The TV for the 1% - LG W8 OLED
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2019-05-06
·
1,819 words · ~9 min read
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okay ready one two three up we go oh wow
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hardly weighs anything 77 inch tv and it's what 12 kilos
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27 freedom units watch as we're going around this corner here
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being seven millimeters thick does come with some drawbacks
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all right so see back here you've got uh the hook
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there that goes on these little knobby screws
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that we've got the kind of washer things
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it's kind of tough to get it aligned here because you can't so tight to the
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wall you can't really see um i think i'm kind of in the right spot
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just got to kind of oh no i missed
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i'm on let's go up yeah i think you got it
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we good okay check this out so the rest of it just clips on with magnets
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so that's it the w8
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this is the best tv lg makes
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you should get one you know just uh 15 grand
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15 grand yeah i know right it's a good thing lg sent
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this thing ready to fire it up
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and we're going to but not until
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this message from mac weldon mac weldon makes great t-shirts socks wallets and
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more they believe in simple shopping and if you use code tech tips you'll get 20
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off your order at the link below
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to get things kicked off we hooked up our xbox one and threw in planet earth 2
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on 4k blu-ray as predicted
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it is stunning you got 4k
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all sorts of HDR support pretty much everything that you'd expect for 15
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grand to the point that you guys probably aren't even looking at me right
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now you're probably looking at that so that's it and a video right
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this tv is great ah well no because it has some problems
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it's also out of reach for almost
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all of us but the good news is you don't actually have
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to spend that much in order to get the same picture quality dropping down 12
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inches to the 65 inch model cuts the price more than 50 percent to a mere 7
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grand which okay is still getting dangerously close
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to a year of college tuition but if you don't need the wallpaper thinness this
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exact same panel is used across lg's
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entire OLED lineup and the only thing that differentiates the various price
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points is how fancy of a body style you want except for the very cheapest one
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the b8 which uses a lower tier processor
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but is that a big deal anyway like the other 2018 models the b8 still has
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support for google assistant and a relatively obscure but appreciated black
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frame insertion feature to help reduce judder which means that all it lacks are
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the benefits of lg's flagship alpha 9 processor its quad pass image processing
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to reduce banding its ai object recognition to help increase depth and
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sharpness and its frame interpolation technique to simulate 120 hertz refresh
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rate not necessarily things that matter to everyone though if they matter to you
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i mean it's 200 bucks more to bump up to the alpha 9 equipped c8 man these guys
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love their letters and numbers don't they speaking of an extra 200
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if you're a real stickler for accurate color then be prepared to shell out some
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more to have your screen professionally calibrated because out of the box
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even with the technicolor expert mode turned on our particular panel didn't
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have great color accuracy particularly with the primary pigment cyan magenta
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and yellow it's actually quite a bit worse than what we measured on lg's own
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2400 lcd tv just a couple of weeks ago
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we're not saying it's terrible i mean the average best buy shopper
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wouldn't notice but it's pretty bothersome to me that at
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this price you still need to toss an extra 250 bucks to geek squad to get it
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calibrated now the good news is that we measured
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almost 94 coverage of the dci p3 color
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space so exceptional color reproduction
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is achievable on these tvs now comparing
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the w8 to samsung's q9f the nicest tv
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that they make you can see that they're both amazing
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displays but even with full array local dimming
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the quantum dot lcd display just cannot achieve the sharp contrast of an
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OLED check out the halo around the white letters
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but when you make a super high-end product you inevitably open yourself up
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to some scrutiny and there are still some gripes some of which were present
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in the w7 and still persist with this year's model
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mostly having to do with the tv's mandatory sound bar the reason this tv
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is so thin other than the fact that it's OLED and therefore doesn't have a fat
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backlight shining through the pixels is because the tv's drive circuitry power
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supply and io are not housed in the main
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chassis but are instead contained in this 28 pound dolby atmos sound bar
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now to be clear it's a pretty awesome sound bar it's 4.2 channel and 60 watts
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so it goes pretty loud and usually manages to sound clear at high volumes
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unless you're listening to metal or something and the way the speakers
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emerge and then hide when you turn the tv off
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is really slick but if you're the type of person who spends
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fifteen thousand dollars on a tv we don't think it's that much of a
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stretch to say that you probably have a better audio solution than what they're
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including here a fact that is demonstrated by the number of wallpaper
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tv owners who have opted to hide their sound bars under a table or in a wall
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behind the screen wouldn't it be easier more aesthetic and
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even cheaper for everyone involved if lg simply offered a more compact variant
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that didn't include any speakers at all i mean it's the kind of thing that's so
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obvious that it makes you kind of mad because it's like it feels like they're
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saying hey i mean these high-end clients are already paying so much what's an extra
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few hundred bucks to cover the cost of the sound bar not to mention the
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shipping but even if they do make the sound bar easier to hide the umbilical
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cord is still kind of a drag even though it is relatively discreet and includes
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an extension it's just not nearly as flexible as samsung's oneconnect
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solution and it doesn't have the requisite fire rating to be run inside a
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wall so depending on your local laws you might need one of these sold separately
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in-wall cable kits and finally what about OLED's arch nemesis
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not being as bright as quantum dot and burnin
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well it's still not as bright but i think we're far past the point where we
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left off with plasma where they were considered only suitable for use in a
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dimmed room i personally didn't find that it was an issue with the w8 at all
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as for burn in while mitigation strategies like screenshift which moves
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the whole picture over a few pixels periodically the automatic screensaver
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and the pixel refresher routines that run to help prevent image retention
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exist burn-in continues to be an issue
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on modern oleds one that will especially affect people like gamers which is kind
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of why we didn't really mention its awful input leg
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and my grandma who leaves local news and the weather channel on 24 hours a day i
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mean i've been using mine for two years and i haven't experienced it yet so
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there's no doubt in my mind that with proper care which by the way for me
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includes nagging my wife and kids to make sure that they have youtube and
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netflix in full screen mode so i don't end up with a stupid Windows start icon
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in the bottom left lg's 2018 lineup of oleds will drop the jaw of pretty much
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anyone within ishot for years to come though that doesn't mean that you should
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necessarily buy this particular one i mean if you got a
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billion dollars in the bank yeah duh why not buy buy nine you know buy some
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quadro gpus and run the whole thing as a giant video wall who cares it's one of
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the coolest tvs on the planet but if i was a more normal person i would first
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make sure that i have a secondary display for those extra innings ball
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games then i'd probably look elsewhere in lg's
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OLED lineup or if virtual assistant integration and
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fancy processing aren't significant value adds for you then a discounted w7
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from last year might also be a good bet since the panel quality will be
8:53
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days by going to freshbooks.com tech tips just enter Linus tech tips in how
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did you hear about us section we're gonna have that linked down below so
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thanks for watching guys if you disliked this video you can hit that button but
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if you liked it hit like get subscribed or maybe consider checking out the
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product that we featured at the link in the video description pick yourself up
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at w8 or we should probably link the other oleds too just because those are
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the ones we think make more sense right also down there is our merch storage has
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cool shirts like uh i'm not wearing one but that's okay cool shirts and our
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community forum which you should totally join why do you still have that shirt
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this shirt is [ __ ] awesome it's a it's a unique item
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you know it's deprecated