LG UA75006LA (VA) vs Samsung The Frame 2026 (LS03H)

The LG UA7500 with a VA panel has a brightness that hovers 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 at highlights enhancement. One advantage is that regardless of the test pattern, the effect remained relatively stable. However, we noticed that in very extreme scenes with a lot of fine detail, the television can slightly dim the image to achieve better black levels, but this comes at the cost of visibility of bright effects. Additionally, it should be noted that the UA7500 is not equipped with any extra technologies for expanding color. It is neither a QLED panel nor a PFS LED, which is why the coverage of the DCI-P3 color palette is only 80%, causing many HDR movies to appear flat and not fully represent the variety of colors.

The Frame 2026 is genuinely a bright TV. Its peak brightness reaches about 650 nits and, importantly, similar values are maintained regardless of the type of scene being displayed. So it doesn’t matter much whether we’re watching a very bright full-screen shot or just a small bright element occupying part of the screen. The backlight always has a lot of power, so bright portions of the image are strongly illuminated. That gives The Frame a solid foundation for HDR. Bright highlights can stand out, and the picture doesn’t look flat or too dark. Unfortunately, this is not a solution without compromises. Because it lacks local dimming, the TV cannot darken the blacks next to very bright elements.

This is clearly visible, among other things, in scenes 2 and 4 from our test procedure. Bright areas look intense, but at the same time the blacks around them become noticeably lifted. The picture loses depth as a result, especially when watching in the evening. For that reason The Frame performs best with HDR in bright and moderately bright scenes. There the high backlight brightness works in its favor. In darker shots the situation is the opposite.

Colors

The Frame also performs well in terms of color. It’s a QLED TV, so it can display a wide color gamut and show richly saturated colors. DCI-P3 coverage is around 94%, and BT.2020 about 72%. Those are good numbers and you can see them while watching. Colors are vivid and do not look washed out. It looks best in bright, colorful scenes. Animations or cartoons with lots of saturated hues can look really good on The Frame. In such material the TV shows one of its stronger points.

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 picture is put together quite sensibly and at first glance is not irritating; however, its weaknesses quickly start to show. This is most apparent in scenes with bright points – lamps in the background or reflections of light on the skin are clearly exaggerated. Characters' faces often look unnatural, as if they have been "burned out." Additionally, the default gamma settings brighten even the smallest details, causing the image to lose subtlety in darker areas. Nevertheless, the fact remains that, for its price range, the UA7500 in factory mode provides a decent starting point. However, it's clear that without additional correction, these issues cannot be avoided, which is why – as with other TVs – we decided to check what could be achieved after calibration.

To evaluate the out-of-the-box colors we chose Filmmaker Mode. If you’re encountering it for the first time, it’s a mode designed to present a movie or series as faithfully as possible. The TV then turns off most additional picture enhancers, and the colors and luminance characteristics are meant to be as close as possible to what the content creators intended. I have to admit that the The Frame 2026 already performs quite well in this regard straight out of the box. The biggest deviation is visible in the white balance. As brightness increases, blue starts to drop off and green increases slightly. As a result the image shifts toward warmer tones. White is therefore not perfectly neutral, and in some scenes you can notice a slightly warmer overall cast.

The luminance response — gamma or EOTF — looks good. Across most of the range they stay fairly close to the target, though in the darkest parts of the image there is a larger deviation. In practice, some details emerging from black may therefore appear a bit more pronounced. That said, it’s not a flaw that jumps out during normal viewing. Overall, Filmmaker Mode is a good starting point here. However, the factory image is a bit too warm and not all hues land exactly where they should.

We noticed the greatest improvement when calibrating the mode intended for daily SDR content. We managed to smooth the white balance in an acceptable way and tackle the issue of excessive brightening of small elements by the gamma characteristic. As a result, the image gained the consistency and naturalness that were lacking in the factory settings. After such correction, we can confidently state that for daily television content, programs, or materials from YouTube, the LG UA7500 performs really well – especially after professional calibration. The situation is somewhat different for HDR content. Here, the calibration did allow us to tame the white balance and slightly improve brightness management, but the limitations of the design are immediately apparent. The lack of additional filters to widen the color palette means that the most vivid colors appear flat, and the image does not have the intensity we would expect from good HDR. In SDR, the UA7500 performs quite decently, but in HDR – despite corrections – it remains far behind, and this is a characteristic that one must accept when choosing this television.

After calibration we mainly managed to remove that warmer cast and better even out the white balance. We also smoothed the brightness response a bit, which made the image more neutral and predictable. However, there are things calibration won't fix. It's mainly the behavior of the blacks, which stems from the backlight design itself and the lack of local dimming. In some scenes blacks will therefore still be slightly lifted, and you'll just have to accept that. That's more a characteristic of this model than something that can be fixed with settings. HDR is also somewhat limited. Samsung doesn't give full freedom to work across the widest color gamut, so not all colors can be reproduced perfectly. In normal viewing you probably won't notice it, but it's worth being aware of.

