LG 55EA9800 review

With its amazing super-slim and subtly curved design and groundbreaking OLED picture reproduction system, there's truly never been a TV quite like the 55EA9800 before.

I sincerely hope there will be more like it in the future, though, for its picture quality proves that its beauty is way more than skin deep, serving up picture thrills the likes of which I've genuinely never seen before.

The decision to curve the 55EA9800's screen feels a bit like adding an unnecessary layer of controversy to its mostly seriously tasty proposition, but unless you've got a particularly large family fighting for seating positions the curve shouldn't represent enough of a problem to put you off buying into the 55EA9800's countless other charms.

In fact, only the set's price and lack of 4K resolution count significantly against it.

We liked

The 55EA9800 had me from the very start thanks to the extraordinary slimness of the majority of its rear, and its spectacular if controversial curved sculpting. And my love for it merely grew when it became apparent that in pretty much every important picture area OLED technology simply makes pictures better.

We disliked

Given how much I love 4K, it's clearly a shame – if hardly a surprise at this point in OLED's journey – that the 55EA9800 is HD only. Its eight grand entry price is also clearly prohibitive, and it doesn't sport a comprehensive suite of key catch-up TV services.

Verdict

The long, long wait is over and vaguely affordable big-screen OLED entertainment has finally arrived. And what style it's arrived in, with the 55EA9800 imperiously rising to the challenge of living up to all the hype OLED has built up around itself over the past three or four years.

Apparently OLED screens remain prohibitively difficult to make, leading to everyone bar LG seemingly withdrawing from the OLED market again for the time being. But that loss looks set to be LG's gain, for if it can continue to make OLEDs as outstanding as the 55EA9800, there will surely always be people out there desperate to buy them.

Also consider

If you fancy saving some money but still want to secure yourself some 'miles ahead' picture quality, I think you can still get one of Panasonic's P60ZT65 flagship plasma TVs. If you fancy going this route, though, I suggest you get a shift on.

The same goes for what we'd say is the best LED-based full HD TV in town, the Sony 55W905A, with its impressive local dimming system (though this is no match, in truth, for the pinpoint luminance abilities of OLED).

Otherwise your best alternatives in terms of price and cutting edge performance – certainly if you value resolution over contrast - are the Sony 65X9005A 4K/UHD TV and the Samsung UE65F9000 4K/UHD TV set.