LG UN6950 TV Review

The LG 50UN6950 has a very simple design with thick bezels that give off a cheap look. It's a slightly different design from the LG UM6900 and it looks more like LG UN7300.

The stand is almost as wide as the TV, so you may need a large table, depending on which size you get. The legs wobble quite a bit.

Footprint of the 50 inch model: 41" x 9.2"

The back of this TV is all plastic and looks very much like the LG UN7300. There's no cable management to speak of, but it does come with a strap that can be used to tie a few cables together.

The LG 50UN6950ZUF has thick borders that may be distracting for some.

The LG 50UN6950ZUF is thicker than the LG UM6900 but still shouldn't stick out too much if you wall-mount it.

The LG 50UN6950ZUF has okay build quality. It's entirely plastic and doesn't feel very well-built. There's a bit of flex in the large panel on the back, and the legs don't feel very solid. The stand wobbles quite a bit.

The LG 50UN6950 has a great contrast ratio, so blacks look black in a dark room. These results are a bit low for a TV with a VA panel, but still great. Contrast can vary between units, so this could just be our unit.

Note: Only the 50 and 60 inch models of this TV have a VA panel. The 43, 55, 65, and 75 inch models have an IPS panel, and we expect them to have a worse contrast ratio.

The LG UN6950 has mediocre peak brightness. It's bright enough for most moderately-lit environments, but might not be bright enough to overcome glare in a really bright room. There's very little variation in brightness with different content, but small highlights in dark scenes are dimmed a bit, as the TV is likely using some form of frame dimming to improve near-black uniformity.

We measured the brightness after calibration in the 'Expert (Dark Room)' Picture Mode with the Backlight set to 'Max' and all other image processing disabled. If you care more about peak brightness than accuracy, we measured 366 cd/m² in the 10% peak window using the 'Vivid' Picture Mode, and with TruMotion off.

This TV doesn't have a local dimming feature. The video is for reference only, so you can see how the backlight on this display performs and compare it to a similar product with local dimming.

This TV doesn't have a local dimming feature. The video is for reference only, so you can see how the backlight on this display performs and compare it to a similar product with local dimming.

The LG UN6950 has disappointing HDR peak brightness. It's not bright enough to deliver a true cinematic experience in HDR, as bright specular highlights don't stand out at all. Unfortunately, most scenes are brighter than they should be, up until close to the TV's peak brightness. It rolls off linearly near the TV's peak brightness, so there's no loss of fine details.

We measured the brightness in the 'HDR Cinema' Picture Mode with the Color Temperature set to 'Warm 2'.

If you find HDR too dim, enabling Dynamic Tone Mapping and setting Dynamic Contrast to 'High' with our recommended settings results in a slightly brighter image, as shown in this EOTF. Note that the peak brightness with these settings is about the same, but some scenes are brighter than they should be.

The peak brightness in HDR in Game Mode is about the same as out of it.

The LG UN6950 has decent gray uniformity. The edges of the screen are noticeably darker than the center, and there are dark vertical bands throughout the screen. There's also visible dirty screen effect in the center, which could be distracting when watching sports. There's less dirty screen effect in near-dark scenes, but there's significant backlight bleed along the edges. Note that gray uniformity may vary between units.

This TV has okay black uniformity. The backlight bleeds through the left and right sides of the screen, but there's not too much clouding around the center cross. Note that black uniformity can vary between units.

If you want a similar TV with better black uniformity, check out the Toshiba Fire TV 2020.

The LG 50UN6950ZUF has bad viewing angles, even worse than usual for a VA panel. The image quickly loses accuracy when moving off-center, so this isn't suggested for wide seating arrangements.

Note: Only the 50 and 60 inch models of this TV have a VA panel. The 43, 55, 65, and 75 inch models have an IPS panel, and we expect them to have better viewing angles, similar to the LG UN7300.

The LG UN6950 has decent reflection handling, but it's much worse than the LG UN7300 in really bright rooms. If you have direct sunlight on the screen, reflections may become too distracting.

There's a beam of light appearing down the middle of the photo, which is caused by the tube light in our room.

This TV has disappointing out-of-the-box accuracy, but this can vary between units. Most colors are inaccurate, and the white balance is off, which affects the way shades of gray are displayed. Gamma doesn't follow the target at all, so most scenes appear brighter than they should. The color temperature is also warm, so the image has a red/yellow tint to it. If you want a similar TV with better out-of-the-box color accuracy, check out the LG UN7000.

After calibration, the LG UN6950 has amazing color accuracy. Most colors are extremely accurate, except for red, which is still very off. Gamma follows the target almost perfectly and the color temperature is extremely close to the 6500K target.

You can see our recommended settings here.

480p content like DVDs is upscaled well and without any issues.

Upscaling of 720p content like cable TV looks good and there are no visible artifacts.

1080p content like from Blu-ray players is upscaled well.

The LG 50UN6950ZUF displays native 4k content perfectly without any problems.

