LG UN8500 TV Review

The LG UN8500 has a decent design and looks a lot like the LG UN7300. It's a simple TV with thick bezels that aren't flush to the screen, so they stick out a bit. It's fairly well-built and made entirely out of plastic, but there's wobble and parts that flex easily.

The stand is almost as wide as the TV itself, so you may need a large table to place it on. It supports the TV well but doesn't eliminate all wobble. The feet seem to bend when the TV wobbles, but we don't expect this to be too much of an issue for most people.

Footprint of the 65" inch TV: 52.4" x 10.6"

The back is simple with a textured finish on the plastic. Sadly, there's no cable management.

The borders are on the thick side, and they stick out from the screen a bit.

The LG UN8500 isn't very thick and shouldn't stick out much when wall-mounted.

Decent build quality. The plastic doesn't feel very premium, and the center of the back panel flexes quite easily. The TV wobbles a bit, and the feet bend slightly when it wobbles, but we don't expect this to be an issue for most people.

As expected from an IPS panel, the LG UN8500 has a low contrast ratio. Blacks appear closer to gray when viewed in the dark. Contrast may vary between units.

Note: The 82 inch model has a VA panel, so we expect it to have a much better contrast.

The LG UN8570 has disappointing peak brightness in SDR, similar to the LG UM8070. It doesn't get bright enough to combat glare in well-lit environments, so it's best to place it in a dim room. It keeps its brightness very consistent across our different test patterns, which is great, but it gets less bright in real scenes.

We tested the SDR peak brightness after calibration in the 'Expert (Dark Room)' Picture Mode with Backlight at its max. If you want the brightest image possible, we were able to get 359 cd/m² in the 10% window with the Picture Mode set to 'Vivid.'

Update 07/26/2021: Added the real content local dimming videos.

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

Update 07/26/2021: Added the real content local dimming videos.

Once again, there's no local dimming feature. The videos are for reference only, so you can see how backlight on this display performs and compare it to a similar product with local dimming.

The HDR peak brightness is poor. It doesn't get bright enough to make highlights pop in HDR, and even though its brightness is consistent across our test patterns, it's not as bright in real scenes.

We measured the HDR brightness in the 'HDR Cinema' Picture Mode with Dynamic Tone Mapping off. If you want the brightest image possible, use the 'HDR Vivid' Picture Mode. We were able to get 361 cd/m² in the 10% window.

The LG UN8570 has okay gray uniformity. There's some dirty screen effect in the center and significant vignetting in the corners, but these problems may vary between units. The uniformity is much better in near-dark scenes.

The LG UN8500 has poor black uniformity. There's clouding throughout and some backlight bleed along the bottom edge, but this may vary between units.

The viewing angles are decent. It uses an ADS panel that performs similarly to an IPS panel, but the viewing angles aren't as wide as most IPS panel TVs, such as the Sony X800H. The image remains fairly accurate when viewing from the side, and it's suitable for wide seating arrangements.

Note: The 82 inch model has a VA panel, so we don't expect it to have wide viewing angles.

The LG UN8570 has decent reflection handling. It handles a moderate amount of light well but it struggles in well-lit environments. Its reflection handling is a lot worse than the lower-end LG UN7300.

The out-of-the-box accuracy is mediocre, but this may vary between units. Most colors are only a bit inaccurate, and the color temperature is close to the 6500K target. However, white balance is off, and gamma follows a 1.9 target instead of the 2.2 target, even though the 'Gamma 2.2' setting was selected. This means most scenes are brighter than they should be.

After calibration, the accuracy is remarkable. There aren't any noticeable inaccuracies with colors, and the white balance and gamma follow the target almost perfectly. However, the color temperature is colder than before calibration, resulting in a blue-ish tint.

You can see our recommended settings here. However, we don't suggest copying these settings because we had to make aggressive changes to calibrate it properly. We don't know if we simply got a bad panel, and copying our settings may make your picture quality worse.

480p content such as DVDs is upscaled without any issues.

The LG UN8570 upscales 720p content, like from cable boxes, without any artifacts.

1080p content, like from Blu-ray players, is upscaled well, and there aren't any artifacts.

The LG 65UN8500 displays native 4k content almost perfectly, but there are some upscaling issues. You can see the pixels from a distance that you normally don't see pixels on other 4k TVs. There's also a strange sub-pixel dithering/dimming effect when displaying solid colors. It dims every second row of green pixels, and in rows where the green pixels are dimmed, the blue pixels are brighter. Rows with brighter green pixels have dim blue pixels. You can see the pixel photo here. If you want a large TV that displays native 4k content perfectly, then look into the Samsung TU6980.

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

It uses an ADS (Advanced Dimension Switching) panel like most other entry-level LG TVs, which is technically different from an IPS panel, but the two perform very similarly. On this panel, the green pixels have a different shape than the blue and red pixels, and they look different than the green pixels on the LG NANO81.

The green and blue pixels also have a strange dimming effect where every second row has bright green and dim blue pixels, and the other rows have dim green and bright blue pixels. You can see the pixel photo here.

The LG UN8570 has a decent color gamut for HDR content, but it fails to display a wide color gamut. The EOTF follows the PQ curve well, but most scenes are brighter than they should be. The EOTF in 'Game' mode is similar, but the image is slightly brighter.

If you find HDR content too dim, set Dynamic Contrast to 'High', which results in a brighter image, as you can see in this EOTF.

