Buying a TV off the 65-inch review and then ordering the 77 has always been a small gamble. With the C6 this year it is not a small one anymore, because the panel underneath changes depending on which size you pick.
What Hi-Fi has now been through four sizes, and the split looks like this. The 42 and the 65 are regular WOLED. The 77 and 83 get LG Display's Primary RGB Tandem panel, the brighter and more saturated stack. And the 48, which has always been a plain WOLED size in the C line, tested brighter and punchier than expected, while LG would neither confirm nor deny that it is tandem too. So the most-reviewed size in the range is arguably the least representative of the big ones.
Sound shifts as well. The 65 and 77 list the same 40W 2.2 system, but the bigger cabinet reportedly gives more scale and more bass. The 42 drops to a 20W 2.0 setup and skips LG's Brightness Booster altogether.
None of this is new as a pattern. Samsung has been doing it for years, with the S90 line using WOLED in some sizes and QD-OLED in others. LG used to be the predictable one. What bugs me is not that the panels differ, it is that the model number treats them as one product and the box tells you nothing.
If you are shopping a C6 over Black Friday, read the review for the exact size you are buying. Where there isn't one, treat the 65-inch results as a floor for the 77 and a ceiling for the 42.
What Hi-Fi has now been through four sizes, and the split looks like this. The 42 and the 65 are regular WOLED. The 77 and 83 get LG Display's Primary RGB Tandem panel, the brighter and more saturated stack. And the 48, which has always been a plain WOLED size in the C line, tested brighter and punchier than expected, while LG would neither confirm nor deny that it is tandem too. So the most-reviewed size in the range is arguably the least representative of the big ones.
Sound shifts as well. The 65 and 77 list the same 40W 2.2 system, but the bigger cabinet reportedly gives more scale and more bass. The 42 drops to a 20W 2.0 setup and skips LG's Brightness Booster altogether.
None of this is new as a pattern. Samsung has been doing it for years, with the S90 line using WOLED in some sizes and QD-OLED in others. LG used to be the predictable one. What bugs me is not that the panels differ, it is that the model number treats them as one product and the box tells you nothing.
If you are shopping a C6 over Black Friday, read the review for the exact size you are buying. Where there isn't one, treat the 65-inch results as a floor for the 77 and a ceiling for the 42.
