When LG talked to us in December, it announced it was refocusing on the customer experience rather than just products and tech. Funny. We thought good products and superior tech enhanced the customer experience all on its own. Ah, semantics.
That said, we definitely appreciate LG saying that older models will remain like new for longer stretches, thanks to their upgradeability to the latest versions of LG’s continually evolving webOS operating system/user interface. “Planned obsolescence and upgrade-itis be damned!” we say.
New features for 2024
Philosophy aside, LG’s new A11 processor in its LG Signature OLED G4 and M4 OLED series TVs, and the A8 proc in its OLED B4 series, enable quite a few enhancements: Voice recognition (it can differentiate users by the sound of their voice); picture-in-picture mode (with up to four multi-view windows on screen at once); and audio performance (11.2-channel virtual sound and voice remastering to enhance dialog clarity).
AI Picture Pro (it’s not really artificial intelligence) can now process images to direct your focus to the main object on screen (portrait effect), as well as add automatic color correction to more accurately relay the director’s intent. With some of the ridiculous color palettes that have come into being since The Lord of the Rings, I’m not sure the latter is such a wonderful idea. Here’s hoping you can disable it.
LG Channels 3.0 will be onboard, too. That free streaming service was launched last September with an updated interface and more curated content. More choice in content is always welcome.
Big city, brighter lights
LG also touts its brightness booster as producing images that are up to 70 percent brighter overall, with 150 percent brighter highlights. The headroom is certainly nice to have, but the actual usefulness of all that brightness is debatable. Most high-end TVs already have more than enough brightness, and cranking it up can produce disappointing effects, such as the dreaded shot-on-a-60s-British-TV-camera effect.
Which enhancements are available on which TV is complicated; but generally speaking, the more you pay, the more you get.
New screen sizes abound
LG’s Signature OLED B4 series will gain a 48-inch model, joining the existing 55-, 65-, and 77-inch SKUs. And where the Signature OLED G4 series was previously available only in 77- and 97-inch flavors, buyers will now also get 55-, 65-, and 83-inch options. And for those deep-pocketed individuals with a passionate hate for wires, LG is expanding the M-series OLED it debuted in 2023: The LG Signature OLED M4 has just one cable–for power–with audio and video beamed to the screen from LG’s Zero Connect Box. It will be available in 65-, 77-, and 97-inch sizes.
Thin for the win
LG is playing up its One Wall concept for 2024, which basically means they’re styling some of their sound bars thin enough to match the depth of their TVs when wall-mounted. We haven’t heard them yet, but flat doesn’t necessarily mean a lack of bass–you can effectively reproduce low-end with side chambers almost as well as back chambers. We’ll see how well LG has managed to do that soon enough.
