XIAOMI S Mini 2026 (55"-75") 60Hz vs LG OLED C6 (WOLED)

When it comes to HDR, the Xiaomi S Mini 2026 performs really well, especially given the segment this model sits in. The TV can reach around 1000 nits of brightness without much difficulty, so in bright scenes it can deliver a very pronounced HDR effect. The sun, highlights or very brightly lit parts of the picture can be intensely bright and at times really hit you with their intensity. It’s a bit different in dark scenes, though. Very small light sources surrounded by black are rendered at much lower brightness, so they lack the pinpoint intensity seen on the best TVs. That’s not unusual for a Mini LED. The local dimming algorithm reduces the backlight in those cases to preserve as deep a black as possible, which in such scenes matters more than a few extra nits.

HDR colours

Colour reproduction also fares well. Xiaomi markets the S Mini 2026 as a QLED TV, although the solution used here is in practice based on a PFS phosphor. What matters is the result, and that is pretty good. Measured DCI-P3 gamut coverage was around 94%, while in the much wider BT.2020 colour space it was about 74%. That means the TV can show most of the colours used in HDR movies with suitably high saturation. Its limitations are most noticeable with very intense shades of green, where the colour range begins to run out.

The HDR performance of the LG C6 is really very good. LG Display’s new WOLED panel has mainly brought a significant increase in brightness. In our unit we measured around 1500 nits and, importantly, the TV can show similar values in many normal movie scenes as well. That gives HDR real punch. Bright highlights, lamps and sunlight can be genuinely intense, and most HDR movies simply look very impressive. Of course it’s still an OLED, so brightness falls in scenes with a lot of white. The fifth scene from the movie The Meg illustrates this well, where the C6 reached around 600 to 700 nits. That’s still a very good result, but it also shows the new panel hasn’t shed all the limitations typical of OLEDs.

Colours

When it comes to colours, it’s also hard to raise major objections. The C6 covers about 99% of the DCI-P3 gamut and roughly 75% of BT.2020. In practice colours are very saturated and, importantly, stable regardless of the scene. That’s worth emphasising, because not every TV behaves the same in this respect. In some RGB Mini LED models colour saturation can depend more strongly on image brightness. A wider colour gamut today is mainly offered by QD-OLED TVs and new SQD models with a new generation of quantum dots. However, the C6 still performs very strongly here and is able to produce suitably saturated colours in most movie scenes.

We tested the Xiaomi S Mini 2026 (55–75 inch models) in Film mode, which compared with the other presets offered the most accurate colours. That did not mean the image was correctly set up straight away. In our unit the white balance was noticeably shifted toward warmer tones. There was too little blue and too much red, giving whites and greys a slightly warm cast. The TV also tended to brighten darker parts of the image too much. This was due to the gamma, which instead of staying around 2.4 fell in places to about 2.0. That made shadow detail more visible, but the image lost some depth. So the factory settings weren't bad, but they still needed some adjustment to reproduce the picture accurately.

Right out of the box the LG C6 is quite well set up, especially if you choose the Filmmaker mode. In SDR material the white balance is decent, although as brightness increases there is a slight lack of red. The image becomes a bit cooler, but not enough for it to be very noticeable during normal viewing. More is happening in the brightness characteristic. Gamma is a little low and instead of holding at 2.4, for a large part of the range it sits closer to 2.1–2.2. In practice the C6 slightly brightens midtones. Shadows are therefore more readable, but the image loses some depth compared with how it should look in a darkened room.

In HDR the situation is a bit more interesting. The start of the greyscale looks very good, but from about 20–30% brightness the white balance starts to drift increasingly. As brightness rises there is more red and a noticeable lack of blue. In the brightest sections the difference is already significant and also affects the reproduction of some colours. The EOTF curve itself is followed quite well through most of the range. The C6 only tends to slightly brighten the image, which we also saw in our film comparisons. The largest deviation appears around the brightest parts, where the TV starts adapting the signal to the panel's capabilities.

The factory Filmmaker setting in HDR is therefore not perfect, but overall performs well. The biggest area for improvement is the white balance, especially at high brightness.

Surprisingly, the Xiaomi S Mini 2026 responds quite well to calibration. After our adjustments we were able to noticeably improve the white balance and the picture stopped leaning toward overly warm tones. In SDR material the result is really good, with the TV able to reproduce such content very accurately and hard to fault for colour reproduction. We made similar adjustments in HDR, although not everything could be corrected there. Colours look better than on the factory settings, but the TV still tends to display the picture a little brighter than it should. You can see this from the EOTF curve, which sits above the reference. In practice this means some HDR scenes are brighter than the creators intended. It's a quirk of this TV and we can't do anything about it.

LG TVs have long responded very well to calibration, and the C6 is no exception. After adjustments we managed to set the white balance practically perfectly, and most colour errors fell below 3, often down to around 2. In practice this means very accurate colour reproduction in both SDR and HDR. An interesting detail only appeared with the HDR brightness response. On a classic EOTF chart everything looks almost perfect and at first glance it would be hard to find fault. Only when we measured the TV’s behaviour using filters based on real film scenes did it become clear that the C6 has a slight tendency to artificially boost image brightness.

