Topic: 4k TV Recommendations

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Their is really two choices if you want the 'best' gaming TV and it really depends on whether you want OLED or LCD - both have their pro's and con's — so it really comes down to which technology suits you best and which con's are easier for you to accept.

The undisputed king right now is the LG C9 OLED. It comes with 4 HDMI 2.1 ports and all 4 are full bandwidth (48Gb/s) with all the features you will want - 4k/120, VRR etc. The newer CX (X as in Roman Numeral for 10) also has 4 HDMI 2.1 ports but only 40Gb/s - whether that will make a difference in a few years, I don't know but that is a 'slight' negative in compared to the C9. You get all the benefits of OLED - including incredible pixel response times - faster than basically all gaming monitors which have incredibly fast response times primarily because of scrolling through text - slower response leaves trails/blur...

If you want the best LCD, the current best is the Samsung Q range - most have very similar gaming performance and the higher the number, generally the better the HDR and Picture Quality will be. The 'newer' ones are better for gaming in my opinion as they have greatly improved the local dimming - last years was basically off so some dark areas were not as dark as they could be. However, they only have one HDMI 2.1 40Gb/s port - meaning that if you plan to buy the Series X (or any other HDMI 2.1 device) you will have to swap HDMI cables to get the 2.1 features. Its the same with many other LCDs or they don't have the best input lag, best HDR black level as they sacrifice black quality for viewing angles etc Not to say they are 'bad' and some may well be an improvement over your HD TV because HDR has put a bigger emphasis on Black quality and with the need to go much brighter for HDR, manufacturers have had to work on preventing the backlight affecting black quality - which has made SDR black quality overall better.

Of course there is a 'risk' of burn-in with OLEDs although the risk of burn in is incredibly small. What we are seeing though is uneven wear. As each pixel is made up of smaller sub-pixels, with certain content, it wears out the sub-pixels faster in some areas of the screen especially if you have a static coloured element (red, green, blue) as these would require a single sub-pixel to be on continuously and brightly using up more of its life span faster causing it to fade more and eventually fading enough to appear in content. It can look a bit like Burn in as you can see the shape of that element in the content but its really that the sub-pixels have worn more and it doesn't matter if that element was on screen for no more than 30mins a day, (like searching netflix for 10mins at a time 3x a day despite watching hours of content in between or just searching netflix for 30mins in one block), that adds up to 3.5hrs a week over 180hrs a year etc that the Netflix logo (all red and bright meaning just the red sub-pixel is on) will be wearing the red sub-pixel faster under the logo than the red sub-pixels across the rest of the screen and will eventually fade enough to become more noticeable and affect the colour accuracy and balance in that specific area.

The reason I am saying this is to let people know that is what can and will happen with certain static elements in certain colours as the individual sub-pixels wear at different rates. White is less risk because its made up of all 3 sub-pixels so its not working an individual pixel as hard. A single candle for example has to burn much brighter and faster than 3 candles to give the same brightness and its the same principal - Cyan, Magenta and Yellow are slightly lower risk as these are 2 sub-pixel colours. You are safe from burn-in by watching news with a red logo for 3hrs a day - you won't get burn in - especially if you also follow the guidelines for protecting against burn-in - but if you watch 3hrs a day, every day, that red logo will have been on screen 21hrs a week or 1095hrs a year. The red Sub-pixels will wear much faster where the logo is and so will eventually fade more than the red sub-pixels elsewhere leading to that logo becoming noticeable on a red slide and in some content because the colour balance is wrong (the red won't be working as well so on a white screen, you will see the logo in cyan (blue and green) - which is why it maybe seems like burn in.

being aware of what can happen with certain content, knowing how an OLED works and therefore what may cause problems years later due to wear, you can minimise or even eliminate that risk. If you think that you are safe by watching 3 or 4 hours of content with static bright single colour elements because of burn-in protection etc, which in fairness you are, you are still wearing those pixels out more than the rest so repeatedly displaying that day after day after month etc adds up and that wear will eventually be significant enough to become noticeable and the brighter you have your TV, the quicker it wears too. It maybe years and years before that uneven wear is noticeable -depending on how many hours you accumulate and how bright you have your TV set so its not an issue at all for some.

As I said, I want to make people aware so they have an informed decision and can decide if its the right TV for them, whether the risk is insignificant to their usage and/or what to be aware of to minimise that risk because it really is the best gaming TV on the market right now if you can manage that risk. People are right to say Burn in is basically a non-issue and has been proven that burn in is basically a non issue with general fair usage. The problems arise much later with an accumulation of wear so not technically burn in.

I don't want to tell people that the benefits outweigh the negatives - because for someone, that negative maybe too much for them, the risk too high for the cost and expectation they have - even if that uneven wear may not become visible for years and years and the PQ being exemplary, unrivalled for many years, they would rather go LCD to basically remove that risk at all and prefer some of the other advantages - like bright room HDR performance, Colour Volume etc. but right now, the best TV for gaming is the LG C9 by quite some margin with Samsungs Q series being the 'best' LCD option. Again that's not to say other OLEDs or LCD's won't be great gaming TV's with impressive input lag - maybe even better than they currently have. Some have strengths in other areas - like viewing angles for example so its not as simple as buy LG C9 or a Samsung Q series or have a TV that is 'bad' for gaming because many TV's offer less than 30ms input lag in game modes - a very respectable value and considered an Excellent performance but the LG C9 (best all rounder OLED for the money) and Samsung Q9 (best HDR and Gaming LCD TV) have the lowest input lag and best for gaming stats of all TV's currently available. Not everyone buys a big TV purely for gaming so other factors also need to be considered too of course and manufacturers these days are aware of the importance of good gaming performance. When I bought my first 4k TV, few (if any) were under 40ms input lag in game mode but now, few are over 30ms...