The TV is also plenty smart enough to take care of everything itself if you don’t want to tinker at all. Turning on the AI sound and video functions results in a generally fantastic experience if you want to make the most of everything your screen and audio system can do. Allowing “auto filmmaker” will activate that super-accurate mode only when it makes sense to do so. And playing a video game automatically switches on an optimiser that provides a brilliantly immediate low-latency experience.
Software-wise LG’s WebOS is smooth and seamless, and I appreciate that a lot of the stuff I generally consider to be annoying bloat (random streaming channels, cross-platform recommendations) are hidden in places you have to go intentionally, rather than getting in the way on the home screen. The app store had almost every streaming app I could think of. Kanopy and Shudder were the only ones missing).
The WebOS home screen does have ads, but it’s a lot less cluttered than most new smart TVs.
All bases covered
One of the best things about this TV is that it covers every single format and feature you could hope for. It’s always disappointing to plug something into a TV and find out that it doesn’t work as well as it should, but it’s tough to imagine that happening on the C4.
This TV supports Dolby Vision, HDR10 and HLG HDR formats, and there’s not a video resolution and refresh rate combo I could find that it didn’t handle perfectly. It will process both DTS and Dolby surround formats over HDMI ARC or optical, which you’ll want if you have a varied collection of movies on disc. If you have a newer audio system that uses eARC, it will also happily pass through the full range of Dolby and DTS spatial formats, including Atmos and DTS X, or bitstream up to 7.1 channels so your receiver can work it out.
It also supports both AirPlay 2 and Chromecast for flinging video from other devices, has 5Ghz Wi-Fi plus an Ethernet port, and will pass through 4:4:4 video which is only needed if you’re connecting a PC or some kind of video reference equipment.
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For games, all four HDMI 2.1 ports support the full 48Gbps bandwidth, so you don’t have to miss out on any features. Gaming at up to 4K 144Hz works great if your hardware supports it, every single feature of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X is covered, and variable refresh rates of every format (G-Sync, Freesync, HDMI Forum) are available to keep things as smooth as possible.
Of course, very few people are going to need all of these bells and whistles. But plenty of people are going to have one particular situation where they need the TV to do something esoteric (like pass through a surround format that isn’t commonly used from a device to the soundbar), and it’s good to know these are covered.
One potential exception is that the C4 does not support HDR10+, a free alternative to Dolby Vision created by a consortium of movie studios and Samsung. This isn’t a huge deal because in my experience movies with HDR10+ also support Dolby Vision. But it would be nice to see it included here as an option, if only to account for a potential future where some Blu-Ray supports HDR10+ only. After all, LG has accounted for pretty much every other edge case.
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