I tested the LG G5 OLED beside the industry's best TVs – and it made the G4 look outdated

If you put any one of today’s best TVs in front of you, you would think you’re seeing what peak display technology looks like. But when you put them side by side, the differences in brightness, color volume, contrast, and more are what separate the good from the truly exceptional.

Of course, such comparisons are hard to come by in reality; even if you head to a local brick-and-mortar, the TVs will likely be separated by brand and budget. So when LG invited me to a private testing session ahead of its 2025 TV releases, including for the flagship G5 OLED, I bit. 

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I wanted to confirm my impressions of LG’s G5 OLED after naming it the Best TV at CES 2025 (as did my CNET and PCMag colleagues). But I also wanted to see how the TV stacks up to competing models from Samsung and Sony, which were also present at the lab. After an intimate morning with all the TVs, it’s safe to say that the performance gap might be bigger than ever this year.

LG attributes the difference, which spans brightness, sharpness, and black levels, to its new Primary RGB Tandem OLED panel, a four-stack configuration that can achieve higher ratings than the company’s previous microlens array (MLA) panel. This was evident when I watched a series of clips play across an LG G4 OLED (MLA), G5 OLED (Primary RGB Tandem), Samsung S95D (QD-OLED), and Sony A95L (QD-OLED) — all in native filmmaker modes and Professional mode for the Sony. 

Whether it was a 10% window peak brightness test or a movie scene that filled every corner, the G5 OLED was noticeably brighter and more vivid than the other models. Now, you’ll have to take this with a grain of salt for two reasons: One, this was based on LG’s testing environment; two, the comparisons were with year-old TV models from Samsung and Sony. That’s why the spike in picture quality from the LG G4 OLED and G5 OLED impressed me the most.

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One area where last year’s G4 OLED fell short during our tests was color volume at high brightness levels. The blending of white subpixel boosting and Automatic Brightness Limiting meant that as you cranked up the brightness, pictures would lose saturation and appear more washed out. I was reminded of this when I saw the difference in HDR playback with the G5 OLED beside it. The new model had a much more dynamic picture quality, with colors appearing more realistic and less diffused.

Compared to the Samsung S95D and Sony A95L, both of which leverage Quantum Dot technology, the G5 OLED was the brightest across 4,000-nit and 1,000-nit content. However, when evaluating low-luminance posterization, Samsung performed better, with smoother gradients as colors faded into black. The room was fairly lit, so we’ll have to run another eye test (with Calman software for calibration and measurements) back at the lab for a more definitive evaluation.

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My second viewing of the LG G5 OLED reaffirmed my belief that it’s the TV to beat for the rest of the year. However, some lingering questions remain, particularly around its full performance in real-world scenarios and the official pricing. We’ll dive deeper into these aspects in our full review, so stay tuned. For now, it’s safe to say that the G5 is already a standout in 2025, offering a fantastic viewing experience that should make Samsung and Sony think harder about the future of QD-OLED.