I understand the limitations of IPS but according to your measurements the SM9000 has a lower contrast and brightness compared with Sk9000 which was the corresponding model last year and even lower contrast then then the SM8600 which is a cheaper model.

Presumably the manufacturer didn’t set out to make a worse tv, or did they? Is there a technical trade off that you can think of to explain the low measurements.

I was happy with the picture quality of last years SK9000 but when LG announced the 2019 models were getting HDMI 2.1 I decided I’d hold out for what I thought would be essentially the same panel with hdmi 2.1. Now I’m slightly disappointed I waited.