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

When it comes to HDR, the capabilities of the Xiaomi S Mini 2026 are really good, especially given the segment this model belongs to. The TV reaches around 1,000 nits of brightness without much trouble, allowing it to show a very pronounced HDR effect in bright scenes. The sun, reflections and brightly lit parts of the image can be really intense and at times almost striking in their brightness. It is a bit different in dark scenes, though. Very small light sources surrounded by black are displayed at much lower brightness, so they lack that pinpoint intensity seen on the best TVs. That said, this is not unusual for a Mini LED. The local dimming algorithm reduces the backlight to preserve the deepest possible blacks, which in such scenes matter more than a few extra nits.

HDR colours

Colour reproduction also performs well. Xiaomi markets the S Mini 2026 as a QLED TV, although the solution used here is effectively based on a PFS phosphor. The result is what matters, and it's quite good. Our measured coverage of the DCI-P3 gamut was about 94%, while in the much wider BT.2020 colour space it was about 74%. This means the TV can reproduce most colours used in HDR films with suitably high saturation. Its limitations are most visible with very intense shades of green, where the colour gamut starts to run out.

The HDR performance of the LG C6 is really very good. LG Display's new WOLED panel has primarily brought a considerable increase in brightness. In our unit we measured around 1,500 nits and, importantly, the TV can deliver similar values in many typical film scenes. That gives the HDR the necessary impact. Bright highlights, lamps and sunlight can be really intense, and most HDR films simply look very impressive. Of course it's still an OLED, so brightness falls in scenes with a lot of white. This is well illustrated by the fifth scene in the film The Meg, where the C6 reached around 600 to 700 nits. That's still a very good result, but it also shows that the new panel hasn't shed all the limitations typical of OLEDs.

Colours

When it comes to colours, there is also little to complain about. The C6 covers about 99% of the DCI-P3 gamut and roughly 75% of BT.2020. In practice the colours are very saturated and, importantly, stable across different scenes. This is 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 palette is nowadays offered mainly 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 film scenes.

We tested the Xiaomi S Mini 2026 in sizes from 55 to 75 inches in Film mode, which offered the most accurate colours compared with the other presets. That did not mean the picture was correctly set up straight away. In our sample the white balance was clearly shifted towards warmer tones. There was too little blue and too much red, so whites and greys had a slightly warm tint. 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 dropped in places to about 2.0. As a result there was more detail visible in the shadows, but the image lost some depth. The factory settings were therefore not bad, but there was still some way to go to achieve accurate image reproduction.

Right out of the box the LG C6 is pretty well set up, especially if you choose Filmmaker mode. In SDR material the white balance is decent, although as brightness increases it starts to lack a bit of red. The picture becomes a little cooler as a result, but it’s not such a big difference that it stands out during normal viewing. More happens in the brightness response itself. Gamma is a bit low and instead of holding at 2.4 it sits closer to 2.1–2.2 over much of the range. 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 dark room. In HDR the situation is a bit more interesting. The start of the grayscale looks very good, but from about 20–30% brightness the white balance starts to drift more and more. As brightness rises there’s more red and a noticeable lack of blue. In the brightest highlights the difference is already significant and also affects reproduction of some colors. The EOTF curve itself is handled fairly well over most of the range. The C6 only has a tendency to slightly brighten the image, which we also saw during our film comparisons. The largest deviation appears around the brightest highlights, where the TV begins to adapt the signal to the panel’s capabilities. So the out-of-the-box Filmmaker mode in HDR isn’t perfect, but overall it performs well. The biggest room for improvement is the white balance, especially at high brightness.

Contrary to appearances, the Xiaomi S Mini 2026 responds quite well to calibration. After our adjustments the white balance was noticeably improved and the picture stopped leaning towards overly warm tones. With SDR material the effect is really good, and the TV can render such content very accurately; it is hard to fault it on colour reproduction. We applied similar corrections for HDR, though not everything could be fixed there. Colours look better than on the factory settings, but the TV still tends to display the image a little brighter than it should. This is visible in the EOTF curve, which sits above the reference value. In practice this means some HDR scenes are brighter than the creators intended. It is a quirk of this TV and we have no influence over it.

LG TVs have been very receptive to calibration for years and the C6 is no exception. After adjustment the white balance was set almost perfectly, and most colour errors dropped to values below 3, often even around 2. In practice this means very accurate colour reproduction, both in SDR and HDR. An interesting quirk only appeared with the luminance response in HDR. On a standard EOTF chart everything looks almost ideal and at first glance it would be hard to criticise. Only when we measured the TV's behaviour with filters based on actual film scenes did it become clear that the C6 has a slight tendency to artificially boost image brightness.

