LG 65UH7700 vs LG 65UH6550 Review : What are their differences?

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The LG 65UH7700 and the LG 65UH6550 are part of the mid level class of LG’s 4K LED TV lineup. Although they are come in different series on the market, they are sold with a similar price. Both of are good TVs with an affordable price, so if you are searching for  65 Inch 4K TV but have a limited budget, this can make a good alternative choice. Of course performance offered is not as great as the series above them, like the UH8500 and the UH9500 series. So what’s the difference between them and which is a better choice considering they are sold about the same price? Let’s start the discussion about them…

The LG 65UH6550
The LG 65UH6550

Short Review about LG 65UH6550

LG 65UH6550 is a cheap 65 Inch 4K TV with an affordable price. Its picture quality is slightly above average compared to most 4K TVs in this price range. Like most of the 4K TVs we review, these also support HDR. Unlike the higher series which support both HDR 10 and Dolby Vision, the 65UH6550 only supports HDR 10 only. Unfortunately although it supports HDR, the display specs are still far from what is needed for displaying HDR content fully. So if you hope to be able to enjoy HDR content on the screen of the 65UH6550 with the quality like the higher television lines, you might be disappointed.

The UHD Mastering Engine with HDR pro is the image processor behind the good picture quality offered by the LG 65UH6550. For the display panel, it uses a IPS panel with edge light backlight to offer a wider viewing angle. For improving black level and peak brightness, there is local dimming technology, Ultra Black Panel, and Ultra luminance technology powering it. There is also Color Prime Pro that uses a 4 sub pixel RGBW technology for delivering wide color gamut. For minimizing motion blur, it is powered by TruMotion 120Hz based on a native 60 Hz refresh rate panel. With Tru 4K Upscaler behind it, the LG 65UH6550 also offers great performance when upscaling lower resolution content to near 4K quality. This is very useful to ensure you can enjoy all video content in 4K resolution considering that most of the content available in the market still has lower resolution than 4K quality. With the highly rated WebOS 3.0 as its smart TV platform, it offers an attractive and intuitive smart TV experience with a lot of the most popular apps available.

>> Click here to check the price for the LG 65UH6550 <<

Short Review about LG 65UH7700

One level above the 65UH6550, the LG 65UH7700 is sold with a similar price. It also comes with the IPS panel, so the viewing angle is one of the advantages offered. Unlike the UH6550 which supports HDR 10 only, this one supports both HDR 10 and Dolby Vision format. And for processing HDR signal, it is powered by the Super Mastering Engine for its main image processor and incorporates HDR Super with Dolby Vision Technology. Like its cousin the 65UH6550, display specs produced by the 65UH770 are also not quite up to the task to display both HDR 10 and Dolby Vision fully, so you should search other alternatives if you truly care about HDR performance.

For its display panel, the LG 65UH7000 also uses Edge-light backlighting and local dimming and is also supported by Tru Back Panel and Ultra luminance technology to improve black level and peak brightness. For improving color gamut, the 65UH7700 is powered by quantum dot technology. It’s also a good performer when handling motion blur with TruMotion 240 Hz based on a native 120 HZ refresh rate. Additionally the 65UH7700 is equipped with a nice Tru 4K Upscaler that allows you to enjoy video content with lower resolution in 4K quality sharply without any loss of the small details. Like other models of the LG Smart TV lineup, it features WebOS 2.0 as its smart TV platform for a great smart TV experience. The other interesting thing offered is it’s sound system is designed by Harman Kardon, one of the premier names in Audio System manufacturers, so you know that sound quality is above average.

