LG OLED48C14LB 48 inch 4K UHD HDR Smart OLED TV (2021 Model) with Advanced α9 Gen4 AI processor, 4K SELF-LIT OLED, Dolby Vision IQ and Dolby Atmos, built-in Google Assistant and Alexa, Black

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The LG OLED48C1 is a terrific all-round TV and one that’s easy to recommend to anybody. The Philips 48OLED806 might be better for pure cinematic performance but this LG is more usable and significantly easier to get the best out of. Comparison based on internal LG testing of LG OLED TV Full White measurements, excluding the OLED evo series. Brightness Booster improvements do not apply to 48/42C2.

Interestingly, it’s the preset called ‘Eco’ that gives the fastest access to the right SDR picture. That’s because the viewing is best without too many of the brightness boosters that would otherwise blow out all of the detail. Add in just a small level of the contrast enhancer, modulate just a touch with the contrast slider and you’ll pretty much have it all. You can fix these slight imperfections by switching TruMotion off entirely. This allows a bit of judder and blur in, but many will find this unprocessed motion to be preferable. Alternatively, there’s the Cinema Clear option, which offers a little of the sharpening and smoothing of Natural but with a little less shimmer. It’s worth firing up a particularly challenging film, such as 1917 or Blade Runner 2049, and trying these three TruMotion modes to establish which best suits your taste. Before doing any critical listening to the CX (or its 2020 siblings) it’s worth dipping into the AI Service menu and performing the AI Acoustic Tuning, which involves the TV outputting an audio signal that’s recorded by the remote control and then analysed by the TV so that its sound profile can be adjusted to your room. In our testing, this reduces treble brightness and produces an overall smoother, more dynamic and more direct sound.The best solution is, of course, to buy a soundbar or dedicated home cinema system. But you knew that, right? Verdict One of the great reasons to buy an LG TV is that it comes with almost every feature available. In fact, pretty much the only compromise you have to make is that it doesn’t support Samsung’s HDR10+ standard. But, what with Dolby Vision still being the market leader in the dynamic HDR space, we don’t see that as much of a problem. There’s also Dolby Vision IQ, which you enable by turning on LG’s AI Brightness Setting while watching Dolby Vision content. This adjusts your screen’s output according to the ambient light in the room. The Alpha 9 Gen 4 does a decent job of upscaling a film that can come across as quite noisy. The filters take care of the worst of that while leaving some impressive skin details in the close-ups. Tom Cruise’s battle-hardened Reacher is complete with pits and scars and everything you’d expect. These include eARC (Enhanced Audio Return Channel), ALLM (Auto Low Latency Mode) and VRR (Variable Refresh Rate). Those last two are specifically for gamers, with ALLM ensuring the TV’s low-lag Game mode is automatically selected when a compatible console is connected, and VRR dynamically matching the TV’s refresh rate to the frame rate being output by a console.

As is the norm for LG’s OLEDs, the 2020 range consists of a number of models, with all except the B-series (this year, that’s the BX) having the same panel and processing tech. The only differences are the styling and the sound system. That means this 48in TV gives you the full 4K flagship experience at a smaller size. That’s all controlled by the brains of the TV, the latest incarnation of LG's Alpha 9 processor, the quad-core Alpha 9 Gen 4. With this new birth comes a few picture and sound upgrades. Object Enhancement is now sophisticated enough to recognise whole bodies as well as faces, animals, cars and other things. Sound can now be upmixed to an Atmos-virtualised 5.1.2. The TV will not have been used for any longer then 28 days from new and will have very low hours usage on the panel. The new Alpha 9 Gen 4 chipset ensures that lower-resolution content also looks good by applying AI-enhanced upscaling to 720p and 1080p sources. Blue Bloods on Now looks surprisingly watchable despite the lower resolution, with the processor upscaling the image as effectively as possible, while also applying noise reduction and sharpening where appropriate. LG C1 OLED review: HDR performanceOn the HDR front, LG continues to support HDR10, HLG and Dolby Vision, but not HDR10+. HDR10+ continues to struggle to make headway, so the fact that it’s missing is no big deal, but it is worth pointing out that OLEDs from Panasonic and Philips do support both Dolby Vision and HDR10+. In the UK, Now TV and Sky Store are present, but BT Sport is not, and users in the US will find Hulu and Vudu in the app selection, but not Vimeo. LG’s 2020 OLEDs support the new Dolby Vision IQ format, though, which tailors the Dolby Vision performance to the ambient light in the room. It’s not as transformative a feature as Dolby would have you believe but, while we were initially underwhelmed when testing the LG GX, we can now see the benefits of Dolby Vision IQ in terms of some extra detail in dark scenes when there’s a fair bit of light in the room.