LG NANO85 – NANO85 - The midrange of the NanoCell seires

The design of the LG Nano85 reflects its position within the lineup: It is simple and flat, the frame is quite narrow, but the back is completely made of plastic. It has two wide stand feet, which gives the TV a secure stand, but it still wobbles slightly when pushed. Unfortunately, there is no cable management provided so that the setup makes a clean impression – LG has really been sleeping in this regard in the entire NanoCell lineup. All in all, it does not look quite as high-quality, but it is quite stable. On the wall, it definitely cuts a fine figure due to the low depth and the narrow frame.

The Nano85’s 10 BitThe color depth is measured in Bit. 8 Bit stands for 2⁸ different values for each color channel, for TVs those are red, green and blue. By combining the 3 rgb channels 2⁸*2⁸*2⁸=16.777.216 colors are possible. HDR10 or the dynamic HDR formats work with 10 or even 12 Bit. ADS panel offers a rather average contrast ratio of 1700:1, which is nevertheless much better than other IPSIn-Plane Switching, type of LCD Panel and ADS models. The same applies to the viewing angle, which is not optimal, but still significantly larger than with VAVertical Alignment, type of LCD Panel panels. In terms of brightness, the NanoCell 85 has a peak brightness of ~550 Nits, which is okay, but unfortunately too low to display HDRHigh Dynamic Range – image/video with more dynamic range (contrast range) content nicely. Therefore, it only slightly differs from SDRStandard Dynamic Range – image/video with a conventional gamma curve (opposite: HDR) – “normal” videos content on this TV. This is also not ideal for a bright room, but is compensated by the fact that the TV has a brilliant reflection handling. Although the Nano85 has local dimming, it is rather disappointing due to the edge backlighting, especially in dark scenes. Due to the below-average color uniformity, a slight dirty screen effect is visible in the center, but it should not really be noticeable in normal use. The wide color gamut makes the colors on the TV look quite vivid, though – compared to last year’s model, the SM8600, not too much has changed.

The NanoCell TV also has the dynamic HDR format 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.

The motion handling of the LG NANO85 is excellent. The display has a native 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 really important for good motion handling – only few TVs in this price range can do that! Furthermore, the response time of ~4ms is extremely low. Because the LEDs can change its color that fast, there is hardly any motion blur visible. For a conventional LED TV this is a fantastic value, which can only be beaten by OLEDs. To minimize the motion blur even further, the Black Frame InsertionProcess that inserts black “blank images” as intermediate images. This makes movements appear finer and clearer. feature can be used, which is available at 120 HzHertz 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..

The backlight can not really be considered flicker-free. It flickers at a frequencyHertz 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 240Hz, but that should be enough for the human eye to perceive it as continuous illumination.

In addition, content with a low frame rate can be interpolated to 60Hz using the motion interpolationArtificial calculation of more frames than the source material has to offer feature. StutterStatic Frames being displayed too long on the screen – no fluid motion can thus be corrected during slow camera movements. It is nice that the NANO85 can remove judder from all sources.

With the NANO85 you have all the features you need for good gaming. The input lag is <16ms, making the TV extremely responsive to external inputs, like a keystroke on the console’s gamepad. It also has an Auto Low Latency Mode. This automatically detects when the console is switched on and the TV automatically switches to game mode to minimize the input lag. It also has 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 HDMI Forum VRRVariable Refresh Rate – synchronizes the display’s refresh rate with the output refresh rate of the graphics card to avoid screen tearing. The HDMI 2.1 interface makes the TV an excellent entry model for the upcoming next gen consoles Playstation 5 and Xbox Series X. The wide viewing angle also makes it an excellent choice if you want to play with several on the TV.

The 2.0 channel 20W sound system is nothing really special. The integrated speakers produce a passable sound and dialogues are reproduced clearly. However, its maximum volume is sufficiently high even for greater livingrooms. Unfortunately, the basses are not really convincing – which is quite normal for integrated speakers. If you want a better atmosphere, with rich, three-dimensional Dolby AtmosObject-based surround sound format with 3D-Sound from any direction sound via the HDMI eARC, you might consider expanding your setup with a sound bar.

But you should keep in mind that DTSMulti-channel-sound-system (Surround Sound) competing with Dolby Digital is not supported.

Just like the other LG TVs of 2020, the NANO85 was equipped with the smart operating system webOS 5.0. It can be operated very intuitively and is controlled with LG’s Magic Remote. This allows a cursor to be controlled by hand movements, which is very similar to the way the Nintendo Wii is operated. But if you prefer a conventional operation with arrow keys, you can also do this as you like. The menus can be navigated very smoothly, and those who still find the operation too complicated can use either Amazon Alexa or the Google Assistant as a language assistant. To make the data exchange between the TV and Apple devices as easy as possible Apple Airplay 2 is available.

The choice of apps is huge and streaming classics like Amazon Prime Video, Netflix and Disney+ are pre-installed – so you can browse your library immediately.

With LG ThinQ you can also use the TV as a control center for other smart home applications, which are conveniently displayed on a dashboard. There is no twin tuner, but functions like time shift and USB recording are still available.