>> Click here to check the price for the LG 65UH7700 <<

LG 65UH7700 vs 65UH6550 Key Specs

Specs and Features LG 65UH6550 LG 65UH7700
Resolution 4K (2160 x 3840) 4K (2160 x 3840)
Panel Type IPS IPS
Picture Engine UHD Mastering Engine Super Mastering Engine
HDR HDR Pro HDR Super w/ Dolby Vision
Dimming Local Dimming Local Dimming
Color Technology Color Prime Pro Quantum Dot
Tru Black Panel Yes Yes
Ultra Luminance Yes Yes
UHD Up-scaling Tru 4K Upscaler Tru 4K Upscaler
Motion Control TruMotion 120 Hz (native 60 Hz) TruMotion 240 Hz (native 120 Hz)
3D Technology No No
Smart TV WebOS 3.0 WebOS 3.0
Audio Channel 2 2.0
Output Power 20 Watt 20 Watt
Sound Designed by Harman Kardon No Yes
HDMI 3 (HDCP 2.2) 3 (HDCP 2.2)
USB 3 3
Price Check the Price Check the price

The Performance of the LG 65UH6550 and the 65UH7700

Picture Quality

As seen on the table above, they’re powered by different picture engines for processing HDR and SDR content. The LG 65UH7700 is powered by the Super Mastering Engine with HDR Super and Dolby Vision while the 65UH6550 is powered by the UHD mastering engine with HDR Pro technology. The result is that the 65UH7700 is able to play both HDR 10 and Dolby Vision while the 65UH6550 only supports HDR 10 only. The other difference is their color technology where the 65UH6550 is powered by Color Prime Color Pro while the 65UH7700 is powered by Quantum Dot technology. Of course this makes a difference in picture quality.

Both the LG 65UH6550 and the 65UH7700 are not including the moniker of “4K TVs” with deep black level and strong native contrast ratio. This due to the fact that they use IPS Panel technology. Although both are powered by local dimming technology and Tru black panel, the black level and contrast produced is just not as deep and strong as what’s achieved by TVs with a VA panel. In this case, the 65UH7000 reaches 0.088 nits of black level with a native contrast ratio of about 1150:1 while the 65UH6550 reaches about 0.095 nits of black level with about a 1050:1 of native contrast ratio. Of course, this is not enough for truly displaying HDR content fully where the HDR 10 standard needs 0.05 nits or lower while the Dolby Vision needs up to 0 nits of black level. Even for displaying SDR content in a dark room, it is not quite black. The blacks will look tend to grey when  displaying dark scenes in a dark room. But as long as you don’t use it in a dark room, the picture produced by each looks good.

On other hand, both are equally powered by the Ultra Luminance technology, but peak brightness reached by them is not the same. As you may know, peak brightness is an important component of HDR and for displaying HDR fully, this means a certain standardization of peak brightness.  To achieve this HDR 10 needs at least 1000 nits while Dolby Vision need much brighter at about 4000 nits of peak brightness. However the peak brightness reached by the 65UH6550 is about 415 nits on a 25 % window while the 65UH7700 reaches slightly brighter t about 520 nits on a 10% window. On the smaller 2% sized window, the 65UH7700 only gets about 300 nits while the 65UH6550 gets about 160 nits. This means the 65UH770 offers a brighter picture than the 65UH6550. Even so, what is achieved by each is not quite bright enough for displaying HDR content fully, even for HDR 10 that can get away with a lower peak brightness than Dolby Vision.

For color performance, they are powered by different technology. The LG 65UH6550 is powered by Color Prime Color while the 65UH7700 is powered by Quantum dot panel. Theoretically, the LG65UH7700 with quantum dot panel should deliver a wider color gamut than the 65UH655. But in reality, the LG 65UH6550 can cover more color coverage than the 65UH7700. In this case, the 65UH7700 can cover about 84% of DCI P3 color space while the 65UH6500 can cover about 87% of DCI P3 color space. But even so, what is reached by them can not cover all the color space needed for displaying HDR content fully where HDR 10 needs at least 90% of DCI P3 color space while Dolby Vision needs Rec.2020 Color space.  Nevertheless for displaying SDR that requires Rec.709 as the color coverage, what’s delivered by the LG 65UH6550 and the 65UH7700 is more than enough. This means when they are displaying SDR contents, the color of the picture looks very accurate.