Disappointing color volume. Due to the lack of a wide color gamut and low contrast ratio, it doesn't display colors at a wide range of luminance levels.

Note: The 82 inch model has a VA panel, so we expect it to have a much better contrast, which may lead to a better color volume.

The gradient handling is decent and similar to the LG UN7300. There's visible banding in the darker shades, especially with darker gray, green, and red. The Smooth Gradiation feature doesn't affect the test pattern; however, it smooths out gradients in real content if you set it to 'High' or 'Medium', but you may lose some fine details. It smooths out some gradients, but not all, even when set on 'Low'.

There are no signs of temporary image retention, but this may vary between units.

Although some IPS panels can suffer from temporary image retention, this doesn't appear to be permanent as the IPS panel in our long-term test appear immune.

The LG UN8500 has a great response time. For the most part, motion looks smooth, but there's some overshoot in most transitions. There's also image duplication because of the backlight's 120Hz flicker.

The LG UN8570 uses Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) to dim its backlight. It flickers at 120Hz at all backlight settings.

There's no Black Frame Insertion feature. The backlight flickers at 120Hz at all backlight settings.

The LG UN8570 can interpolate lower-frame-rate content up to 120fps, known as the 'Soap Opera Effect'. The motion interpolation feature is okay, but it doesn't stop interpolating even in busy scenes, which results in motion artifacts with fast-moving content. There's image duplication due to the backlight's 120Hz flicker.

To find out more about motion interpolation, and how to enable it, see here.

Due to the LG 65UN8500's quick response time, you may notice some image stutter with lower-frame rate content because each frame is held on longer.

The LG UN8570 can remove 24p judder from any source, such as native apps or Blu-ray players, which helps with the appearance of motion. For it to work, simply enable Real Cinema.

Update 02/05/2021: We've retested the TV for VRR support with the latest firmware (version 03.21.36). We tested with a PC and an Xbox Series X; there's still no VRR support.

The LG UN8570 doesn't support any variable refresh rate technologies.

Update 11/27/2020: We've retested the input lag with an HDMI 2.1 source and the latest firmware version 03.21.05. We've updated the input lag measurement for 4k @ 120Hz, which dropped from 22.8 ms to 5.2 ms.

The LG UN8570 has excellent low input lag, as long as you're in 'Game' mode. There's an 'Auto Low Latency Mode' that automatically switches the TV into 'Game' mode when a game is launched from a compatible device. However, the input lag is higher if the motion interpolation feature is enabled.

If you want to use it as a PC monitor, you have to change the input icon to 'PC' in the Home Dashboard. However, the input lag is higher when displaying chroma 4:4:4 with a 4k resolution at 60Hz. You won't notice much of a difference when scrolling through documents, but you may notice a bit of lag if you type fast or if you're gaming.

Update 11/27/2020: We've retested the TV with an HDMI 2.1 source and the latest firmware version 03.21.05. It can display a 4k @ 120Hz signal, but it's a little finicky when doing it through an NVIDIA RTX 3080, as we had to disconnect and reconnect it to our PC and play with the resolution settings for a while before it works. However, it works perfectly with an Xbox Series X.

The LG UN8500 displays most common resolutions at 60Hz or 120Hz, including 4k @ 120Hz, which is an upgrade over the LG UM8070. However, it has trouble displaying chroma 4:4:4 at different resolutions. It displays it at 4k @ 60Hz and 1080p @ 120Hz, but it can't with 1080p @ 60Hz or any 1440p resolution. It displays chroma 4:2:0 with 4k @ 120Hz, but we can't test for chroma 4:4:4 at this resolution because it requires an HDMI 2.1 source, which we only recently acquired. We'll retest it once we're able to. For it to display 4:4:4 set the input label to 'PC'.

To achieve full bandwidth, enable HDMI Ultra HD Deep Color.

Update 11/27/2020: We've retested the inputs with an HDMI 2.1 source and the latest firmware version 03.21.05. HDMI 2.1 is supported on port 3 and 4, but as explained in the supported resolutions section, it's a little finicky when trying to display a 4k @ 120Hz signal using a PC equipped with an NVIDIA RTX 3080. However, it works perfectly with the Xbox Series X.

The LG UN8570 has eARC support, allowing you to send high-quality audio to a compatible receiver through an HDMI connection. For it to work, enable eARC in the 'Arc - Additional Settings' page in the Sound Output settings menu.

The frequency response isn't bad. There isn't much bass, but the sound profile is well-balanced overall, resulting in clear dialogue. It gets loud, but it may not be loud enough for a really noisy environment, and you may notice some compression artifacts at max volume.

The distortion performance is okay. There's minimal distortion at moderate listening levels, but it gets a lot more noticeable when playing at max volume. However, some people may not hear this and it depends on the content.

The LG UN8570 runs on LG's WebOS. It's easy-to-use, runs smoothly, and we didn't experience any bugs during testing.

There are ads and suggested content on the home screen and within the app store, but we couldn't get a picture of them. 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 UN8500 comes with the same Magic Remote as most other LG TVs. You can use it like a traditional remote with the navigation buttons, or use it as a point-and-press remote like a computer mouse. The built-in mic for voice control allows you to ask for most common demands, such as switching inputs or searching for content, but you can't ask it to change the brightness.

There's a single button located underneath the logo at the center. It allows you to turn the TV On/Off, and change inputs, channels, and volume.

• Remote (with 2x AA batteries)
• Composite adapter
• Strap for cable management
• Manual