LG OLED C6H (TANDEM OLED) vs Samsung M80H

And it's with HDR that the Tandem OLED panel shows its biggest advantage. The C6H's brightness is simply very high and in our measurements it hovered around 1900–2300 nits in most movie scenes. That's already a level at which bright highlights, the sun, or small light sources can look truly spectacular. The biggest impression on us, however, was the fifth scene from the film The Meg. It is exceptionally demanding for OLEDs because practically the entire screen is very bright. Even so, the C6H reached about 1650 nits there. For comparison, the regular C6 with a classic WOLED panel delivered around 600–700 nits in the same spot. So we're talking about more than double the brightness, and in places the difference approaches threefold. That is probably the best example of what Tandem OLED brings. It's not just a higher result on a small test patch. The C6H can sustain very high brightness even when much more of the screen is lit. Thanks to that, HDR has a significantly greater dynamic range and in this respect the C6H is much closer to flagship OLEDs than to typical mid-range models.

Colors

Tandem OLED also brings improvements in color. DCI-P3 coverage remains practically full at about 99%, while in the much wider BT.2020 gamut we measured roughly 82–83%. That's about 7 percentage points more than the regular C6. In everyday use this won't be a visible difference in every scene, since most films don't use such a wide gamut. However, when very heavily saturated colors appear, the C6H already has noticeably greater capabilities, especially in reds. Reds benefit the most, becoming deeper and more saturated. It's still not at the level of the best QD-OLED panels or SQD TVs, but for a WOLED panel the result is really very good.

The M80H is not one of the brightest TVs. Its peak brightness is around 350 nits and we saw similar results in most of our test scenes. That's not enough to produce genuinely impressive HDR — bright highlights lack punch and the overall image is a bit too dark. In practice, HDR on the M80H resembles a well-presented SDR image more than clearly more dynamic wide-range content. The picture can still look fine, but it's hard to point to strong specular highlights, clearly bright light sources, or an effect that immediately separates HDR from ordinary content.

Colors

One of the M80H's strengths is its color. The TV uses a PFS-based backlight filter, which allows it to display a significantly wider color gamut than a standard LCD screen without filters. Our measurements confirm this — the M80H covers about 96% of the DCI-P3 gamut and 72% of BT.2020. Those are very good results, which let the colors appear strongly saturated. Samsung's policy here is interesting. The M80H is not part of the QLED family, even though in terms of color it is practically on par with models carrying that label. From an image-quality standpoint, that doesn't matter much; the colors are simply good.

Right out of the box the LG C6 is pretty well calibrated, especially if you select Filmmaker mode. In SDR content the white balance is quite good, although as brightness increases it starts to show a slight lack of red. The picture becomes a bit cooler as a result, but not enough to be very noticeable during normal viewing. More is happening in the luminance response. Gamma is a bit low and, instead of holding at 2.4, it sits closer to 2.1–2.2 across much of the range. In practice the C6 slightly brightens the midtones. Shadows are therefore more readable, but the image loses some depth compared with how it should look in a dark room.

The situation is a bit more interesting in HDR. The start of the grayscale looks very good, but from roughly 20–30% brightness the white balance begins to drift increasingly. As brightness rises, red increases and blue becomes noticeably lacking. In the brightest areas the difference is already substantial and also affects the reproduction of some colors. The EOTF curve itself is, however, fairly well followed over most of the range. The C6 only tends to slightly brighten the image, which we also saw during our film comparisons. The largest deviation appears around the brightest sections, where the TV begins to map the signal to the panel’s capabilities.

The out-of-the-box Filmmaker mode in HDR is therefore not perfect, but overall it performs well. The biggest room for improvement is the white balance, especially at high brightness.

Filmmaker mode is reasonably well set up out of the box, though it falls short of perfect. In SDR material the most noticeable issue is an excess of red in the white balance, which makes the image look a bit warmer than it should. HDR content shows a similar character. As for the brightness response, in SDR the gamma stays close to the target for most of the range. Small deviations are mainly visible in darker areas, which in places are a little too dim. In HDR the very darkest details are slightly lifted, while from around 65% brightness the image begins to be gently darkened. This is largely due to the way the TV controls its brightness. Overall, Filmmaker mode looks good straight out of the box, but the image can still be improved.

LG TVs have been very receptive to calibration for years, and the C6 is no exception. After correction we were able to set the white balance almost perfectly, and most color errors (Delta E) fell below 3, often even around 2. In practice this means very accurate color reproduction in both SDR and HDR. The only curiosity showed up with the HDR luminance response. On the standard EOTF chart everything looks nearly perfect and at first glance it would be hard to fault anything. Only when we measured the TV’s behavior using filters based on actual movie scenes did it become apparent that the C6 has a slight tendency to artificially boost image brightness.

