LG OLED G5 vs Philips PUS7000

LG G5 with the new Tandem OLED panel brings the biggest change specifically in terms of the brightness of the television. And it’s quite impressive. This is truly an astronomically bright OLED. In every tested scene – whether it’s point lights or full-screen whites from the movie The Meg – the 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 comes close, and at times even surpasses the best Mini-LEDs on the market. A new feature of the Tandem OLED panel is the expanded color gamut coverage – and here the LG G5 performs almost perfectly. DCI-P3 achieves a full 100%, while BT.2020 maintains around 83%. These are some of the highest values currently available on the market – it’s hard to find any other television that comes close to such results, unless we are talking about the best displays with QD-OLED panels. The G5 has nearly reference-quality HDR – both in terms of brightness and color saturation. This is an OLED that can truly shine – and not just figuratively.

Unfortunately, the PUS7000 is not suitable for watching HDR content. This screen is simply too dark. A brightness level of 200 nits is not enough to correctly display such a format. Even if a HDR signal message appears on the screen, the image will resemble a regular SDR recording. Therefore, it's better to stick with the latter format to avoid issues in displaying bright scenes, which you can read about below. The situation is not improved by the fact that this is a classic LCD model without additional layers to enhance colors, such as QLED or PFS. As a result, colors in HDR may appear washed out. Ultimately, this gives a worse effect than in the standard SDR format, which is simply better suited to the capabilities of this panel.

Our test unit LG G5 struggled with some issues in the factory Filmmaker mode. And while the image might have seemed fine to most people, we knew that this TV was capable of much more. This mode had a clear excess blue tint in the white balance, resulting in a strong cooling of the image – particularly in HDR modes, where there was also a lack of red. The picture seemed cold, and its sharpness was artificially boosted and unnatural. Another significant issue was the brightness characteristic. In SDR content, the situation wasn't the worst, aside from a slight dimming of the entire image. However, it performed much worse in HDR materials – due to improper brightness management, the smallest details could completely disappear from the image, and larger, bright elements appeared overexposed and lacking gradation. Luckily, the G5 supports calibration using 3D LUT (a tool for professionals to calibrate colors), so we decided to take advantage of its professional background 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.

We tested the television in movie mode, which theoretically should provide the best and most natural colors. And indeed, this mode is quite correct; however, after connecting the calibration equipment, its biggest flaw became apparent. The PUS7000 has significant deficiencies in displaying red. Poorly tuned white balance and too low saturation of this color cause the image to appear too cool. As a result, one might get the impression that the displayed content is simply lacking in vibrant colors. The situation is exacerbated by the fact that both SDR and HDR content are excessively brightened. This is confirmed by the gamma curve and EOTF graphs, which show that the television displays the image brighter than it should. This causes scenes to lose their depth and may appear somewhat washed out. Fortunately, the Philips menu offers many functions to improve these aspects, so we immediately proceeded to calibration to see what could be squeezed out of this screen.

After completing the calibration process using professional tools, we can confidently state that the LG G5 offers nearly reference-quality image. Most of the errors related to white balance and the ColorChecker test are below the value of 2, which is a phenomenal result, practically imperceptible to the human eye. And while one could still criticize that in HDR films the television tends to slightly dim the smallest elements of the image, in practice, this does not negatively affect the overall impression. Hats off to LG, because once again they provide the user with enormous possibilities for adjusting their display – and this, combined with very good parameters of the panel itself, results in an image that is truly hard to surpass.

After professional calibration, it is clear that the PUS7000 responds well to image adjustments. In this price range, this is not a given. The effects should be assessed in two scenarios, depending on what content we plan to watch. SDR performs the best. After our corrections, the image looks really good. Most color errors fell below level 3, which is the threshold at which distortions typically become visible to the naked eye in measurements. Movies, series, sports, and regular television present themselves naturally, without unpleasant deviations. If someone primarily watches classic channels or streaming in HD quality, the difference after calibration will be noticeable immediately. However, it must be made clear that the PUS7000 is still not a television suitable for sensible HDR, and calibration does not change much here. The reason lies in the hardware: colors remain too undersaturated. The television lacks solutions that expand the color gamut, such as PFS filters or a quantum dot layer, so the panel simply cannot show the intense colors required by HDR. This is most evident in reds, which still look pale. This limitation cannot be bypassed with menu settings, as it results from the design of the backlighting and the panel itself.