According to the minimum standardization of HDR to be met by an HDR TV is about the depth of color where HDR 10 requires 10 bit depth while Dolby Vision requires a 12 bit depth. Both the LG 65UH7700 and the 65UH6550 comes with 8 bit dithering. Even so when they’re processing a 10 bit signal, the color gradation produced is as smooth as TV with a true 10 bit panel. Color gradation looks very smooth even for all the darker color gradations.

From all display specs offered by this series, we can see the LG 65UH7700 offers a slightly better black level, contrast ratio and peak brightness while the 65UH6550 offers a slightly wider color gamut. Overall the picture quality of the 65UH7700 is slight better than the 65UH6550 due its deeper black level and stronger native contrast ratio. Because their black level is not really deep and their native contrast ratio is low, these are not good TVs to use in a dark room. When displaying HDR content, they can display HDR content without the quality that is as expected of HDR itself, let alone for the 65UH7700 that also supports Dolby Vision where it requires a higher standardization than HDR 10, of course the display specs are still far from what is required.

Winner : 65UH7700

>> Click here to check the price for the LG 65UH6550 <<

>> Click here to check the price for the LG 65UH7700 <<

Viewing Angle

Viewing angle is one of the advantages of the LG 65UH7700 and the LG 65UH6550 since it is an IPS display TV. Its viewing angle is not as perfect as what’s offered by OLED TVs but at least it’s better than what’s offered by the competitor with a VA panel. On a VA TV, the quality of the picture usually starts to deteriorate at 20 degrees off center and front. Both of these series offer a much wider viewing angle. Although both of them come with an IPS Panel, the65UH6550 offers a slightly better viewing angle than the 65UH7700. On the screen of the 65UH770 the picture quality starts to deteriorate at 35 degrees while on the screen of the 65UH6550 the picture quality starts to deteriorate at 42 degrees off center and front. With a wide side viewing angle, this makes them very suitable to be used in a wide room with a lot of viewers.

Winner : 65UH6550

Motion Handling

For minimizing motion blur and handling 24p content, the LG 65UH7700 is powered by a higher level of technology compared to the 65UH655. As seen on the comparison table above, the LG 65UH6550 is powered by TruMotion 120 Hz based on a native 120 Hz refresh rate panel while the LG 6UH7700 is powered by TruMotion 240 Hz based on a native 60 Hz refresh rate panel.  The result is that the 65UH7700 offers a faster pixel response time and better motion handling than the 65UH6550. You will see a clear and smooth picture quality without a visible trail behind fast moving objects on the screen of the 65UH7700 when watching sports programs and fast movies. But on the screen of the 65UH6550, motion bur is still noticeable following fast moving objects. When playing 24p movies, these each offer similar performance. Judder can be removed when playing native 24p contents like Blu Ray Movies. But when playing 24p content via 60i signals like movies from satellite TV or via 60p signal like movies from streaming devices, the judder can not be removed completely from the screen.  But because our eyes do not easily to detect judder, this usually is not a big issue.

Winner : 65UH7700

UHD Up-scaling

Both the LG 65UH6550 and the 65UH7700 are equally equipped with a great performance UHD Up-scaling engine called Tru 4K Up-Scaler. Once up-scaled, 480p content like DVD and SDTV looks good once up-scaled. Straight lines on the picture don’t look choppy at all. Additionally small details of the picture also are preserved well. When up-scaling from 480p content, the final images look good, of course the result will be better if the source is 720p or 1080p contents. The images produced look sharper where small details are more preserved.  Of course this is very useful considering most of the content available in the market still has resolution lower than 4K. On the other hand, this also makes it more comfort when streaming videos from content providers. Streaming direct 4K content needs high speed internet and much more bandwidth than streaming video from lower resolutions. This of course reduces the occurrence of “buffering” which would disrupt your convenience when enjoying video content from video streaming services.