This is not a huge difference and many people may even view it positively, because HDR consequently looks a little more striking. From the perspective of fidelity to the source material this is not ideal, however, as 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 stuck very closely to the reference picture characteristic after calibration. With the C6 we are still very close to the standard, but this subtle brightness boost is indeed noticeable in films and TV series.

Digital image processing in the Xiaomi S Mini 2026 is handled by the MT5896 processor. Unfortunately, in this respect the TV is rather mediocre. Low-resolution content is not scaled very well, and its limitations quickly become apparent on a large screen. The picture looks quite digital, and the TV cannot bring out many extra details. Additionally, overscan cannot be turned off for low-resolution content. The situation is even worse when it comes to smoothing posterisation. On the smaller models there is not even a dedicated setting to reduce visible banding between similar shades. So if such imperfections are already present in the source material, Xiaomi essentially does not mask them.

Here the LG C6 has taken a real step forward. The TV uses the same processor found in the flagship G6, and in terms of image processing the two models are very similar. That's a considerable plus, because in this area LG's processor this year performs excellently. The "Smooth Gradation" function in particular works very well. With heavily compressed material it can effectively hide ugly banding and artefacts that often appear, for example, in lower-quality streaming. It's best to leave it set to "Low". That way the improvement is clear and the TV does not yet start blurring fine details. Higher settings smooth the image more aggressively but can already remove some of the natural texture of objects on the screen. Upscaling itself also performs very well. Lower-resolution content is sharpened correctly, edges look clean, and the processor quite effectively reconstructs fine details. In this respect the C6 is already very 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 is their biggest limitation when it comes to motion. For films and series this is not yet a major issue, because the TV has a classic motion interpolation for 24/30 fps material. So we can reduce the characteristic judder and adjust the motion settings to our own preferences. Sports and other 50/60 Hz content fare worse, because there is no additional function to improve smoothness. In such material we are therefore limited by the panel's capabilities.

In terms of motion blur the TV performs quite typically for a VA panel. Most trailing is visible behind objects moving on a dark background, while in brighter scenes the effect is noticeably reduced. It is not at a level that completely ruins the perception of motion, but in dynamic scenes you can tell the panel is not among the fastest.

LG C6 received a panel with a maximum refresh rate of 165 Hz, which is great news above all for gamers using a powerful PC. In films, sport or on consoles we will of course make use of up to 120 Hz, but even then it is hard to fault the motion clarity. As befits an OLED, the panel's response time is almost instantaneous. Moving objects therefore do not leave the characteristic smearing or trails that we can still see on LCD televisions. This is especially noticeable in sport and fast-paced games, where the picture remains very clean even during dynamic movement.

For films and television LG has also prepared the TruMotion motion smoothing system. In the user settings you will find two separate sliders. De-Judder primarily addresses low frame-rate content, that is mainly films and TV series at 24 fps. You can use it to slightly reduce the characteristic judder or set a higher value if you want a very smooth image. De-Blur is useful for higher frame-rate material, chiefly sports broadcasts and 50/60 fps television.

In larger sizes the Xiaomi S Mini 2026 is a much more interesting proposition for gamers. The panel natively runs at up to 144 Hz, so when connected to a PC you can use the high refresh rate even in 4K. At lower resolutions the TV can go even further, reaching up to 288 Hz. It also supports ALLM, automatic switching to game mode, and a Game Bar with the most important settings to hand. Of course, the TV has two full-bandwidth HDMI 2.1 ports. In terms of smoothness the difference compared with the 55 to 75-inch versions is therefore significant and especially noticeable with a PC or console. Not everything works perfectly, though. As with the smaller variants, we have reservations about the implementation of HGiG. The HDR setup screens on the PS5 and Xbox do not accurately match the TV's real capabilities, so if you set your 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 really lacks nothing important. The TV supports 4K at 120 Hz from consoles, and when connected to a PC it can run at up to 165 Hz. There is also VRR from 40 to 165 Hz, ALLM and a properly working HGiG. A big plus is support for Dolby Vision in games, so the Xbox Series X can use that format without giving up Game Mode. It's rounded off by a Game Bar, from which you can quickly check key signal parameters and change settings without leaving the game. In terms of features, the C6 is therefore one of those TVs that is really hard to fault. Whether you're gaming on a PlayStation, an Xbox or a PC, practically everything you could expect from a modern gaming TV is available here.