I recently moved houses, and had to leave my beautiful home-cinema behind. Now that I'm rebuilding, I thought I'd give a little review and help with the points that I think are more important– and often overlooked.
So, I went from an OLED LG to a QNED TV. Which is better? Like all things audiovisual, it depends. But not in too much: let's break it down.
So, if you're new to this you might not now that right now, OLED is king. It has the blackest blacks and the shiniest shiny colours. It's also pricey too, and, suffers from what I consider to be its biggest drawback: it's very reflective. I used to have a window behind mine, and this is something to be avoided at all costs, because at that point an OLED TV is basically a mirror. An OLED is a TV meant for rooms that are darkened by thick curtains; if you can't have a room that dark, I don't think it's worth to invest in an OLED TV.
But what about burn-in? While burn-in, the process where an static object is singed to your screen by virtue of it being there all the time, is now a thing of the past. I had my FPS counter on the corner of my TV on at all times while gaming, and burn-in was not a problem. Ah, I should add that it was great for gaming, too, as it didn't have too much delay. I beat Sekiro on that thing, so I think only the most competitive shooter enthusiast will benefit from something with lower latency.
So what is QNED? It sits between OLED and QLED in quality, but closer to QLED to my eyes. QLED, by the way, is great: I used to have a Samsung QN 55" (2019) and it's very comparable to the QNED TV I now have. QNED supposedly has less bleed than QLED, which should make them more enticing to buyers. Bleeding in this case the light aura that comes off an object, which will make the things surrounding a light source in your TV gray when they should be black. How often are objects displayed that might cause this light-bleed? Not often, but when it happens, it's quite noticeable. Not as noticeable as a window, so this is exactly why I went with the QNED, and I'm happy with my purchase.
Is QNED much better than QLED? No. In my humble opinion, my old QLED Samsung handled bleeding better that this LG QLED, but the LG shows more colours, and has double the latency, 120 Hz, which is imperative for gaming.
The LG QNED 81 also has two horrible problems: the remote and the user interface (UI). While the remote is not too different from the CX model, it's missing the pause and play buttons: what an oversight! Thank Mercury, it did come with a button for RakutenTV, other for Alexa, and one for the precious LG Channels. The UI is really bad, too. It used to be simpler, but now is ad-laden, and it seems to be made to force LG Channels down your throat. I gave my old LG CX TV to my mother, who is a tad on the elderly side, but was able to learn to use it. She would definitively not be able to navigate the new menus– I know because I can barely go through them; Odysseus had an easier time navigating between Scylla and Charybdis.
If you dare to use the input button, LG Channels is there, right in the middle, eager for you to choose if while you go to an actual input. The home menu from which you choose your apps also loads your preferred order after it loads them all, effectively sweeping the PlutoTV carpet from under you and making you click on something else. The icons are all smaller, the screen is crowded, and if you don't explicitly turn it off, you'll have ads in your menu, on your screen saver, and on your soup– because the TV also monitors what it displays: in modern times, your TV watches you. You need to create an account if you want to download apps, too, so be prepared to hand over your information to LG if you dare get Spotify.
The sound is quite decent if you avoid the AI sound, and the night-time mode is also very useful– though it doesn't turn itself on.
To sum up: the panel is great, the UI is awful. QNED and QLED are similar and, unless you have a very dark room, could be better than an OLED.
Photo from https://tecnologia.libero.it/lg-qned-q81-scheda-tecnica-offerta-sconto-prezzo-amazon-78749