LG OLED G5 vs Samsung QN90F / QN92F

LG G5 with its new Tandem OLED panel brings the biggest change in terms of TV brightness. And it’s substantial. This is a truly astronomically bright OLED. In every scene tested – whether it's point lights or full-screen whites from the movie The Meg – brightness on the G5 exceeded 2000 nits. Just a year ago, such values on an OLED were simply unimaginable. And here we are – the G5 is approaching, and at times even surpassing, the best Mini-LEDs on the market. A novelty in the Tandem OLED panel is also the expanded colour gamut coverage – and here the LG G5 performs almost perfectly. DCI-P3 achieves a full 100%, while BT.2020 hovers around 83%. These are some of the highest values currently available on the market – it's hard to find any other TV that comes close to such results, unless we're talking about the best displays with QD-OLED panels. The G5 has almost reference-level HDR quality – both in terms of brightness and colour saturation. This is an OLED that can truly shine – and not just metaphorically.

Samsung QN90F can really shine with brightness. In our measurements, it reached even over 2200 nits, which directly translates to the viewing experience. In practice, this means that when a very bright scene appears in a film – for example, a sunrise in The Meg – the screen looks as if natural light is actually shining on us. This isn't just a number from a table, but a real sense of image intensity! However, the TV can't always deliver its full power. With smaller details, such as spotlights or lamps, brightness drops to 500–700 nits. This is a deliberate decision by the algorithms – by doing this, the contrast between large and small elements is better controlled, and the image doesn't lose balance. Importantly, this is still a huge improvement compared to last year's QN90D, where similar details were almost invisible, shining at just 200 nits. Here, the HDR effect is much more cohesive and credible. The only downside is the colours. The coverage of the DCI-P3 spectrum has plateaued at 91%, which can be considered a rather average result in this price range.

Our test unit LG G5 had some issues in the factory Filmmaker mode. While the picture might have seemed fine to most people, we knew this TV could do much more. This mode had a noticeable excess of blue tint in the white balance, resulting in a strongly cooled image – especially in HDR modes, where there was additionally a lack of red. The image appeared cold, and its sharpness was artificially boosted and unnatural. Another significant problem was the brightness characteristics. In SDR content, the situation wasn't the worst, aside from a slight dimming of the entire image. However, it fared much worse in HDR materials – due to improper brightness management, the smallest details could completely disappear from the image, while larger, bright elements looked overexposed and lacking in gradation. Fortunately, the G5 supports calibration using 3D LUT (a professional tool for colour calibration), so we decided to take advantage of its professional capabilities and see what it was really capable of. Because while it wasn't terrible even before calibration, the potential of this TV definitely deserved more.

The colour reproduction in the QN90F was tested in Filmmaker mode and, as is usually the case with Samsung TVs, this mode proves to be the best starting point straight out of the box. However, this does not mean that we are dealing with an image free of flaws. The white balance in SDR and HDR content was surprisingly good – colours didn't drift in any direction and even in its factory settings it looked solid. However, a problem arose with the gamma and EOTF curves, which determine how the TV manages brightness. Here, the QN90F significantly brightened the entire image, causing the black levels and colours to lose their intensity, and the overall effect resembled that of an applied milky filter. Fortunately, Samsung, unlike many competitors in the miniLED world, provides users with plenty of tools to control settings that we won't find in other manufacturers, such as Chinese brands. Therefore, we decided to see if we could squeeze the full potential out of the QN90F because we know that such a high series is capable of much more.

After completing the calibration process with professional tools, we can confidently state this – the LG G5 offers almost reference-quality image. Most of the errors related to white balance and the ColorChecker test are below a value of 2, which is a phenomenal result, practically imperceptible to the human eye. And while one could still nitpick that in HDR films the TV still has a tendency to slightly dim the smallest elements of the image, in practice this does not negatively affect the overall reception. Hats off to LG, as once again they provide users with enormous display settings options – and this, combined with very good parameters of the panel itself, results in an image that is truly hard to beat.

After our adjustment of the settings, the QN90F showed what it’s really capable of – and we have to admit, it’s one of the best images we’ve seen on a miniLED screen this year. As we mentioned earlier, the white balance wasn’t a big issue even in the factory settings, but it was only after gamma calibration that we were able to get close to reference values. The same goes for HDR content, where the EOTF curve post-adjustment presents mature and consistent results. Indeed, in some films, you can notice that the smallest elements of the image are slightly brightened, and with a limited number of local dimming zones, there's still a risk of halo effect. However, it’s important to remember that such phenomena are characteristic of all miniLED TVs and it’s difficult to expect miracles even from the QN90F. The most important thing is that after calibration, the television displays an image that confidently competes with many OLED screens available on the market in terms of expressing the director's vision.

