LG UN8500: At First Glance
Purchasing the right television nowadays seems to be a difficult and confusing task. This is due to the fact that there are numerous televisions in the market with various features from different manufacturers/brands.
Nevertheless, one television that has stood out since the time of its release in 2020 is the LG UN8500, which this review is all about. This LG television is a 4K television that offers an IPS panel for wide viewing angles.
Also, as with most LG televisions, the LG UN8500 comes with the webOS that has lots of streaming services. However, this television is a bit expensive, featuring a price tag of $899.99 as of June 2022, when this article was published.
Having said a few things about the LG UN8500, I know you are curious to know more. Why not continue reading to find out?
LG UN8500: Design, Dimension, and Weight
If you think of televisions with attractive designs, the LG UN8500 isn’t a set that comes to mind. To give more details, this television comes with thick protruded bezels that surround its display.
These bezels are made of plastic and have a black finish. Moreover, like most LG televisions, the LG UN8500 features an “LG” logo at the center of the bottom bezel.
When you look below this “LG” logo, you will see a power indicator light and control buttons. These buttons allow you to power on/off the television, switch channels, change the volume, and change inputs.
Moving on, the LG UN8500 comes with two plastic V-shaped legs. As with most televisions nowadays, these legs are positioned very close to the edges of the television.
Due to this, you will need quite a large table or desk to place the television on if you aren’t planning on wall-mounting it. On a positive note, the legs are pretty sturdy and support the television very well, even though they are made of plastic.
Turning to the back of the LG UN8500, you will see a plain plastic back panel. This back panel has a matte-black finish and features 300 x 300 VESA mount holes for wall-mounting the television.
Moreover, because the television isn’t too thick, it shouldn’t bulge out when wall-mounted. On the downside, the television’s back panel lacks any form of a cable management system.
That said, let us proceed to discuss the weight and dimensions of the LG UN8500. To start with, the television weighs 21318.8 g and measures 1463 x 87.8 x 850 mm (W x D x H).
Comparatively, the LG UN8500 is lighter than the Sony XBR-65Z9F and Samsung UN65RU7100FXZA. These televisions measure 29500 g and 24992 g, respectively.
To wrap up this design review section, I will rate the LG UN8500 a seven out of ten.
LG UN8500: Display Features and Picture Quality
The LG UN8500 offers a 65-inch LED display with a 4K UHD (3840 x 2160) resolution. As most of us know, 4K Ultra HD or 4K UHD resolution is widely offered by most modern televisions.
This is because the resolution aids displays to produce crisp, detailed, and colorful picture quality. Unfortunately, despite the 4K UHD resolution, the LG UN8500’s display has a mediocre contrast ratio – it comes with a native contrast ratio of 1,131:1.
Due to its poor contrast ratio, the LG UN8500’s display will not be able to deliver deep or rich blacks. In essence, blacks on the display will look somewhat grayish.
As a result, you might not enjoy watching movies with lots of dark or shadowy scenes, such as horror movies on the television. Also, watching the television in dark areas may not be a good thing to do due to its poor contrast ratio.
For your information, contrast ratio is the difference between the darkest blacks and the brightest whites a display is able to produce. Hence, the higher the contrast ratio of a display, the darker/deeper the blacks it will be able to produce.
Aside from a poor contrast ratio, the LG UN8500’s display lacks local dimming as well. In brief, local dimming is a feature that regulates and dims an LED display’s backlight so as to improve its black level.
Hence, with this feature, blacks on the display should be darker than they would be without local dimming. In doing so, improving the dark room performance as well as the overall picture quality of the display.
Sadly, the LG UN8500 fails to support local dimming. When I thought things couldn’t get any worse, I found out that the television’s display offers a disappointing maximum brightness of 273 nits.
As a result, the television isn’t suitable for outdoor usage as its display will struggle to keep up with screen glares. Thus, you are better off using the LG UN8500 in moderately-lit rooms or dimly lit rooms.