The LG UA7500 with a VA panel has shown a really good performance in this category. The image scaling from Full HD content or even SD was surprisingly smooth. The picture looked smooth, edges weren't excessively jagged, and the television maintained a significant amount of detail, which meant that even older movies didn't lose their character. It particularly excelled with faces – there were no artificial contours or the "mask" effect, which often occurs in cheaper models. The way the television handled tonal transitions in lower-quality materials is also noteworthy. Thanks to digital processing, colors didn't blend together, and gradients looked natural and smooth. There was no intrusive image smoothing or loss of cinematic grain. This makes the UA7500 great for everyday content – from terrestrial television, through sports, to YouTube, where we often watch materials in various resolutions.

As with many of Samsung’s newer TVs, this one also uses the NQ4 AI processor, only the older, second-generation version. And you have to admit it handles digital image processing quite well. Lower-resolution material is sharpened effectively, and after upscaling to 4K it still looks natural. The TV can also somewhat "tidy up" weaker sources, like older recordings or lower-quality broadcasts. That doesn't, of course, mean it will suddenly turn poor footage into 4K, but at closer viewing distances the difference compared with simpler models with weaker processors is easy to spot. Edges are clearer, and fine details don't get lost as much to signal compression.

Samsung also offers a few additional image-enhancing features, but as usual it's best to use them sparingly. At stronger settings, noise reduction can very effectively reduce posterization, but it also noticeably interferes with the image. The picture then simply starts to look very artificial, for example by heavily smoothing characters' faces. So it makes the most sense with really poor sources when various types of noise are seriously distracting.

LG UA7500 is a television with a 60 Hz panel, so it’s hard to expect any awe in this category. It’s more of a screen intended for everyday content or an evening movie session rather than for following dynamic sports events or playing action games. It’s clear that the manufacturer directed this model specifically to that group of consumers – and in that regard, it performs correctly. We have the TruMotion function at our disposal, which is a motion smoother. It’s simple, has only one slider, but it can make a noticeable difference. At lower settings, the image appears more raw and cinematic, while at higher values, motion becomes smoother and more pleasing to the eye.

Samsung again used a panel with a maximum refresh rate of 144 Hz here. Refresh rates up to 120Hz primarily offer more headroom for material with a lot of motion. The TV can use additional motion interpolation systems that can improve smoothness in sports and other fast-moving content. However, a high refresh rate alone does not solve everything. The Frame still uses a VA panel, which has a relatively slow response time, and consequently fairly pronounced motion blur. With fast-moving objects, especially on a dark background, motion trails are easy to notice. There's also a slight doubling of edges, which can be visible even with the additional motion processing systems turned off. We already saw similar behavior in last year’s The Frame 2025, and it’s a pity Samsung hasn’t fixed that element. The 144 Hz itself provides a good foundation, but the panel’s response time still limits this TV.

LG UA7500 is a television that can be safely recommended to "casual" gamers. While it does not have a 120 Hz panel or HDMI 2.1 ports, so fully utilizing the potential of modern consoles is out of the question. However, the manufacturer has taken care to include a few extras that can make gaming more enjoyable. Notably, the Game Bar deserves mention – a very nicely designed panel where you can quickly view and change the most important settings. From this panel, we have access to features such as ALLM (automatic switching to game mode) and frame synchronization, which is VRR. The range of VRR is limited – it works from 48 to 60 Hz – but the mere presence of this feature in such an affordable television leaves a positive impression.

Additionally, there is support for HGiG, which is HDR calibration mode for gaming. It sounds good, but based on testing experiences, we already know that with the UA7500, this option doesn't make much sense. The television does not handle HDR very well, so paradoxically we achieved better results with this mode turned off. This is another signal that the UA7500 is more of a screen for occasional gamers who value simplicity and convenience rather than for those looking for full immersion from the latest consoles.

In terms of gaming features, The Frame is practically on par with Samsung's top TVs. When you connect a console the TV automatically switches to game mode thanks to ALLM, so you don't have to change settings manually each time. There's also VRR, which matches the display's refresh rate to the frames being produced by the console or PC. During drops in smoothness this helps avoid the characteristic screen tearing. The Frame of course supports 4K at 120 Hz, so you can take advantage of the PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X in games that offer higher frame rates. HGiG also works correctly. With HDR set up properly on the console the TV doesn't try to brighten the image on its own, so bright effects in games are shown as they should be. Samsung also includes a Game Bar. It's a handy menu you can bring up without leaving the game. There you can check things like VRR and the current frame rate, and quickly change the most important gaming settings. For PC use the options are even greater, since the mentioned Full HD mode allows raising the refresh rate up to 240 Hz. There is really only one feature missing that Samsung has already spoiled us with, and that's Dolby Vision Gaming. Xbox owners will notice this the most, because that console can use Dolby Vision in games. There's one more thing worth mentioning that applies specifically to this model. Its One Connect module has only one HDMI 2.1 port, so that's the only port you can use for a console or PC if you want 4K 120 Hz. Fortunately Samsung didn't tie that port to eARC. You can therefore connect a soundbar separately (3) and still have a full HDMI 2.1 port available for the console.