LG has been one of the few trusted names when it comes to OLED TVs over the years. Although OLED technology has been in the mainstream for a while now, it is often not adapted very well or the panel quality can often be subpar. However, LG's C series is a popular line of OLED TVs that has received an upgrade with the Evo C3. The price of the TV ranges from Rs. 1,50,000 to Rs. 1,62,551, depending on where you purchase it from. Let's explore the capabilities of this LG TV and see what it can really do.
Design: The TV is metallic with a plastic casing in the front. The main panel is incredibly slim, measuring about 1.8 inches if you include the back panel that houses all the ports and machinery. The screen itself is less than 1cm thick, so its sides wouldn't hang completely flat against the wall due to the bulge in the middle at the back. If you want to table-mount the TV, there's a centrally mounted metal stand (not included in the box) that looks premium and feels just as sturdy as the rest of the TV. The back housing is also not flimsy and doesn't have any easily bendable spots or dings, which is good to see. The TV weighs a little over 14 kg, and adding the stand adds nearly 2 kg to it. The bezels around the display are thin and symmetrical. At the bottom, there is an LED with a physical button next to it for switching the TV on or off, as well as bringing up the menu by long-pressing it. The TV comes with LG's Magic Air remote, which resembles a standard TV remote with power, volume, channel, and number keys, along with a scroll wheel, okay button, and app shortcuts. It's not as small as the remote controls seen with Android TVs these days, but it isn't overly large for a TV either.
Display and performance: The TV sports a 55-inch 4K (3840x2160) W-OLED display with support for up to 120Hz refresh rates with Dolby Vision, HDR10 and HLG. It runs on webOS 23 with AirPlay 2 and Smart Hub for controlling your smart connected devices through the TV or watching their feed on your TV itself. It’s powered by a quad core α9 Gen6 AI processor and carries 8GB of internal storage space.
The OLED display used here by LG is slightly glossy but has an anti-reflective coating on it, which does an okay job against lights in your room. The panel used by LG is a quality one with really good viewing angles even when used in a medium to large room, plus rich black levels and high contrast for multiple formats. The display is vivid and sharp to view your content on without worry you might be missing out on any major details. It touches 800 nits when playing HDR and Dolby Vision content, which isn’t too high when compared to other TVs around the price range, but still handles the content keeping dark scenes and contrast in place when using apps such as Apple TV and Netflix on it. On the back, you get four HDMI 2.1 ports (one with eARC), three USB 2.0 ports, one ethernet LAN port, one optical in, one infrared out and one CI Plus 2.0 port.
The evo C3 can do variable refresh rates up to 120Hz along with auto low latency mode, which are specially useful if you’re going to connect with a gaming console, such as a PlayStation, Xbox or even your gaming PC, and considering there’s nVidia’s G-Sync and AMD’s Freesync support, too, it would only make your gameplay experience better and more compatible across different gaming platforms. There’s a gaming picture mode that’s recommended for playing higher refresh rate and high resolution games. But in general, I prefered the Filmmaker mode on the TV to watching TV shows and movies most of the time as it seems to give a more accurate picture while keeping high dynamic range and shadows in place, too. For sports, the TV doesn’t break a sweat for handling 50 or 60FPS live streams whether inside a streaming app, including SonyLiv, JioCinema and even Twitch, without any stuttering, though you might notice a little judder for very low frame rate videos. Though Android TV has far more apps and a bigger ecosystem in place, you wouldn’t be missing out on any major OTT or streaming service app on webOS. You can set the TV to switch to an input mode that was on last time when before the TV was turned off so you don’t have to manually switch to it after turning the TV on again.
Sound: The C3 evo features 40 watt down firing 2.1.2 speakers that are surprisingly decent. Don’t get me wrong, you’re definitely better off investing in a dedicated set of speakers to go with the TV, especially for a large room, but for the TV speakers, they do a decent job of offering clean bass, clear dialogues as well as not mushing out on background details very often. They can struggle little when it comes to mids and mids to high when you’re playing music or during a soundtrack in a movie or show. The TV supports Dolby Atmos, DTS as well as aptX (for Bluetooth 5.0) provided your source is also having it.
Verdict: With a great display in place, a premium design (including the table-top stand), and a decent set of speakers, the LG C3 OLED evo doesn’t disappoint. You can nitpick that its brightness could have been a little better while LG could have provided some additional freebies (such as a subscription bundled with it), but it’s certainly not a deal breaker. So, if you have been eyeing a premium TV for your entertainment at home, it may not be only movies and shows but also for playing games on, the C3 OLED evo is a well-performing option worth your consideration.
