LG A1 OLED Television Review – The cheapest oled ever

Cons

• No HDMI 2.1
• Sound quality is not special
• No Atmos and DTS
• Low peak brightness in HDR

LG’s C-series OLED televisions have been at the top of the list of most viewed TVs in our Pricewatch for years. That is not surprising, because these models generally have very good image quality, offer excellent sound quality and have a sleek design. Although the prices of OLED televisions are declining year on year, the C-series is still not a cheap TV. To make OLED available to a wider audience, LG has introduced the A1. This is the entry-level OLED model that uses the same image panel as its big brother, making the image quality very comparable.

To keep costs down, LG has had to save on the rest of the television, and we see that reflected in the specifications. For example, the A1 can display a maximum of 60 fps and there is no support for variable frame rates. There is therefore no HDMI 2.1 present, since HDMI 2.0 is sufficient to display 4k images at 60fps. For this reason, fanatic gamers will probably prefer the C1, although it is of course not a punishment at all to play on a 4k OLED with 60fps and HDR. Just like the more expensive models, the A1 runs on webOS and you also get the same Magic Remote included, equipped with a handy scroll wheel, motion detection and a microphone.

The A1 comes in screen sizes 48, 55, 65 and 77 inches. The smallest size was available at the time of writing from about 750 euros. The 55″ version, the model we tested, was available for the same price. The 65″ model cost 1150 euros and the 77″ size cost around 2500 euros.

Appearance

Because the A1 uses the same screen as the C1, the similarities are great. Around the screen is exactly the same metal, black finished edge. The same bulge in the middle below the screen casing the ambient light sensor, infrared receiver and power LED. With wall mounting, there is therefore no difference between the A1 and the more expensive C1.

The only visible difference, on the front, is in the feet. The C1 stands on a wide central base and the A1 has two legs on either side of the screen. They are made of plastic. Although they are a bit cheaper to make, they still have a neat appearance due to the brushed metal finish. The biggest disadvantage of the loose legs is that it is difficult to neatly hide the cables out of sight.

Connections

As with LG’s other televisions, the A1’s power cord is attached and, moreover, it is only one and a half meters long. That can be very inconvenient if you want to mount the TV on the wall. With wall mounting, the connections that are mounted straight to the back are also difficult to reach. Especially the 3.5mm headphone jack, which can also serve as an analog audio output, is in an awkward place. You can also use Bluetooth headphones, but wired headphones are preferable for gaming, because they have no lag.

Furthermore, on the back are the connections for satellite, cable, network and a Toslink digital audio output. One of the three HDMI 2.0 connections is also on the back. This is the only one that has an (enhanced) audio return channel. On the side is the slot for a CI+ module, the two other HDMI 2.0 connections and two USB connections.

WebOS, remote control, and image properties

The A1 runs on the exact same operating system as the more expensive C1. You also receive exactly the same remote control. For this we refer you to the review of the C1 . Because an identical image panel is used, the image properties are also the same. As always with OLED televisions, the image properties are very good. You can read more about this on this page .

Game achievements

As mentioned, the A1 does not have HDMI 2.1 inputs, so the maximum frame rate is 60 fps. Nor is there support for variable frame rates. The more expensive C1 does have HDMI 2.1 and is therefore a better choice for avid gamers. That does not alter the fact that the A1 is still a very pleasant television to game on, because there is support for HDR and the input lag is also very low, with about 10ms in both 1080p60 and 2160p60. Chroma subsampling can also be turned off completely by pressing the settings button and navigating to All Settings > General > Devices > HDMI Settings > HDMI Deep Color. There you can choose ‘option 4K’ and you will see the full-color resolution.

Energy usage

As of March 1 of this year, there will be new energy labels for televisions and other household appliances, such as refrigerators and vacuum cleaners. The rules have been tightened considerably to encourage manufacturers to design ever more energy-efficient devices. As a result, almost all televisions this year carry energy label G. This means that the letter on the energy label is currently a less useful tool for choosing an energy-efficient television. If all goes well, that will change in the future, if the consumption of televisions is further reduced. You can read more about this subject in this article .

The LG A1 also carries energy label G, but despite the red color on the label, this model does not consume much more than other televisions with the same image size. Our 55″ test model consumes about 128W on average in standard mode, with the screen producing about 226cd/m² of brightness. If we adjust the screen to 250cd/m², the consumption rises to 141W. At 120cd/m², a brightness that If you still have a good image in the evening in low ambient light, the average power consumption drops to 84 W. If you put the A1 in cinema mode, the position where you see the best image quality, the consumption increases to an average of 114 W, whereby the screen has a brightness of 185cd/m².The A1 is equipped with an ambient light sensor, with which you can automatically adjust the brightness of the screen to the ambient light. This way you always get a good picture and the TV does not use a lot of energy unnecessarily.

Sound

LG has clearly cut back on the sound of the A1. Where the C1 has a specified total power of 40W, the A1 has to make do with 20W divided over two speakers. These are located in the bottom of the housing and radiate the sound downwards. With the C1, the wide foot ensures that the sound is reflected forward, so towards your ears. Because the A1 is equipped with loose legs, the sound is bounced upwards via the furniture on which the TV is placed and then arrives at your ears via a number of reflections.

The result of this is that the stereo image is significantly less beautiful and, moreover, voices are less clearly understood. The lower power is expressed in a not too high maximum volume and, moreover, the bass reproduction is meager. When listening to music, movies and series, the speaker system does not make much of an impression. It is good enough for normal television viewing, but for a bit more experience it is better to choose the more expensive C1 or an external audio system.