It’s not a huge difference and many viewers may even see it as a positive, because HDR looks a bit more striking as a result. From the point of view of fidelity to the source material, however, it’s not ideal — some scenes are simply a touch brighter than the filmmaker intended. Interestingly, this is rather unusual for LG. In previous generations the brand’s TVs typically held very closely to the reference picture curve after calibration. The C6 is still very close to the standard, but that subtle brightness 'boost' can indeed be noticed in films and TV series.

The MT5896 processor handles digital image processing in the Xiaomi S Mini 2026. Unfortunately, in this respect the TV is fairly average. Low-resolution content isn't upscaled very well, and its limitations become obvious on a large screen. The picture looks quite digital, and the TV can't pull out many extra details. You also can't turn off overscan for low-resolution content. The handling of posterisation smoothing is even worse. On the smaller models there's not even a separate setting to reduce the visible banding between similar shades. So if those imperfections are already present in the source material, Xiaomi effectively doesn't mask them.

Here the LG C6 has taken a really big step forward. The TV uses the same processor found in the flagship G6, and in terms of image processing the two models are very close. That's a big plus, because in this area LG's processor this year performs excellently. The "Smooth Gradation" function works particularly well. With heavily compressed material it can effectively hide ugly tonal banding and artefacts that often appear, for example, in lower-quality streaming. It's best to leave it on the "Low" setting. Then the improvement is clear, and the TV doesn't yet start blurring fine detail. Higher levels smooth the image more aggressively, but can already remove some of the natural texture of objects on screen. Upscaling itself also performs very well. Lower-resolution content is properly sharpened, edges look clean, and the processor quite effectively reconstructs fine details. In that respect the C6 is really close to LG's best TVs and the differences compared with the G6 are small.

The smaller variants of the Xiaomi S Mini 2026 use a 60 Hz panel, and that's their biggest limitation when it comes to motion. For films and TV series this isn't yet a major problem, because the TV has a classic motion interpolator for 24/30 fps material. So you can reduce the characteristic judder and adjust motion to your own preferences. Sports and other 50/60 Hz material fare worse, because there’s no additional feature to improve smoothness. In such content we’re therefore limited by the panel itself.

In terms of motion blur the TV performs fairly typically for a VA panel. The most trailing is visible behind objects moving against a dark background, while in brighter scenes the effect is noticeably smaller. It’s not at a level that completely ruins the perception of motion, but in dynamic scenes you can see that the panel isn’t one of the fastest.

The LG C6 features a panel with a maximum refresh rate of 165 Hz, which is great news especially for gamers using a powerful PC. For movies, sport and consoles we’ll of course be limited to 120 Hz at most, but even then it’s hard to fault the motion clarity. As you’d expect from an OLED, the panel’s response time is near-instant. Moving objects therefore don’t leave the characteristic smearing you still see on LCD TVs. This is especially noticeable in sport and fast-paced games, where the picture remains very clean even during dynamic movement.

For movies and TV, LG has also included a motion smoothing system called TruMotion. In the user settings you’ll find two separate sliders. De-Judder is primarily for low-frame-rate material, namely movies and TV series at 24 fps. You can use it to slightly reduce the characteristic judder or increase it if you prefer a much smoother picture. De-Blur, on the other hand, is useful for higher-frame-rate content, mainly sports broadcasts and 50/60 fps TV.

In the larger sizes the Xiaomi S Mini 2026 becomes a far more interesting option for gamers. The panel runs natively at up to 144 Hz, so when you connect a PC you can use the high refresh rate even at 4K. At lower resolutions the TV can go even further, reaching up to 288 Hz. It also offers ALLM, automatic switching to Game Mode, and a Game Bar that keeps the most important settings within easy reach. Of course, the TV has two full-bandwidth HDMI 2.1 ports. So in terms of smoothness the difference compared with the 55–75 inch versions is substantial and particularly easy to notice when using a PC or console. However, not everything works perfectly. As with the smaller variants, we have reservations about the HGiG implementation. The HDR setup screens on the PS5 and Xbox don't precisely reflect the TV's actual capabilities, so if you set the console according to those prompts the brightest parts of the image can be blown out and lose some detail.

LG has long focused heavily on gamers, and the C6 essentially lacks nothing important. The TV supports 4K at 120 Hz from consoles, and when connected to a PC it can even run at 165 Hz. On top of that there’s VRR from 40 to 165 Hz, ALLM and a properly functioning HGiG. Another big plus is support for Dolby Vision in games, so the Xbox Series X can use that format without giving up game mode. The package is rounded out by the Game Bar, which lets you quickly check key signal parameters and change settings without leaving your game. In terms of features alone, the C6 is one of those TVs it’s really hard to fault. Whether you play on PlayStation, Xbox or PC, practically everything you could expect from a modern gaming TV is available here.