As deals editor for Tom's Guide, I'm very particular about the items I buy. Not only do I like waiting for record price lows, but I also like to purchase items that I know will offer some sort of future-proofing, even if only a few years.
My last TV purchase, for example, was the excellent Panasonic 50-inch ST60 1080p plasma TV. Although my TV was still in excellent shape, the screen was starting to suffer from burn-in or image retention. November ended up being the best month ever for OLED TV deals, so I purchased what we named the best TV of 2022 — the LG C2 OLED TV.
LG C2 OLED: It wasn't love at first sight
After quickly assembling the LG C2's stand, which is a tad more wobbly than I'd like, my initial reaction wasn't love at first sight. It was more like — is this it? I immediately turned on the World Cup and noticed that close ups of the players looked very detailed to the point where I could see blades of grass on Lionel Messi's beard. However, everything else looked mediocre at best and at times even blurry.
I tried different channels and programs and I found myself being more wowed by the size of the screen than the picture quality. Whether I was watching local news or Japan's devastating defeat to Croatia, I simply wasn't in love with the image quality coming from the C2.
Sound was also very tinny. Although LG uses its a9 Gen 5 AI processor to improve the picture and sound quality of what you're watching, I found all audio lacked bass no matter what setting I tried. I'd personally prefer a TV with meaty bass than one with an impossibly thin design, but that's not that much of a dealbreaker for me. (I guess I might need to look for a deal on one of the best soundbars next.)
Here's where the LG C2 really shines
I decided to fire up Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities on Netflix. The horror anthology is made up of eight spooky tales and like any good horror flick, many of these stories take place in dark environments. Here's where the C2 started to shine. The screen offered deep, inky blacks very close to — if not better — than the blacks I was getting from my Panasonic plasma. There were some instances where I felt dark scenes lacked detail (especially during episode 8: The Murmuring), but generally speaking I was impressed at the excellent contrast coming from the LG C2.
Next, I fired up some HD videos from YouTube. Slowly, I started feeling more confident with my purchase. First, I watched 1080p videos of South Korean chef Paik Jong Won's food adventures. Plates of gochujang pork bulgogi looked so life-like that they had me salivating at the mouth. I was equally impressed by how many shades of red I could see in the bowls of kimchi jjigae that chef Won was cooking.
It wasn't till I started watching 4K movie trailers that I really witnesses the full capacity of the LG C2 OLED. The TV offers an impressively wide color gamut that makes everything seem more life-like. Unlike the 1080p LCD at my parents' house, the C2 doesn't suffer from blooming, which is when you can see light along the edges of an LCD panel.
I'm not a gamer, so I wasn't able to test out the C2's gaming capabilities, but we did name it one of the best gaming TVs for PS5. (This may encourage me to get back into gaming).
Bottom line? Overall, the LG C2 OLED is an amazing TV and now that OLED prices have fallen to their lowest of the year, it's an excellent buy. For more, check out our in-depth LG C2 OLED review.