Upscaling and digital image processing in the LG G5 perform very well. The television handles lower quality content exceptionally, especially when the "Smooth Gradation" feature is set to a low level. In this mode, it effectively removes unwanted artifacts and issues with visible tonal transitions. It may also slightly smooth out some desired details, such as the subtle texture of clothing or skin, but importantly – it does not remove film grain, so it’s hard to say there’s a serious compromise here. It’s one of those options that’s definitely worth enabling.

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 edging was visible, but that’s an effect that can’t be completely avoided. Additionally, there were no issues with overscan, which – contrary to appearances – is not obvious, even in 2025.

The PUS7000 handles digital image processing quite well. The distortion reduction feature deserves praise, as it effectively smooths out unwanted tonal transitions even at a low setting. However, it has a flaw: if the action is too aggressive, it can introduce undesirable artifacts on the screen. It’s a good idea to experiment with this setting to find the sweet spot between a smooth image and detail clarity.

The upscaling, which is the enhancement of lower quality materials to 4K, is adequate. The image after processing is very "soft," which is typical for almost all Philips televisions. The edges are plastic and smooth, making the image look cohesive. If someone finds it too soft, it can always be adjusted with the sharpness slider in the menu to achieve a more pronounced effect.

The motion fluidity on the LG G5 is simply phenomenal. The TV is equipped with a 165 Hz refresh rate panel, and this combined with the instantaneous response time of the OLED matrix delivers incredible results. The picture doesn’t stutter or smear like on classic LCD TVs. Like most LG models, the G5 features a motion smoother, which can be useful when watching movies – of course, we're talking about the TruMotion mode. With the “De-Blur” and “De-Judder” sliders, we can adjust the smoothness of older material according to our preferences, whether we want to preserve the characteristic film stutter or move towards a more fluid, television-like effect.

In this regard, we don't really have any good news. It might seem that the biggest downside is the lack of a 120 Hz panel, but in this price range, that's actually standard, and it's hard to expect more. However, the worst part is that the TV does not have any motion smoothing features. There are no supporting systems for either movies or sports. We have to accept that the image on the PUS7000 is processed "raw." This means that during dynamic scenes or fast camera movements, the motion may appear choppy or unclear. We have no way to enable any smoother that would soften this effect.

Features for gamers? Perfect. That should be enough for you to know what level we are dealing with here. G5 is a television designed with gamers in mind, so we find literally everything one can expect from a gaming screen. There is Game Bar, support for high resolutions with high refresh rates – that is, 4K at 120 Hz, and even more, because the panel has a refresh rate of 165 Hz (which PC gamers will benefit from). The television supports variable refresh rates (VRR), automatic low latency mode (ALLM), and correctly supports HDR in games thanks to HGiG. All of this adds up to one of the best sets of gaming features available on the market. Well done, LG.

Although the PUS7000 is not marketed as a gaming TV, it does not perform as poorly in this category as one might expect. While there is no support for 120 Hz refresh rates, which is understandable at this price point, the manufacturer has included several important features that genuinely improve the comfort of playing on a console. The most significant of these are VRR and ALLM technologies. VRR is responsible for synchronizing the screen with the number of frames generated by the console. This prevents the image from "tearing" and keeps it consistent even during sudden frame drops in the game. In turn, ALLM is a solution that automatically switches the TV to the lowest latency mode right after detecting a signal from the console. All of these parameters are easily accessible thanks to the Game Bar feature. This is a special control panel for gamers that can be brought up on the screen at any time. It allows for a quick overview of current settings and connection status without interrupting gameplay, which is a very convenient solution.