Winner : Tie

The back of the LG 65UH6550
The ports of the LG 65UH6550

The back of the LG 65UH7700
The ports of the LG 65UN7700

Inputs/Outputs

Both the LG 65UH7700 and the 65UH6550 are equally equipped with 3 HDMI Ports and 2 USB Ports as the major connectivity. Additionally there is also 1 Composite In (AV In), Component In (RGB), Antenna IN (RF), Digital Audio Out (Optical), analog audio out, Ethernet, and RS 232C. Talking about HDMI input lag, the LG 65UH550 has lower input lag than the 65UH7700. Overall input lag is low. Of course this is great for gaming. Even when you use these for games that require quick reflexes, both the 65UH7700 and the 65UH6550 offer great performance and games will not feel laggy. Unfortunately, because there is no HDR game mode on their “picture mode”, the input lag is still high when receiving 4K HDR signals. This of course is not good for HDR games.

Winner : 65UH6550

Smart TV

Both the LG 65UH7700 and the 65UH6550 feature excellent WebOS 2.0 for their smart TV platform. In this version, there are some updates and upgrades that make performance better. If you found an issue on the last version when used for streaming, in this version issues have been solved completely. Nevertheless there is not much change in the user interface design. The user interface is still simple and intuitive with a “strip bar” at the bottom across the screen containing the most popular and favorite apps. Additionally navigating between different menus is straightforward. As well as the loading time of the app and selecting between apps is fast and responsive. Apps provided are also complete and varied. There are the most useful apps available like YouTube, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Spotify, Web Browser, LG apps and contents store, and much more.  Essentially WebOS 3.0 is the best smart TV platform we’ve seen and it provides a lot of useful and interesting apps.

A small difference between these series is regarding their controller where the LG 65UH7700 is equipped with an LG magic remote in the box while the 65UH6550 is not equipped. Nevertheless if you want to get a better smart TV experience (especially when navigating), you can buy the LG Magic Remote separately for the 65UH6550.

Winner : 65UH7700

>> Click here to check the price for the LG 65UH6550 <<

>> Click here to check the price for the LG 65UH7700 <<

Summary

Performance 65UH6550 65UH7700
Design (3.8/5) (4.5/5)
Picture Quality (3.6/5) (3.6/5)
HDR (3.5/5) (3.8/5)
Motion Handling (3.3/5) (3.9/5)
Inputs (4.1/5) (4.2/5)
Sound Quality (3.3/5) (2.9/5)
Smart TV (4.3/5) (4.5/5)

Conclusion

As discussed above, overall the LG 65UH7700 and the 65UH6550 have a good picture quality. But because black level is not really deep and the native contrast ratio is weak due to the use of an IPS panel, they are not very suitable to be used in a dark room. When used in a dark room, the black area of the images will tend to look gray. On the other hand, the use of an IPS panel gives it a benefit on the viewing angle where they can offer a wider viewing angle than other TVs that use a VA panel. The other benefit offered by them is an excellent WebOS 3.0 as their platform.

With them being about the same price, which is a better choice for you? The main advantages of the LG 65UH7700 compared to the 65UH6550 is about the level of TruMotion technology and the native refresh rate panel where the 65UH7700 comes with TruMotion 240 HZ with a native 120 Hz refresh rate panel while the 65UH6550 comes with TruMotion 120 Hz with a native 60 Hz refresh rate panel. The impact is that the LG 65UH7700 offers better motion handling than the 65UH6550. The other benefit is th 65UH7700 comes with LG’s Magic Remote while for the 65UH655 you must buy it separately. Although both of them use an IPS panel, the LG 65UH7700 offers a slightly better viewing angle than the 65UH7700.

Now the decision is yours according to your preferences. We’ve discussed a lot about their differences and now you can make the decision. If HDR performance is your main consideration in buying a TV, neither is a good option even though both support HDR — the 65UH6550 supports HDR 10 and the 65UH7700 supports both HDR 10 and Dolby Vision. For the competition, there’s the Samsung UN65KU7000 and the UN65KU6500 that are sold for the same price and offer a much deeper black level and stronger native contrast ratio, but their viewing angle is poor and peak brightness is not bright.

>> Click here to check the price for the LG 65UH6550 <<

>> Click here to check the price for the LG 65UH7700 <<

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