LG decided two years ago to cut licensing costs and dropped support for DTS sound. Samsung and Panasonic had already stopped using DTS sound before. In addition, this entry-level model lacks support for Dolby Atmos sound. That is not a big loss in our opinion, because Dolby Atmos really comes into its own with an audio system with many separate channels. In our opinion, it doesn’t add much to televisions with only two channels.

Image processing

The A1 features LG’s α7 Gen 4 AI processor . That is a step below the α9 – processor that can be found in the C9. This processes the images at a maximum of 60 fps, which means that you have to do without black frame insertion compared to the more expensive models . The function, called ‘OLED Motion’ by LG, provides a sharper representation of movement by briefly displaying black between the existing images. This creates less motion blur on your retina. Unfortunately, this produces a significantly darker image. In addition, you can clearly see the blinking, so that few people will miss this feature.

Furthermore, all the usual gadgets are present with which the image can be ‘improved’, such as noise suppressors, contrast enhancers, and sharpening algorithms. As always, we recommend disabling all of these ‘image enhancers’, because in addition to the intended changes, they also negatively affect the image and also make the image look different than it is intended.

Measurements

We do not have to measure the contrast with OLED televisions, because the perfect black display always results in ∞:1, or infinitely large. To be able to see this enormous contrast in its full glory, it is necessary to look in a dark room; otherwise reflections in the image detract from the black display. We measured color rendering with our SpectraCal C6 colorimeter, which we metered in Calman using an X-Rite i1Pro 2 spectrometer.

The preset with the best color rendering is Cinema. We see in the grayscale measurement that the average deviation amounts to a ΔΕ2000 of 3, so that the deviations are just starting to become visible with the naked eye. We measure the somewhat more saturated colors on the basis of the colors of the ColorChecker card, which has been used in photography for many years to check the color reproduction. We see a neat average of ΔΕ2000 of 2.2, so that the deviations are actually not visible with your own eyes.

HDR

As far as HDR formats are concerned, there is support for Dolby Vision, Hybrid Log-Gamma and HDR10. So there is no support for HDR10+, an extension of HDR10 that adds dynamic metadata and can mainly be found with Amazon Prime Video. That is of course a pity, but not an insurmountable problem, since all HDR10 + content can also be displayed without the dynamic metadata. LG tries to compensate for this by adding HDR10 Pro, a feature that should mimic the effect of dynamic metadata. Of course we would have preferred to see support for HDR10+.

The Cinema preset also provides the best results when displaying HDR images. Unfortunately, the peak brightness with HDR playback is a bit disappointing with the A1.

With a completely white screen, only a brightness of 112cd/m² is achieved. Strangely enough, when displaying SDR images, the A1 achieves a higher peak brightness with a one hundred percent white screen. Displaying a smaller white area on a black background allows a higher peak brightness of 458cd/m²; still considerably less than all other OLED televisions. In Dynamic mode we measured peaks up to 657cd/m², but because the image is displayed much too blue in that mode, we don’t think this is an improvement.

LG uses the same image panel for the A1 as for the more expensive C1, which produces a much clearer image. We therefore have the idea that the lower brightness of the A1 is purely a software limitation. Especially because a completely white screen with SDR display can be brighter. This positions the A1 clearly below the C1 and it also results in a lower HDR consumption on the energy label. It is also quite possible that a lighter and therefore cheaper power supply could be used due to the brightness limitation. HDR still looks very nice on the A1 in a completely dark room, better than with most LCD TVs, but with a little more ambient light, the HDR display is clearly less impressive.

When displaying, HDR displays should cut brightness peaks above the maximum possible and display them with the peak brightness of the screen itself. In doing so, details in the highlights are lost. In order to maintain a little more detail in the brightest parts of the screen, the television manufacturers apply a certain degree of roll-off at the kink point in the electro-optical transfer function. That is the function, comparable to gamma in SDR images, that determines how bright a certain signal value should actually be displayed.

The roll-off that LG applies to the A1 can be clearly seen on the graph at the bottom right, where a round ‘knee’ can be seen at the tipping point. You can also clearly see the tipping point in the middle graph. Despite this, the measured color deviations are on average below a ΔΕICtCp of 2, making them barely perceptible to the naked eye. In the top graph you can see the deviations where the brightness error is not taken into account. As a result, the color deviations have a very neat average ΔΕICtCp of 1.2. Due to the scale of the graph, the deviations appear to be a lot larger than they actually are. LG adjusts the A1s very accurately in the factory.

Conclusion

The LG A1 is the cheapest OLED television at the moment and that fact alone makes it interesting. You certainly sacrifice something compared to more expensive models such as the C1, but the points that have been cut are, in our opinion, well chosen. This makes this TV interesting for a large group of people. The operation is not inferior to that of the other OLED models from LG. The TV runs on the same operating system, webOS, and you get the same pleasant Magic Remote included.

The image quality is, as you would expect from an OLED TV, very good and the TV is also neatly adjusted in the factory. However, savings have been made on image processing. That means no HDMI 2.1 is available and the frame rate is limited to a maximum of 60fps. The most avid gamers will prefer the C1, because this TV can display a maximum of 120fps and supports variable frame rates. Still, it is pleasant to play on the A1 because of the very low input lag and the support for HDR.

As far as sound is concerned, the A1 is not a star, but the audio system is sufficient for normal television viewing. Moreover, it is of course always possible to connect a soundbar or AV receiver. It is a pity that there is no support for DTS sound. Dolby Atmos sound is also missing, but that does not add much to most televisions with only two channels.

The HDR display is brilliant thanks to the perfect black reproduction and the high contrast. However, the peak brightness is lower than with other OLED televisions. It is therefore important to watch HDR in a relatively dark room, otherwise the image is less impressive. The A1 clearly offers less than other OLED televisions, but that is what the price is for. We think LG has made the right compromises to make this model more affordable, so we still think it’s great value for money.