LG 65UF950 review

The 65UF950 is so good looking it's almost unfair - to both the competition and, as it turns out, you. For it's like a siren enticing you irresistibly towards the rocks…

Its 65-inch screen is suspended in a chassis that looks neither wide enough around the edges nor deep enough round the back to support such a large amount of screen acreage. Its rear, in particular, is so thin over much of its area that it almost had me thinking LG had sent me one of its OLED TVs by mistake.

But no, this really is an LCD TV.

And remarkably the screen actually feels quite robust in its super-skinny home - a testament to LG's uncompromising build quality.

In fact, with a cool white finish applied to its rear to seal the deal, the 65UF950 is for my money the best looking LCD TV I've seen in 2015.

The 65UF950 continues to impress with its connectivity, which includes that key modern day triumvirate of four HDMIs, three USB ports, and LAN and Wi-Fi network options capable of delivering both multimedia files from networked DLNA devices and access to LG's online services.

WebOS continues to be your friend

These services are accessed through LG's inspired and - judging by the copy-cat efforts of one or two rival smart TV systems we've seen this year, inspiring - webOS interface.

For the most part this follows the brilliantly slick, focussed, friendly design introduced last year, except that it now runs a bit quicker and includes both some new side menus to streamline navigation and a handy new customisable favourite programmes content option.

It's a pity LG hasn't managed to put right its ongoing lack of 4OD/All 4 and ITV Player apps - especially as all the other big brands have now got round this once common deficit in one way or another. But LG does offer Now TV when others don't, and also handles Amazon and Netflix in their 4K versions if your broadband speed is up to it.

As you'd expect from its crazily thin form, the 65UF950V uses an array of edge-mounted LEDs to light its screen.

These are delivered with a local dimming drive in tow, to deliver different amounts of light to different parts of the screen according to the demands of the content you're watching.

Wider colours sir?

Also present and correct is LG's take on 2015's must-have TV accessory, a wide colour gamut.

In this instance we've got a wide colour phosphor panel design rather than a quantum dot-like approach - though LG actually caters for both these colour systems within its latest so-called 'ColorPrime' LCD ranges.

Given the presence of ColorPrime technology and the fact that, at first glance at least, the 65UF950V looks seriously bright, it's perhaps surprising that at the moment, at least, LG isn't claiming that the 65UF950V will be able to handle high dynamic range (HDR) content via a later firmware update - despite such an update being announced for its EG960V OLED TVs.

This is a blow when you look at how many rival TVs on offer from the likes of Sony, Panasonic and especially Samsung ARE offering HDR support via upcoming firmware updates.

IPS worries

The only cause for concern on the 65UF950's spec sheet is its use of an IPS panel.

While these sorts of panel offer a slightly superior effective viewing angle to the rival VA panel types now being used by the vast majority of other TVs in the UK market, they've often struggled in the past to deliver a convincing contrast performance.

An issue which, if unfixed, could really start to become uncomfortable this year given the stellar contrast performances we've already seen from a number of the 65UF950's rivals.

On the plus side, though, IPS panels invariably come with passive rather than active 3D support built in. The passive approach means you shouldn't have to worry about the crosstalk ghosting and flickering problems associated with the active 3D system, and experience suggests that when you're talking about a native UHD TV like the 65UF950V you also don't feel too badly impacted by passive's reduced resolution versus active 3D.