Early Verdict
Pros
- +
Absolutely stunning picture
- +
Impressive viewing angles
Cons
- -
Not that practical
- -
65-inch a better prospect
- -
Bound to be costly
Why you can trust TechRadar We spend hours testing every product or service we review, so you can be sure you’re buying the best. Find out more about how we test.
LG and Samsung don't like to be outdone by one another, so it wasn't only Samsung that debuted a 105-inch curved Ultra HD 4K TV at CES 2014 this week.
LG always have the first official press conference of the show on the Monday morning and so it was quick to claim the "world's first" 105-inch tag, which it took full of advantage of in the hours before Samsung made its announcement.
So what are these 4K curved displays actually like? And do we really need curved TVs?
The first thing is that this screen - model number 105UB9 - is massive and as such is somewhat impractical. There will be those buying 105-inch TVs of course, but LG knows it is a tiny percentage of even early adopters - not least because . As it turns out, it has made a 65-inch version, too, which you can see here:
The advantage of curved is in the viewing angle, though we remain to be totally convinced. One thing is clear though, the viewing angles are as wide as you like - the picture is extremely clear from virtually any perspective. The middle screen here is the 105-inch, the two flanking it are 65-inchers.
The 21:9 CinemaScope screen enables you to enjoy movies as they were meant to be experienced, while the screen is obviously wide enough for you to display other content on the side of the screen as you watch TV.
The TV can also change from a full 21:9 display to a screen divided in to 16:9 and 5:9 ratios, while sound comes courtesy of the 150W, 7.2ch speaker system which we weren't able to hear properly in our demo unfortunately.
It also incorporates HDMI 2.0 with HDCP 2.2 and the HEVC (H.265) codec.
As you'd expect the TV is fully smart and features LG's new webOS-based Smart TV experience, which is compatible with HTML5 apps.
Here's some more shots of the 4K image quality, powered by LG's Tru-ULTRA HD Engine. Obviously this is all canned footage designed to represent the TV well, but it looks stunning and the colour reproduction is superb.
Early verdict
Like Samsung's display, LG's 105-inch curved wonder is a thing of beauty. Images look completely stunning, while there's no doubt that the picture can be seen clearly for everywhere but the most acute viewing angles.
4K is definitely the future, but curved? We guess we'll have to wait and see.
What is a hands on review?
Hands on reviews' are a journalist's first impressions of a piece of kit based on spending some time with it. It may be just a few moments, or a few hours. The important thing is we have been able to play with it ourselves and can give you some sense of what it's like to use, even if it's only an embryonic view. For more information, see TechRadar's Reviews Guarantee.
This has to be the most absurd portable power station ever launched — Asus's Mjolnir throws the hammer at rivals with innovative design that's likely to divide opinions
Pixel's new satellite feature could show people where you are on Google Maps
I really hope Google doesn't promise 7 years of Android for the Pixel 8a