This is a 4k TV that can't display an 8k signal.

This TV uses a BGR subpixel layout, which can affect the way text is rendered when using the TV as a PC monitor, similar to the Samsung TU7000. You can read about it here.

The LG 50UN6950ZUF has a decent color gamut, but it can't display a wide color gamut for HDR content. It has good coverage of the commonly-used DCI P3 color space, but it has very limited coverage of the Rec. 2020 color space.

This TV has a disappointing color volume, mainly because of its lack of a wide color gamut. It can't fill out the color gamut in either DCI P3 or Rec. 2020, and saturated colors aren't as bright as pure white.

The LG UN6950 has good gradient handling. There's visible banding in the darker shades, and there's some banding in the lighter grays. Enabling Smooth Gradation smooths out real content a bit, but it introduces strange horizontal banding in the test pattern. This setting can cause a loss of fine details in some scenes, so we don't recommend leaving it enabled.

There are no signs of temporary image retention on the LG UN6950, even immediately after displaying our static test image for 10 minutes. Temporary image retention may vary between units.

Note: The horizontal dark band in the center is likely caused by the flicker of the TV and the shutter of the camera not matching up. The TV doesn't actually display a dark band.

We don't expect VA panels to experience permanent image retention, as the VA panel in our long-term test appears immune.

Update 09/02/2021: There was a small mistake in the average response time.

The LG UN6950 has a good response time overall, but there are some issues. Like most VA panels, it's significantly slower transitioning out of dark scenes, causing noticeable black smearing behind fast-moving objects in dark scenes. The backlight flicker also causes severe duplications in motion, which can be distracting.

The LG 50UN6950 uses pulse width modulation (PWM) to dim its backlight, causing noticeable flicker at all backlight levels. It flickers at 120Hz in every picture mode, regardless of the backlight setting. Unfortunately, this flicker causes noticeable duplications in motion, which can be distracting. If you prefer a TV with a flicker-free backlight, check out the Sony X750H.

This TV doesn't have a black frame insertion or backlight strobing feature, since it already flickers at 120Hz anyway.

This TV can interpolate content up to 60fps, but there's duplication in motion due to the backlight's 120Hz flicker. The motion interpolation feature works well and smooths motion out, but in busy scenes, there are visible artifacts.

Update 09/02/2021: There was a mistake in the calculation of the total stutter. The 24p frame hold time is longer than we initially reported.

The LG 50UN6950ZUF can remove judder from native 24p sources like native apps, but it can't remove it from 60p/i sources like a cable box.

The LG 50UN6950 doesn't support any variable refresh rate technology and it's limited to a 60Hz refresh rate, which might be disappointing to some gamers.

The LG UN6950 has an incredibly low input lag, as long as you're in Game Mode. If you want to use this TV as a computer monitor and want the lowest input lag possible, set the input icon to 'PC'.

Update 03/01/2021: We previously indicated that 1440p is supported natively. It isn't; it requires a forced resolution.

This TV supports most common resolutions at 60Hz. It displays proper chroma 4:4:4, which is important for clear text if you want to use this TV as a PC monitor. To enable it, change the input icon to 'PC' in the home dashboard. To achieve full bandwidth, enable HDMI Ultra HD Deep Color.

Unfortunately, this TV doesn't support most of the advanced gaming features found on the latest consoles. For some reason, the Xbox One X reports that it supports 1080p @ 120Hz, but as this TV has a maximum refresh rate of 60Hz, it just drops every other frame if you set it to 1080p @ 120Hz. It has an Auto Low Latency Mode that automatically switches into Game Mode when you launch a game from a compatible device. For it to work, simply enable Instant Game Response.

Like the LG UM6900, the LG UN6950 doesn't support Dolby Vision.

Unfortunately, LG dropped DTS support in 2020, which is a downgrade from 2019's LG UM6900.

The LG 50UN6950ZUF has an okay frequency response. It gets loud enough for noisy environments, but there's some compression at its max volume. Unfortunately, its bass doesn't get low enough for any rumble or thump.

This TV has disappointing distortion performance. There's audible distortion even at moderate listening levels and it gets much worse at its max volume. However, this depends on the content and not everyone may hear it.

This TV runs on the same LG WebOS found on other high-end LG TVs. It's easy-to-use and it's fairly smooth to navigate the menus, but it also feels choppy at times.

There are ads and suggested content on the home screen and within the app store. Unfortunately, there's no way to opt out of them.

LG's app store has tons of apps available for download and they run smoothly for the most part.

The LG UN6950 has a basic remote and it's not LG's Magic Remote found with the LG UN7300. It's the same remote as the LG UM6900's, except it doesn't have a dedicated Amazon Prime Video button and it's replaced by a small dot. Regardless, this button still opens Amazon Prime Video on this TV.

There's a single button located underneath the center of the TV. It allows you to turn the TV on/off, change inputs, channels, and the volume.

• User guide
• Remote control
• Cable management strap
• 2x AA batteries