LG UA75006LA (VA) vs LG QNED80A6A (VA)

LG UA7500 with a VA panel has brightness peaking around 350 nits, which, by today's standards, isn't very impressive. It's hard to talk about a true HDR experience here – most content looks more like classic SDR with a slight attempt to boost highlights. One advantage is that regardless of the test content, the effect remained relatively stable. However, we noticed that in very extreme scenes with a lot of fine details, the television can slightly dim the image in order to achieve better blacks, but this comes at the expense of the visibility of bright effects. On the downside, it should be noted that the UA7500 is not equipped with any additional technologies to expand the colours. It's neither a QLED panel nor PFS LED, which means the coverage of the DCI-P3 colour gamut is just 80%, making many HDR films look flat and failing to capture the full diversity of colours.

Let's talk now about how this TV shines. If you’re expecting dazzling light effects, we need to cool your enthusiasm. The LG QNED80A is a moderately bright television. Our measurements in most film scenes indicated values around 350-400 nits. That’s not enough to speak of a full, cinematic HDR experience and the feeling of that famous “high dynamic range” that flagship products offer. However, brightness is not everything. Although the QNED80A is not a “light monster,” it makes up for it in another key category: colours. This is where PFS technology comes into play, which LG marketers hide under the name QNED/NanoCell. With this trick, the TV offers a significantly wider colour palette than classic LCD constructions. In our tests, the coverage of the cinematic DCI-P3 palette reached a solid 93-94%. What does that mean for you? That even at lower brightness, when watching films in HDR, the colours will be vibrant, deep, and properly saturated. The image is not washed out but juicy, which is a significant advantage in this price range.

The Filmmaker Mode on the LG UA7500 performs better than one might expect from such a budget TV, but let's not get carried away with the praise. The image is reasonably well put together and at first glance doesn't irritate, however, its weaknesses quickly start to emerge. This is most apparent in scenes with bright points – lamps in the background or reflections of light on the skin are clearly exaggerated. Faces of characters often look unnatural, as if they have been "burned out." Additionally, the default gamma setting brightens the smallest details and causes the image to lose subtlety in the darker areas. That said, for its price range, the UA7500 in factory mode offers a pretty decent starting point. However, it is clear that without additional adjustments, these issues cannot be avoided, which is why – similar to other TVs – we decided to check what could be achieved after calibration.

It might seem that since the QNED80A is one model, it should offer the same picture regardless of the version. However, practice shows something completely different. Analyzing the variant with the VA panel in the best factory setting – that is, in Filmmaker Mode – we noticed a specific characteristic. This TV "out of the box" delivers a picture with a clear dominance of red and a deficiency of blue. Overall, it is very warm, almost hot. Many users might describe it as an "overly cinematic" picture, leaning towards sepia. Additionally, there is the issue of gamma curve – the TV has a tendency to slightly and artificially brighten scenes (gamma is too low), which causes the picture to lose some of its plasticity. The good news is that these are not panel errors, but merely software issues. As always in our tests, we performed professional calibration, which completely eliminated these drawbacks, restoring natural white balance and correct saturation.

The biggest improvement we noticed was while calibrating the mode designed for daily SDR content. We managed to smooth out the white balance in an acceptable manner and tackle the issue of excessive brightening of small elements due to the gamma characteristic. As a result, the image gained the consistency and naturalness that was lacking in the factory settings. After such correction, we can confidently state that for everyday TV content, programs, or materials from YouTube, the LG UA7500 performs really well – especially after professional calibration. The situation looks a bit different for HDR content. Here, calibration helped to tame the white balance and slightly improved brightness management, but the limitations of the design are immediately apparent. The lack of additional filters to expand the colour palette means that the most vivid colors appear flat, and the image lacks the intensity we would expect from good HDR. So, in SDR, the UA7500 performs quite well, but in HDR – despite corrections – it remains far behind, and this is a characteristic that one must accept when choosing this television.

Was it worth spending time on calibration? Definitely yes. We managed to tame the initial, overly warm white balance and, most importantly, correct the gamma curve. The television stopped artificially brightening scenes, resulting in a deeper image. The biggest gains are visible in SDR content, such as when watching regular television, YouTube, or playing games without HDR. Here, the QNED80A shows its class – colour reproduction errors (DeltaE) fell below a value of 2. In technical terms, this means the errors are essentially invisible to the human eye. The image in everyday use has simply become very attractive, natural, and correct. The difficulties start with HDR content. Although we managed to improve the white balance, the EOTF curve (responsible for brightness at various levels) shows that the television still "interprets" the image in its own way. This results from the nature of the edge-lit backlighting with local dimming and the fact that LG gives the calibrator very little control over this parameter. In short: the television struggles to hide its hardware shortcomings, sometimes ignoring our commands. Nevertheless, the final image is significantly more accurate and pleasant to view than the factory settings, even if it still lacks a bit compared to studio perfection.

