Even if you examine the advantages and disadvantages of both Samsung and LG's latest television sets, it can be difficult to determine what truly distinguishes one from the other.
If you're looking for a TV from one of the most popular manufacturers, our Samsung vs LG TV comparison should help you decide which one is best for you. Check out our best Samsung TV and best LG TV guides if you've made it this far and know which brand you want to go with but not which exact TV.
Samsung vs. LG TV: a comparison
Let's begin with the fundamentals. Samsung and LG are two large-scale technology businesses that sell both high-end and low-end smart TVs, but their high-end sets use bit distinct panel technologies. Right now, you don't need to know what these distinctions are, but they could be deal-breakers.
Both are South Korean television makers with a significant install base and a diverse selection of televisions launched each year. They have large presences in both the UK and the US, unlike Panasonic or Philips, which do not have licenses in North America.
In the fiercely competitive smartphone market, Samsung and LG are both battling for territory: both manufacture Android phones, however, we won't be comparing their smartphones in this article.
Smart TV: Tizen vs webOS
Both Samsung and LG have their own smart TV platforms, each with its own distinct flavor.
With webOS, a basic pulled smart TV interface, LG has been the industry leader since 2014. It features a horizontal navigation bar with customizable placement for regularly used apps, streaming services, and inputs, allowing you to choose where your favorite apps appear on the dashboard. Secondary menus appear when you hover your mouse over an app icon in the current webOS 4.5 version.
Samsung's Tizen platform has a similar layout to LG's ThinQ AI software (you might say it was influenced by it), but it lacks LG's ThinQ AI software's outstanding search mechanism.
What about voice assistants, though?LG's OLED and Super UHD TVs come with Google Assistant built-in, as well as some limited Alexa connectivity. Samsung utilises its own (slightly inferior) first-party Bixby assistant, which is available only on mid-range and premium models, with the option of using Google Assistant or Alexa via third-party devices.
Operating systems that are uniqueBoth firms offer solid operating systems in the LG versus Samsung smart TV duel. WebOS from LG is good, but Tizen from Samsung is much better these days. It's only a smidgeon more punchy and responsive, with a slew of new features including BT Sport and Tidal.
Pros* Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant connectivity
- It is simple to use.
- App support is excellent.
- Streaming applications are still available and active. This means you can rapidly switch back and forth without losing the content you've been watching. Do you want to give a game a try? Captain Marvel is a superhero who is known for his Pause, go to a different device, verify the game, and then return to Captain Marvel.
- Nothing noteworthy to mention. It is an excellent operating system.
- Samsung Tizen
Samsung's Tizen system doesn't make a major difference in terms of design, but its new algorithm isn't as good as LG's ThinQ AI software.
Pros- It is simple to use.
- With TV Plus, you'll get channels for free.
- There aren't many apps available.
- The search feature isn't always up to par.
QLED or OLED?
OLED and QLED are the two panel technologies used in today's premium televisions (basically an LED-LCD screen with quantum dots).
OLED stands for 'organic light emitting diode,' and refers to a type of television panel that can emit its own light rather than having light beamed through it. This allows for wonderfully thin TV panels as well as the adjustment of individual pixel brightness. OLEDs are distinguished by their brilliant colours, deep black levels, and low overall brightness.
On OLED panels, there's a lot of chatter of 'burn in' images, but much of it is anecdotal, and you'd have to be pushing the set extremely hard for this to become a problem. LG Display manufactures all OLED panels, thus even if you have a Sony OLED in your home, LG is to thank.
QLED, on the other hand, is a Samsung-developed proprietary technology. To improve colour and contrast, QLED uses a quantum dot filter, and to alter illumination across the panel, it relies on a number of lowering zones rather than each pixel individually. QLED TVs are likewise much brighter than OLED TVs (thousands of nits against hundreds), but they fail to display both light and dark images as effectively as OLED TVs.
Both technologies are constantly advancing. While some people claim that OLEDs have a lower brightness than QLEDs, LG's new light sensor technology is designed to adjust brightness and picture settings based on the amount of ambient light in the room.
Dolby Vision vs. HDR 10+
Both support a slightly different high dynamic range (HDR) format, with LG using Dolby Vision in its premium OLED and Super UHD TVs and Samsung using HDR10+ in its premium TVs.
Both formats use dynamic metadata to customise the television's output to the content being shown, so scenes of dark underground caverns or brightly illuminated drawing rooms will have different levels of brightness, contrast, and picture processing.
Dolby Vision is the more advanced standard, featuring a 12-bit color spectrum compared to HDR1010-bit, +'s and is also more widely used (both the Google Chromecast with Google TV and Dolby Vision is supported with Apple TV 4K).
Although the preferred HDR format is only a consideration at the higher end of the pricing spectrum, people who are willing to spend a lot of money should consider which services they're likely to desire HDR material on.
Is LG Better Than Samsung TV: which should you choose?
The general perception is that both TV brands are good, so you can't go wrong if you choose one of them. In the LG versus Samsung discussion, it all comes down to how much money you want to spend and which features are most essential to you.
Finally, when comparing LG and Samsung, LG outperforms Samsung in terms of quality, and so wins the war. Samsung, on the other hand, offers more affordable devices that help individuals get the work done. People prefer Samsung over more expensive TVs since every home requires a smart TV.