On the positive side of things, the LG UN8500’s display offers wide viewing angles. This can be credited to its IPS (In-Plane Switching) panel.
Therefore, you can watch the television from different angles without losing picture quality or noticing color distortion. Consequently, the LG UN8500 is good for a large room setting.
Apart from the wide viewing angles, the LG UN8500 also supports HDR. HDR (High Dynamic Range) is a feature that allows HDR-supported televisions to deliver realistic and life-like images when rendering HDR-supported content.
Just so you know, HDR-supported content can be mostly found on streaming apps such as Disney+ and HBO. In addition to HDR, the LG UN8500 comes with a picture processor called α7 Gen3 Processor 4K.
This processor is mostly featured on OLED TVs, and it’s quite impressive that this model has it. Moreover, the processor is an AI-dependent processor that analyzes and identifies an image’s original quality.
It does this so as to enhance the sharpness and clarity of the image and also filter out color distortion and noises. That aside, the LG UN8500 comes with a 4K upscaling technology.
This technology upscales and enhances the quality of lower-resolution content to 4K resolution quality. Hence, you can enjoy your favorite HD shows on the LG UN8500 in 4K quality.
Moving on, the LG UN8500’s display offers a fast response time of 13.4 milliseconds. Thus, there should be minimal blur trails when the display is rendering fast-motion content like racing sports and action movies.
If you don’t know, response time is the duration it takes a display to shift from one particular color to another. In addition to the fast response time, the LG UN8500 also has a low input lag of 5.2 milliseconds.
As a result, the television is ideal for gamers as it will take less time to register inputs from wireless gamepads. For a better understanding, input lag is the time it takes a display to respond to signal inputs from external sources.
Thus, the lower the input lag, the better the gaming experience.
In summary, the LG UN8500’s display offers 4K UHD resolution, good viewing angles, and advanced display technology. However, the display has a poor maximum brightness, disappointing contrast ratio, and lacks local dimming.
All in all, I will rate the LG UN8500 an eight out of ten in this display features and picture quality review section.
LG UN8500: Sound Features
The LG UN8500 comes with two 2 CH 20-watts speakers that produce a decent sound quality. Also, these speakers are pretty loud and should be able to fill an average-sized room with sound.
However, this LG television does not come with a subwoofer. Due to this, it won’t be able to produce an adequate amount of bass for enjoying the rumbling and thumping sounds in movies.
Therefore, bass-heavy movies might not be ideal to watch on the LG UN8500. Nonetheless, you can consider acquiring a soundbar so as to get adequate bass production.
That said, the speakers of the LG UN8500 are able to produce clear and understandable dialogue. In case you’re wondering, dialogue is the verbal interaction between two or more people.
Hence, conversation-driven content like documentaries, talk shows, and news will be very appealing to watch on this LG television.
Moving on, the LG UN8500 comes with some audio enhancement technology, such as Dolby Atmos and Ultra Surround Sound. With the combination of these audio technologies, this television will be able to produce a cinematic and immersive sound quality.
Away from that, let us discuss the distortion performance of the LG UN8500. To do that, I will be providing the result of the television on a THD (Total Harmonic Distortion) test.
Briefly, THD is a sound test that measures the proportion of distortion present in a sound system. Moreover, according to the test, the lower the score, the better.
Basically, if the THD score is 1% or less, that means the sound system can only produce minimal distortion. However, if the score on the test is above 1%, the sound system will produce a significant amount of distortion.
With that in mind, the LG UN8500 delivered a score of 0.058% on the THD test at an 80% volume level. Meanwhile, when the volume is increased to the maximum level, the television delivers a score of 0.635%.
Thus, either at a maximum or moderate volume level, distortion will be minimal on LG UN8500. By the way, distortion in this context is the alteration of a sound system’s original audio frequency, allowing it to produce an unpleasant sound quality.
All things considered, I will be rating the LG UN8500 an eight out of ten in this sound features review section.
