LG OLED G5 vs Xiaomi S Pro 2026

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.

When it comes to HDR quality, the Xiaomi S Pro 2026 is undoubtedly a very bright television. On our synthetic measurement patterns, we were able to achieve peak brightness of around 1400 nits. This result is not only very good but quite spectacular, considering the price of this model. However, as we always say, our editorial team values measurements and the viewing experience of content that people watch on a daily basis – from movies to series. So let’s analyse how Xiaomi performs with film material. The result is, unfortunately, quite mixed. When very bright scenes appear on screen, the S Pro 2026 truly shows its full capabilities and can achieve a real 800-1000 nits on bright elements. Moreover, even smaller objects can "burn" the eyes – in scenes from the movie Sicario 2, small metallic parts of the helicopter were really vivid. The problem is – and here the story comes full circle, returning to our contrast assessment – that in such scenes, we can’t count on absolutely cinematic black. In our opinion, this compromise is too significant; the high visibility of details in bright sections should not come at the expense of such a substantial drop in blacks. And even though the HDR effect can create a stunning impression here, it’s important to remember that when very challenging, mixed scenes appear on screen, we may feel a slight disappointment. Precisely the one we mentioned in the previous paragraph regarding issues with dimming in HDR mode. As a consolation, it’s worth adding that the S Pro 2026 is equipped with an additional PFS filter (similar in function to a QLED layer), which effectively broadens the colour gamut coverage. As a result, measurements showed DCI-P3 coverage reaching 94%. This gives us confidence that in most colourful scenes, the image will look rich and properly saturated.

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.

Of course, all our measurements were conducted in "Film" mode, which is typically the best and most faithful choice we get straight after taking the TV out of the box. And to put it bluntly: while this is the best mode, it is still very far from perfect. Above all, the TV has a clear tendency to give the picture a cool, blueish tint – this is due to poorly set colour balance. Additionally, there is the issue of how the S Pro 2026 manages its brightness straight out of the box, which results in an over-saturated image. These two flaws contribute to really significant colourimetric errors (Delta E). In HDR content, they could double exceed our expected error scale of "10" (i.e. reaching values close to 20). Just to remind you – the threshold of perceivable error by the human eye is a Delta E value of around 3. Results at the level of 20 mean that the image significantly deviates from what the director intended.

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.

So how does the S Pro 2026 perform after our calibration process? We must admit that after calibration, the TV becomes a really enjoyable device for watching everyday content. As you can see in the charts, in HD (SDR) material, both white balance and gamma values have been brought to nearly perfection. Most importantly, colourimetric errors have become practically invisible to the human eye. In this scenario, the S Pro 2026 is simply a great TV that, after professional calibration, can provide a lot of joy from viewing. However, it is worth noting clearly – our efforts did little to help in 4K HDR mode. Despite the calibration, the TV still interprets the image quite strongly in its "own way," which is clearly evident in the measurement of the EOTF curve (brightness tracking). It's a bit of a shame because it shows that the problem lies not with the panel itself, but with the software. Poorly refined image management algorithms in HDR content can, unfortunately, rule this TV out for many more discerning users.

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.

Let's start with the issue we raised in the previous paragraph: can a TV even fix the problem of terrible tonal transitions in dark scenes? Theoretically yes – in the menu, we find a feature with the promising name "Colour Contour Removal." Well, "theoretically." Unfortunately, in practice, this setting – regardless of which of the three power levels is chosen – yielded absolutely no real results. So we are dealing with a feature that practically only exists in the menu. Moving on to the quality of upscaling (scaling from a lower resolution to 4K), unfortunately, we have more bad news for you. The S Pro 2026 handles this task very poorly. Interestingly, the phenomenon of "overscan" (slight image cropping) is not a major issue here. The problem is that the TV simply shows a very raw, unprocessed image. Its attempt to boost the signal to a higher resolution looks simply dull and lacks any "intelligent" enhancement. There's no denying it – the entire digital image processing is the true Achilles' heel of this model.

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.

On paper, the specifications of the S Pro 2026 look impressive. The television is equipped with a native 144 Hz panel, capable of displaying images at up to 288 Hz in a dedicated gaming mode. These are incredible results, but what we were most interested in, in the context of everyday use, was how the TV handles motion blur and how the picture looks at 120 Hz. After all, this is the frequency used today by consoles such as the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and it is desirable for sports fans. Generally, the panel "holds up". The matrix is quick enough to meet these challenges, and objects displayed at a native smoothness of 120 Hz are rendered correctly. When it comes to software, the TV is equipped with motion smoothing technology, but with a key caveat – it only works for input signals up to 60 Hz. This means it's mainly suitable for traditional TV, movies, and series. With it, we can adjust the smoothness of the picture to our own preferences – ranging from a very smooth, "theatrical" approach, to setting the slider at "zero" and maintaining a fully cinematic character.

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.

For gamers, the Xiaomi S Pro 2026 is on paper an almost perfect proposition. It has been equipped with two HDMI 2.1 ports, which allow us to unlock (although these options are somewhat hidden in the menu) the full suite of features: ALLM, VRR, and, crucially, the ability to operate in 4K at 144 Hz. This last feature should particularly please owners of powerful PCs. The TV also has something resembling a gamer panel – and while it’s hard to call it a full-fledged "Gamebar," it does its job by displaying key information. It’s just a shame that in its default form, it covers a relatively large part of the screen.

The biggest problem we have with this model, however, concerns how the S Pro 2026 handles games in HDR mode. To put it bluntly: it doesn’t handle it well. Due to the poorly implemented HGiG feature (the HDR tone mapping standard for games), during the initial HDR calibration on the console, it’s very easy to "blow out" the image. If someone is unaware of this software flaw and follows the on-screen instructions, they will simply set the picture incorrectly, with burnt-out details in bright areas. Another significant issue is the Dolby Vision mode for games. While it works, it generates such a high input lag that it becomes noticeable in dynamic titles. (You can check all our lag measurements in the paragraph below). In summary: Generally, this is a really very good screen for gamers, but with one small caveat. We would rather avoid HDR mode on it – unless we decide to manually set the brightness slider on the console "by eye," completely ignoring the tips from the console's pictogram.