Upscaling and digital image processing in the LG G5 performs very well. The television handles lower quality content excellently, especially when the "Smooth Gradation" feature is set to a low level. In this mode, it effectively removes undesirable artifacts and issues with visible tonal transitions. It may also slightly smooth out some desirable details, like the subtle texture of clothing or skin, but importantly – it does not remove film grain, so it's hard to talk about a serious compromise here. This is one of those options that is actually worth turning on.

The G5 also does well with upscaling, which is improving the quality of older materials. The test image with the model looked really solid – slight jaggedness was visible, but that's an effect that can't be completely avoided. On the plus side, there were no overscan issues, which – contrary to appearances – is not obvious, even in 2025.

QN90F handles upscaling very well. Materials in lower resolutions, even SD, are enhanced to a clear and sharp image, where a lot of background detail can be seen. This is a big advantage, as the TV makes older content or everyday television look significantly better than on most budget screens. However, the issue of overscan remains, which is the cropping of the screen edges that cannot be turned off on Samsungs. This can cause some subtitles on the screen to disappear or Auntie's face from the wedding on a VHS tape to be slightly cropped. 😉

The digital image processing also performs well. In the menu, we find a feature called "noise reduction," which can smooth tonal transitions and improve the viewing of lower quality materials, such as those from YouTube. In the medium setting, the effect is most beneficial – it doesn't heavily interfere with details while simultaneously eliminating the problem of "banding" in colours. However, it's worth noting that the feature can be quite aggressive and removes natural film grain in older movies, so it's best to use it sparingly.

The motion smoothness on the LG G5 is simply phenomenal. The television is equipped with a panel featuring a 165 Hz refresh rate, and this combined with the instantaneous response time of the OLED matrix delivers incredible results. The image doesn’t judder or blur like on traditional LCD televisions. Like most LG models, the G5 comes with a motion smoother, which can be handy when watching movies – we’re talking about the TruMotion mode, of course. With the “De-Blur” and “De-Judder” sliders, we can adjust the smoothness of older materials according to our own preferences, whether we want to maintain the characteristic film jitter or lean towards a more fluid, television-like effect.

QN90F has been equipped with a panel that has a maximum refresh rate of 165 Hz, and while this advantage will mainly be appreciated by PC gamers, it’s still worth highlighting. In movies or sports broadcasts, we are limited to the classic 120 Hz, but this is not a cause for concern. In practice, the additional motion smoother is more significant here. Thanks to the "Motion Clarity" setting, we can adjust the picture to our own preferences. The blur reduction option is responsible for fluidity and ghosting in sports. Meanwhile, the "judder reduction" function improves motion fluidity in productions recorded at 24 frames, namely films and series. If we set it high, the film looks smoother and more fluid than it was actually shot. Lower values, on the other hand, preserve its cinematic "rawness" with the visible film frame.

Features for gamers? Perfect. That should be enough for you to know what level we’re dealing with here. The G5 is a TV designed for gamers, so you'll find literally everything you might expect from a gaming screen. There's Game Bar, support for high resolutions with high refresh rates - that is, 4K at 120 Hz, and even more, as the panel has a refresh rate of 165 Hz (which PC gamers will benefit from). The TV supports variable refresh rate (VRR), automatic low latency mode (ALLM), and also properly handles HDR in games thanks to the HGiG feature. All of this adds up to one of the best gaming feature sets available on the market. Well done, LG.

QN90F has almost everything to become the perfect TV for gamers. Things like four HDMI ports, VRR, ALLM, or refresh rates reaching up to 165 Hz need no reminder. The Game Motion Plus mode deserves a big thumbs up, which is the proprietary motion smoothing technology for games. With it, you can add a few 'artificial' frames and make the image generated from the console look smoother than it should. This is a very unique solution in the world of TVs – competing systems usually do not offer this – and that's why Samsung has had a strong selling point among gamers for years, even despite the lack of support for the still niche Dolby Vision in games.

[UPDATE] We have updated our tests of Samsung TVs from the 2025 range due to the release of firmware version 1131, which restored the crucial HGiG feature for gamers.

So why do we refer to it as an 'almost' perfect screen? Unfortunately, just like in recent Samsung models, we've noticed a problem with the lack of HGiG functionality. This is a solution that allows the TV to leave control over tone mapping to the console, so that games look exactly as the creators intended. Worse still, this feature was previously present and disappeared after software updates. Instead of minor fixes, we got a step backward. It's a shame, because if it weren't for this lack, the QN90F could have been a truly ideal choice for gamers in the miniLED category.