It’s not a huge difference and many people may even take it as a positive, since HDR looks a bit more striking because of it. From the perspective of fidelity to the source material, however, this isn’t ideal — some scenes are simply a bit brighter than the filmmaker intended. Interestingly, this is rather atypical for LG. In previous generations LG TVs usually adhered closely to the reference picture curve after calibration. With the C6 we’re still very close to the standard, but that subtle brightness "boost" can indeed be noticed in movies and TV shows.

After calibration, the M80H performs really well, especially with basic SDR content. Regular broadcast TV, YouTube, or movies viewed without HDR can look very accurate on it. After correcting the white balance, errors are minor, though you can still sometimes see that the TV tends to oversaturate the most saturated reds. In HDR you can also improve the picture and correct its main faults, but it doesn't reach the level of pricier models. Samsung quite heavily restricts color adjustment options in HDR, so in many areas we have to accept what the TV offers out of the box. Calibration lets us improve some parameters, but we are no longer able to change the overall image character of the M80H.

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 similar. That's a big plus, because in this area LG's processor this year performs excellently. The "Smooth Gradation" feature works especially well. With heavily compressed material it can effectively hide ugly banding and artifacts that often appear, for example, in lower-quality streaming. It's best to leave it on the "Low" setting. That way the improvement is noticeable, and the TV doesn't yet start blurring fine details. Higher levels smooth the image more, but can start to remove some of the natural texture of objects on screen. The upscaling itself also performs very well. Lower-resolution material is properly sharpened, 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.

Although the M80H is positioned fairly low in Samsung's lineup, the manufacturer equipped it with one of its stronger processors, NQ4 AI Gen2. The same chip can be found in Neo QLED TVs and the lower-tier OLED S85H. That's good news, because the processor does a very good job improving weaker source material. Upscaling performs best. Low-resolution content is displayed properly, and edges don't look overly jagged. Of course the TV won't create details that aren't in the source, but regular broadcast TV and older recordings look decent on it. One drawback is overscan, that is, edge cropping, which cannot be fully disabled. The tonal transition smoothing feature, the so-called noise reduction, also works well. The processor can effectively reduce visible signs of heavy compression, but it does so not without side effects. At higher settings it can overly smooth the image, remove some fine detail, and even eliminate film grain. Therefore we recommend using this feature primarily for content that actually has problems with heavy compression and posterization.

The C6H with a Tandem OLED panel can also operate at refresh rates up to 165 Hz. PC gamers will get the most use out of that, of course, because for consoles, movies, or sports we’re still talking about a maximum of 120 Hz. The panel itself performs excellently in motion. OLED pixels respond virtually instantly, so even with fast-moving objects you don’t see the typical motion blur behind them. The image stays clean whether you’re watching sports or playing fast-paced games.

If you care more about smoothness than motion clarity, TruMotion is available. LG lets you adjust two parameters separately. De-Judder works mainly with films and series shot at 24 fps and helps reduce the judder typical of them. De-Blur, on the other hand, is intended for 50/60 fps material, so it’s especially useful when watching sports or TV.

The M80H performs very well for watching sports and gaming. The TV is equipped with a panel with a refresh rate of up to 144 Hz at 4K, and when the resolution is lowered to Full HD it can handle up to 240 Hz. PC gamers will benefit most from the latter option.

The panel also handles 120 Hz content well, which matters especially for console gaming. The high refresh rate is useful for watching sports too, and motion blur is relatively low. That’s important because VA panels are not known for the best results in this respect. With the M80H, fast-moving objects do not produce a very noticeable trail.

The C6H offers basically a full package of gaming features. On consoles we can easily use 4K at 120 Hz, while PC users can push the refresh rate up to 165 Hz. The TV also supports VRR from 40 to 165 Hz, ALLM and a proper implementation of HGiG. Dolby Vision is also available in game mode, which remains a significant advantage for Xbox owners. We can view all the key information in the Game Bar, which provides quick access to VRR settings and current signal parameters. The OLED tandem therefore doesn't change the actual feature set for gamers, but with such high panel brightness HDR games can make an even bigger impression. Functionally, the C6H is simply a very complete TV for console and PC.

The M80H can be a very good choice for gamers on a slightly smaller budget. Feature-wise it offers essentially the same as Samsung's much more expensive TVs. All three HDMI inputs support HDMI 2.1, so even if one is taken by a soundbar connected via eARC there’s still room for a PC and consoles. There’s also VRR up to 144 Hz at 4K and up to 240 Hz in Full HD. Samsung has properly implemented HGiG as well, so after performing HDR calibration on the console, games are appropriately matched to the screen’s capabilities. That won’t make the M80H any brighter, but at least it won’t unnecessarily wash out the brightest parts of the image. There’s also a Game Bar for quick access to the most important settings and a Gaming Hub that lets you play in the cloud without a console. The M80H also includes Game Motion Plus, which creates extra frames and improves the smoothness of games running at 30 or 60 fps. Input lag then rises to about 59 ms, but it’s still roughly three times lower than with the typical motion smoothing on other manufacturers’ TVs. We don’t really recommend it for online multiplayer, but in more relaxed titles it can work very well.