LG UN8500: Ports and Connectivity Features
To start with, the LG UN8500 features a sufficient number of ports. As with most televisions, the ports are divided into two groups – the left-facing ports and the back-facing ports.
Focusing on the left-facing ports, there are two HDMI ports and a USB port. Impressively, one of these HDMI ports supports ARC (Audio Return Channel).
Thus, you can easily use that particular HDMI port to connect a soundbar to the television. That aside, among the back-facing ports are two more HDMI ports as well as two USB ports.
That’s not all; there is also a digital audio out, a composite in, an RF port for antenna connection, and an Ethernet port. As regards wireless connectivity, the LG UN8500 comes with Bluetooth 5.0 and has in-built WiFi.
As expected from an almost $1000 LG television, the LG UN8500 features LG’s magic remote. This remote is plastic-made and has a mix of textured and glossy finish with curved edges.
Also, the remote control contains quite a number of buttons. To mention a few, the remote has a full number pad, volume and channel rockers, and an input button.
Additionally, there is a round-shaped navigation button, playback buttons, and three dedicated buttons. These dedicated buttons allow for easy access to Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Google Play Movies.
Apart from its load of buttons, the LG UN8500’s magic remote also features an in-built microphone for voice input. Thus, by pressing the microphone button and speaking into this microphone, you should be able to control the TV with your voice.
In conclusion, the LG UN8500 offers an excellent port selection and a magic remote with voice command functionality. Therefore, I will rate the LG UN8500 a nine out of ten in this ports and connectivity review section.
LG UN8500: Smart Features
As expected, the LG UN8500 runs on an operating system called webOS. You must be wondering why I said: “as excepted.”
Well, it is because most LG smart televisions come with the webOS. Besides, the operating system is owned by LG and is one of the best smart TV operating systems out there.
As a matter of fact, the OS has a smooth and easy-to-use interface that makes navigation seamless. Aside from that, the operating system also offers quite a number of popular streaming services and apps.
Some of these streaming services include Prime Video, Disney+, YouTube, Apple TV, Netflix, and HBO. Impressively, the webOS features a built-in app store called the LG Content Store.
Through this app store, users can download additional streaming services and applications. Apart from the built-in app store, the webOS also supports Airplay 2 and Homekit.
Airplay 2 allows you to stream/share content from your Apple devices to the television. Meanwhile, Homekit allows users to control the television with their Apple devices.
Good news for sports lovers, the LG UN8500 comes with a feature called “Sports Alert.” This feature lets the television inform users about upcoming matches and keeps them up to date on their favorite teams.
That aside, the LG UN8500 is also cast-enabled. Hence, you can stream or share content from your Android or Windows devices to the television.
All things considered, I will be rating the LG UN8500 a nine out of ten in this smart features review section.
Frequently Asked Questions
The LG UN8500 was released in 2020.
The LG UN8500 had a price tag of $899.99 as of June 2022, when this review was published.
The LG UN8500 weighs 21318.8 g.
The LG UN8500 comes with four HDMI ports – two among its back-facing ports and the remaining among its left-facing ports.
Yes, the LG UN8500 comes with Bluetooth 5.0.
Conclusion
Although the LG UN8500 isn’t attractive, it delivers a decent performance. To give more details, this television comes with a 4K display that supports HDR and has wide viewing angles.
In addition to that, the television has decent sound performance and multiple audio enhancement technologies. Also, the LG UN8500 features a good number of ports as well as a voice-supported magic remote control.
That’s not all; this LG television comes with an operating system that offers lots of streaming apps and a built-in app store. However, the television has a disappointing contrast ratio, isn’t bright enough, and lacks local dimming.
Nonetheless, if these flaws are something you can overlook, the LG UN8500 is worth considering.
I hope you found this LG UN8500 review helpful. If you found the review helpful, click on “Yes” beside the “Was this page helpful” question below.
You may also express your thoughts and opinions by using the “Leave a Comment” form at the bottom of this page.
For more television reviews, visit our Television review page. You may also find our Television Specs page very helpful.
