LG 50UH5530 Review: Unattractive But Adequate!

LG 50UH5530: At First Glance

Year after year, we witness television manufacturers improving our viewing experience, and LG is one of them. Since 2007, the South Korean television brand has been delivering innovative and trustworthy smart televisions.

On this note, as a means to expand its smart television collection, the brand released the LG 50UH5530 in 2016. This LG television isn’t just a smart television, it is a 4K smart television that delivers decent picture quality. 

Furthermore, this television comes with the webOS that offers numerous streaming services including the popular Netflix. However, does the LG 50UH5530 have enough features to compete with other LG smart televisions?

That’s a question you will get answers to in the remainder of this review. Therefore, kindly read on!

LG 50UH5530: Design, Dimension, and Weight

The design of the LG 50UH5530 is quite basic, featuring thick bezels and a set of legs. These bezels are composed of plastic and they have a glossy-black texture that picks up fingerprints easily.

Furthermore, the bottom bezel is a bit thicker than the other bezels because it features an “LG” logo at the center. This logo has a white color and it is the only design aesthetic that gives the LG 50UH5530 a little bit of sleekness.

Just like the bezels, the LG 50UH5530’s set of legs is made of plastic. In addition to that, these legs feature a matte-black texture and they are somewhat thick.

Due to the thickness of these plastic legs, they should provide adequate support for the television. Thus, when nudged, the LG 50UH5530 should wobble just a bit.

However, the legs are set very close to the edges of the television, and they are not straight. Therefore, you will need a large table to place the LG 50UH5530 on if it isn’t mounted on the wall.

Speaking of wall-mounting, this television comes with VESA 400 x 200 mount holes on its plastic back panel for wall-mounting the TV. However, this television’s back panel is fairly thick and features a matte-black finish.

Therefore, if the LG 50UH5530 is wall-mounted, it will bulge out of the wall and look awkward. To make things worse, you won’t find a cable management system on this television’s back panel.

Thus, to make the television look a bit organized when cables are attached to it, you have to arrange the cables manually.

That said, let us now discuss the dimension and the weight of the television. The LG 50UH5530 measures 127.7 x 83.8 x 652.7 mm (W x D x H) and weighs 13199.5 g.

Compared to the TCL 55S403, this LG television weighs less. Specifically, the TCL 55S403 weighs 13380 g and measures 1247.1 x 76.2 x 723.9 mm (W x D x H).

In conclusion, the LG 50UH5530 features a boring and basic design. Furthermore, each and every part of this television is somewhat thick and made of plastic.

Therefore, the LG 50UH5530 deserves nothing more than a seven out of ten rating in this design review section.

LG 50UH5530: Display Features and Picture Quality

When it comes to the display, the LG 50UH5530 features a 50-inch LED display. This display offers a 4K UHD (3840 x 2160) resolution, allowing it to deliver clear and realistic picture quality.

Apart from the 4K resolution, this television’s display offers an impressive contrast ratio because it is made with a VA panel. To be more specific, the display comes with a contrast ratio value of 5,594:1.

For clarity, contrast ratio is the ratio between a display’s brightest white and the darkest black. In addition to that, a high contrast ratio means that the display can render deeper blacks.

Therefore, since the LG 50UH5530’s display’s 5,594:1 contrast ratio is practically high, the display should be able to produce deep blacks. As a result, the LG 50UH5530 will offer exceptional performance when viewing movies with lots of dark or shadowy scenes.

Also, due to the impressive contrast ratio, the LG 50UH5530 is suitable for dark room viewing. Unfortunately, this television’s display doesn’t support local dimming, which enhances a display’s black level.

However, given the LG 50UH5530’s display already has a high contrast ratio, this shouldn’t be a major concern. Nevertheless, it would still be nice if the display support local dimming.

This is because, with local dimming, blacks on a display become darker than they would without local dimming. As a result, improving the picture quality and dark scene performance of the display.

In order to compensate for not supporting local dimming, the LG 50UH5530’s display supports HDR. HDR a.k.a High Dynamic Range is a picture technique that allows LED/LCD displays to improve brightness and range of colors by dimming backlight zones.

Therefore, as an HDR-compatible display, the picture quality of the LG 50UH5530’s display will be very realistic when viewing HDR-compatible content. For the record, streaming services such as Netflix and Disney+ are where you will mostly find HDR-compatible content.

On the downside, as a VA panel display, the LG 50UH5530’s display offers terrible viewing angles. Hence, watching the television off-center isn’t a good idea.

This is because the picture quality and color accuracy of the display will reduce when viewing the TV from the sides or off-center. In addition to its terrible viewing angles, the LG 50UH5530’s display offers average brightness.

To be more specific, this display can’t get bright past 286 nits even with the help of HDR. Therefore, the LG 50UH5530 isn’t the best television for viewing movies in bright and sunny areas.

Hence, you are better off using the television in a dark or moderately-lit room.

Moving on, the LG 50UH5530’s display has a decently-low input lag of 25 milliseconds. Although this input lag is “low” enough for casual gaming, competitive or hardcore gamers may think otherwise.

For those wondering, input lag is the amount of time a display takes to register a signal input. Furthermore, a display’s input lag is usually a core factor in determining if the display is ideal for gaming.

