LG BX OLED – Does LG's entry-level BX OLED pay off?

The LG BX OLED has a successful design and makes an excellent impression. It looks very similar to its predecessor, the B9 and its more expensive sister model, the CX, and also has a very thin metal frame that makes a very high-quality impression. The BX is extremely flat, so it looks great when mounted on the wall. Its stand has a sleek design, but unfortunately it is made of plastic, which makes it wobble slightly when pushed.

However, you should not have any problems with the TV, as it is an absolute high-end device. For a clean cable management there is an eyelet on the back of the stand, through which the cables can be bundled. Unfortunately, some interfaces are oriented to the back, which can be a bit annoying when the TV is mounted on the wall.

As usual, the picture quality of the 10 bit OLED panel is really outstanding, especially in dark rooms. Due to the perfect blacks and the theoretically infinite contrast ratio, it provides a quality unattainable by conventional LED displays. In bright rooms, the picture quality is not to be sneezed at, but due to the average brightness, it is not quite as brilliant as in conventional LED displays. In addition, there is the possibly annoying Automatic Brightness Limiter, which reduces the brightness in large bright scenes in order to protect the organic LEDs from overheating. HDRHigh Dynamic Range – image/video with more dynamic range (contrast range) content is beautifully presented due to the very wide color gamut, but suffers from the low peak brightness – since it is so low, bright highlights cannot be brought out as well.

Another big advantage of the OLED design is an extremely wide viewing angle. Even with very oblique viewing angles on the panel, the colors do not blur and the black level remains almost unchanged. With the powerful Alpha 7 Gen 3 processor, many formats are supported for image optimization. As a dynamic HDR format, the BX features HDR10+License-free, dynamic HDR-format in competition with Dolby Vision and Dolby Vision IQDynamic HDR-format with a color depth of up to 12 Bits and Mastering of up to 10,000 Nits, which can adapt to the ambient brightness, which also adjusts the screen brightness to the surrounding brightness.

The motion handling of the LG BX OLED is outstanding. It has a panel with a refresh rateHertz is the derived SI-unit of frequency with 1Hz=1/s – When talking about TVs this means how many different pictures a TV can display in one second. of 120Hz, which is important for a good motion handling. Its response time of 0.2ms is almost perfect, which is especially excellent for very fast content like action movies, sports or gaming, because there is almost no motion blur. This blur can be further minimized by the 120Hz Black Frame InsertionProcess that inserts black “blank images” as intermediate images. This makes movements appear finer and clearer. feature. The extremely low response time favors stuttering for content with a low frame rate, which can be easily corrected by the motion interpolationArtificial calculation of more frames than the source material has to offer feature. Of course the BX can remove judder from all sources.

The LG BX has everything you could wish for when it comes to gaming. It has a low input lag of ~15ms at 4h@60Hz, whereby in combination with the low response time there are hardly any delays or blurry images. Furthermore there is an Auto Low Latency Mode, which automatically detects connected consoles and keeps the TVs Input LagTime it takes for the input signal to appear on the screen (delay) as low as possible.

To ensure screen-tearing free gaming, the BX supports a variable refresh rateHertz is the derived SI-unit of frequency with 1Hz=1/s – When talking about TVs this means how many different pictures a TV can display in one second. via G-SyncVariable Refresh Rate for Nvidia graphics cards and FreeSync PremiumVariable Refresh Rate with AMD graphics cards or consoles with at least 120fps at Full HD, which supports almost all newer graphics cards – so even PC users can play without screen-tearing if they have a newer graphics card from Nvidia or AMD. Just like its predecessor, the B9, the BX is also equipped with an HDMI 2.1 interface. So together with the 120Hz panel you are well prepared for the upcoming consoles Xbox Series X and Playstation 5 and you can take it to the limit with a 4K resolution with a refresh rate of 120Hz.
The wide viewing angle, which is typical for OLEDs, is really handy for gaming with several people, because no one has the disadvantage of fading colors if they sit at an angle to the panel.

The BX has been equipped with a 2.2 channel 40W sound system, which is well tuned in the trebles and midranges, allowing for a clear reproduction of dialogues. However, as with most other sound systems integrated into televisions, the BX’s bass is not strong enough to create a real atmosphere in action-packed content such as action movies or games. The speakers do get loud enough to allow the BX to be used in noisy surroundings, but as the volume increases, distortions become more audible – which should not really be noticeable at normal volume. If you buy a TV in this price range, you will probably not be satisfied with the integrated speakers. If you want to expand your setup with an external sound system or soundbar, the BX has an HDMI eARC interface, which supports uncompressed Dolby AtmosObject-based surround sound format with 3D-Sound from any direction via Dolby True HD. This allows a rich, spatial sound from all directions, giving you a true cinema feeling. Throughout its 2020 lineup, LG has eliminated DTSMulti-channel-sound-system (Surround Sound) competing with Dolby Digital support, which is also the case with many other manufacturers, such as Samsung.

The BX uses the WebOS 5.0 as its smart operating system, which can be controlled with the Magic Remote. This allows a cursor to be controlled by hand movements to navigate smoothly through the menus and apps. However, a classic navigation using arrow keys on the remote control is also possible, depending on your preferences. If both types of navigation are too cumbersome for you, you can use the voice control via Amazon Alexa or the Google Assistant instead. For wireless data transfer between the TV and Apple devices Airplay 2 available.

The choice of apps is huge and classics like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Youtube are already pre-installed. With LG ThinQ, smart home applications can be controlled from the BX and everything is conveniently displayed on a dashboard. There is also a Twin Tuner, which enables Time Shift and PVRPersonal Video Recorder, recording TV programs to a USB-Memory Device.