LG UA7500 with a VA panel has shown itself in this category in a really good light. Image scaling from Full HD or even SD materials was surprisingly smooth. The picture looked smooth, edges were not overly jagged, and the television maintained a good amount of detail, ensuring that even older films did not lose their character. It particularly excelled with faces – there were no artificial contours or "mask" effects, which often occur in cheaper models. The way the television handled tonal transitions in lower quality materials is also noteworthy. Thanks to digital processing, colours did not bleed into one another, and gradients looked natural and smooth. There was no question of intrusive smoothing of the image or loss of cinematic grain. This makes the UA7500 great for everyday content – from free-to-air television, to sports matches, all the way to YouTube, where we often watch materials in various resolutions.

In this category, the QNED80A turns out to be a true "dark horse". It's a fantastic, affordable television for those who often watch lower quality content – for example, from traditional cable TV. The processor used here handles upscaling incredibly well, enhancing low resolutions to native 4K. The image after processing is natural, smooth, and most importantly – it is not overly jagged or artificially sharpened. In the menu, we also find a dedicated option for smoothing tonal transitions in low-quality content. This feature works really effectively, eliminating the annoying "banding" of colours during heavy video compression. However, we must remain vigilant. Remember, we are not dealing with the top-tier processor known from flagship OLED models. In more challenging scenes, the system might struggle and introduce minor artefacts or distortions. Nevertheless, it's definitely worth giving this feature a chance, because in the majority of cases, the quality improvement is visible to the naked eye.

LG UA7500 is a TV with a 60 Hz panel, so it’s hard to expect any raving reviews in this category. It’s more of a screen meant for everyday content or an evening movie session rather than for following dynamic sporting events or playing action games. It's evident that the manufacturer targeted this model precisely at this group of consumers – and in that regard, it performs adequately. We get the TruMotion function, which is a motion smoother. It’s simple, has only one slider, but it can make a noticeable difference. In the lower range, the image looks more raw and cinematic, while at higher values, the motion becomes smoother and more pleasant to the eye.

We move on to a topic that may be crucial for many. Unfortunately, here we must point out the biggest "Achilles' heel" of the QNED80A model. This television is equipped with a panel that has a native refresh rate of 60Hz. There’s no denying it – at this price, we were hoping for more as we know that Chinese manufacturers can offer 120Hz screens for similar money. Due to this parameter, dynamic scenes in sports or fast-paced games are not the strongest point of this screen. Fortunately, LG has equipped the television with a proven smoothing system called TruMotion. It works quite well with film material (24 frames). We suggest playing around with the De-Judder slider – from our experience, setting it in the range of 2-4 provides the best compromise: motion becomes smoother, yet still looks natural, without the artificial "television theatre" effect.

LG UA7500 is a TV that can be comfortably recommended to "Sunday" gamers. While it doesn't feature a 120 Hz panel or HDMI 2.1 ports, meaning it can't fully utilise the potential of modern consoles, the manufacturer has included a few extras that can enhance the gaming experience. The Game Bar deserves a special mention – a very nicely designed panel where you can quickly view and change the most important settings. From this interface, we have access to features like ALLM (Automatic Low Latency Mode) and frame synchronization, also known as VRR. The range of VRR is limited – working from 48 to 60 Hz – but the mere presence of this feature in such an affordable TV is impressive.

Additionally, it supports HGiG, which is a mode for HDR calibration for gaming. It sounds good, but from our testing experience, we know that for the UA7500, this option isn't very practical. The TV doesn't handle HDR very well, so ironically, we achieved better results with this mode turned off. This is another indication that the UA7500 is more of a screen for casual gamers who value simplicity and convenience, rather than for those seeking a full experience with the latest consoles.

Since we've already established that the QNED80A is a 60Hz TV, we must say it straight: we won't be gaming here at 120 frames per second at any resolution. Does this disqualify the device in the eyes of gamers? Not necessarily, especially for those "casual" players. LG decided to sweeten this technical limitation by packing in quite a few useful features. We have support for VRR (Variable Refresh Rate) in the range of 48-60Hz and an automatic game mode ALLM, which instantly reduces input lag upon detecting a console. We manage all of this via a very convenient, purple Game Optimizer menu (Player Panel), which has become LG's hallmark. The manufacturer deserves big points for consistency regarding HDR. Although the TV does not support Dolby Vision in games on Xbox consoles, LG adds a well-implemented HGiG standard. Thanks to this, even on a screen with moderate brightness, playing in HDR is clear, and the details in shadows and highlights are accurately rendered, rather than being "clipped".