This is because a wireless gamepad is a source of signal input. Therefore, the lower the input lag, the more pleasurable the gaming experience.

That said, the LG 50UH5530’s display comes with a reasonable response time of 17.7 milliseconds. Therefore, there will be minimal blur trails when this display is viewing fast-motion content.

As a result, the LG 50UH5530 is suitable for viewing racing sports, action movies, and any other fast-motion content. For those that are curious, response time is the amount of time that a display takes to transition from one color to another.

In conclusion, the LG 50UH5530 offers a decent display performance including an impressive contrast ratio. However, this television’s display has poor viewing angles and average brightness.

Regardless, I will rate the LG 50UH5530 an eight out of ten in this display features and picture quality review section.

LG 50UH5530: Sound Features

For sound production, the LG 50UH5530 employs two 20-watts speakers. These speakers offer adequate sound quality and are loud enough to fill a large room with sound.

However, as with most televisions nowadays, the LG 50UH5530 lacks a subwoofer. Therefore, the television won’t be able to produce enough bass to enjoy rumbling and thumbing sounds in movies.

As a result, if you love watching bass-heavy movies, then I suggest you purchase a soundbar with this television. On the plus side, the LG 50UH5530’s speakers are capable of producing a well-balanced sound for clear and comprehensible dialogue. 

Just to be clear, dialogue in this context is the sound produced when two or more characters in a film are talking to each other. In addition to its impressive dialogue production, the LG 50UH5530 offers an excellent distortion performance.

This is evident through the THD test result of the television. Briefly, THD (Total Harmonic Distortion) test is a test that measures the amount of distortion that a sound device can produce.

Moreover, a score of 1% or less on this test indicates that the sound device produces very little distortion. On the other hand, if the score is higher than 1%, the sound device can produce a significant level of distortion.

Thankfully, the LG 50UH5530 scored 0.118% on the THD test, which means distortion is almost absent on the television. Therefore, even at the maximum volume level, the distortion that this television may produce will be very minimal and barely noticeable.

In case you’re curious, distortion in this context means the alteration of sound frequencies. Thereby, allowing a sound device to produce unpleasant and disturbing sound quality.

In conclusion, apart from lacking a subwoofer, the LG 50UH5530 offers an impressive sound performance. Therefore, there is nothing stopping me from rating the television an eight out of ten in this sound features review section.

LG 50UH5530: Ports and Connectivity Features

To begin with, the LG 50UH5530 offers a decent amount of ports. Specifically, this television features three HDMI ports, a USB port, and an RF port all on its right side.

Impressively, two of these HDMI ports support ARC (Audio Return Channel). Therefore, by using either of the HDMI-ARC ports, you should be able to connect a soundbar to the LG 50UH5530.

That aside, other ports on this television include an Ethernet port, an optical audio out, and composite video input. However, these ports can be found directly on the back of the television.

As a result, whenever the LG 50UH5530 is mounted on the wall, users won’t be able to access these ports easily.

For wireless connectivity, the LG 50UH5530 comes with a built-in 802.11a/b/g/n/ac WIFI for internet connection. Unfortunately, this television failed to feature Bluetooth.

When it comes to the remote control, the LG 50UH5530 features a basic LG remote. This remote control is quite long and made of plastic with a matte-black finish.

Furthermore, the remote comes with a full number pad and a plus-shaped navigation button in the center. However, unlike most smart televisions remotes, this remote control lacks dedicated buttons for quick access to streaming apps.

In fact, these dedicated buttons aren’t the only thing this remote lacks, it also lacks a built-in microphone for voice input.

Therefore, I will rate the LG 50UH5530 a seven out of ten in this ports and connectivity review section.

LG 50UH5530: Smart Features

The LG 50UH5530, like every other LG smart television, features an operating system called webOS. However, the version of webOS that this television comes with is version 3.0.

Like every other webOS version, this television’s webOS 3.0 offer a user-friendly interface that is easy to navigate. Also, the interface doesn’t lag at all and it is ad-free.

Therefore, you don’t have to worry about annoying ads popping up on your screen when trying to select an application. Speaking of applications, thanks to webOS 3.0, the LG 50UH5530 has access to major streaming apps such as YouTube, Netflix, and Amazon Prime Video.

In fact, the webOS 3.0 comes with the LG Content Store, where you can download a whole lot more streaming apps. However, it is worth noting that LG’s Content Store doesn’t offer enough streaming apps compared to Google’s Play Store.

Sadly, unlike most smart TVs, the LG 50UH5530 doesn’t support Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant for voice input.

All in all, I will rate the LG 50UH5530 an eight out of ten in this smart feature review section.

Frequently Asked Questions

Conclusion

The LG 50UH5530 is a smart 50-inch television that offers major streaming like Netflix thanks to its operating system (webOS 3.0). Furthermore, this television comes with a 4K display that delivers adequate picture quality.

Also, the television comes with a good number of ports as well as a decent sound performance. However, the LG 50UH5530 lacks Bluetooth and it features a boring design with thick bezels.

In addition to its boring design, this television offers poor viewing angles. However, I can assure you that the strength of this television is way more than its weakness.

Therefore, if you are looking to buy a 50-inch 4K LG television, the LG 50UH5530 is worth considering.

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