test cat­e­go­ry, the new OLED TV earned a “sat­is­fac­to­ry” rat­ing, although offi­cial­ly it still meets the EU ener­gy effi­cien­cy lev­el “A”.

Alternative: Philips 55POS901F

In the face of Philips 55POS901F, you will get an alter­na­tive TV that will cost about 40,000 rubles less. This mod­el also offers UHD res­o­lu­tion on a 55-inch OLED pan­el with high image qual­i­ty. Is that the max­i­mum bright­ness here is a few cd/m2 low­er, and the sound is not so good. In addi­tion, Philips con­sumes more elec­tric­i­ty. Nev­er­the­less, in gen­er­al, it is a good alter­na­tive and is cur­rent­ly in the hon­or­able fourth place in our rat­ing.

Characteristics and test results of LG OLED 55E8L

Pho­to: man­u­fac­tur­ing com­pa­nies