At least when it comes to making TVs, LG apparently can do no wrong. Year after year, the company’s OLED sets top most reviewers’ recommendation lists. They overcame the Achilles heel of older models – brightness – with clever innovations like the Micro Lens Array, which made last year’s G3 and G4 bright enough to shine HDR in n any viewing environment.
So it’s no surprise that LG’s 2025 lineup of OLED TVs sets the bar even higher. At the top of the range is the M5, which is the latest series to use the company’s Zero Connect Box for a wireless link between the TV screen and your gaming consoles, streaming boxes and other external devices. The M5 will be available in sizes 65, 77, 83 and 97 inches. The Zero Connect Box is an impressive trick that, by all accounts, works pretty well. This year, the wireless connection is apparently even more reliable. But no one really needs that. So I tend to view the G series as LG’s most practical flagship for consumers.
Luckily for us TV nerds, the G5 gets (somehow) even brighter. LG says its latest Brightness Booster Ultimate technology “enhances the light control architecture and light enhancement algorithms to achieve three times the brightness of conventional OLED models.” (For context, this comparison is made with OLEDs which don’t do it include the Micro Lens Array technology found in the M5 and G5.) LG is also pushing the refresh rate of its premium G5 up to 165Hz, which it says is an industry first, delivering a new level of Smooth gaming for the PC. crowd. You will be able to get the G5 in sizes ranging from 55 inches to 83 inches. There are also 48- and 97-inch models, but these won’t offer the same maximum brightness.
Both high-end models feature LG’s latest Alpha 11 Gen 2 processor, which improves image processing and upscaling to make low-bitrate content look as good as possible on these 4K displays. LG says many of these processing tricks also carry over to the more mainstream C5. With so many people watching Internet TV services and other streaming content these days, this magic sauce can make a noticeable difference. Sony is known for being the best in this area, but LG has made great strides in recent years.
This year’s Magic Remote no longer has a dedicated input button. In what could prove to be a controversial move, LG is making the Home Hub button do double duty: you can press it to access the webOS Home Hub dashboard or hold the button to view your list of apps. ‘entries. It’s not the end of the world, but it’s still something to remember for fundamental television interaction.
And then comes the avalanche of AI features. The usual AI Picture Pro and AI Sound Pro optimization modes are present. The C5 series boasts the same 11.1.2-channel virtualized surround sound that debuted in the G4 last year. LG is also expanding on the Picture Assistant introduced two years ago, in which viewers choose from a series of images to land on their ideal picture settings, with a similar process for audio.
How much AI is too much for a TV?
But this year, the focus is on AI much more than that. LG has a new branding “LG AI” – that’s what the mic button now activates. Oh, I’m sorry. Have I ever called it the Magic Remote? The remote control has been renamed AI Remote. And there’s a whole damn LLM chatbot built into these TVs. Hell, even Microsoft’s Copilot is launched.
The risk LG faces here is getting in the way and pushing this stuff to customers too aggressively. The company’s OLEDs are some of the best TVs on the market. They deliver brilliant visuals with all the features home theater enthusiasts want. In 2025, this includes an improved Cinematographer mode that takes into account the ambient lighting in your room and adjusts picture settings accordingly, while ensuring “retains the original intent of the filmmaker.”
For its part, LG says the latest webOS home screen is faster and easier to use. And the company is committed to maintaining software updates over the next five years, just as our smartphones gain new features over time.
Yet at this point I find myself set up with webOS and I spend most of my usage time in a different interface, whether it’s Apple TV, Google TV or something else. Hopefully LG’s mega push into AI won’t be too heavy-handed, but we’ll have to see how it all plays out once the 2025 TV lineup starts shipping this spring. If customers find that their usual feeds are interrupted by AI gadgets, complaints could arise.
We’ll have a much better idea of how LG AI fits into these great TVs – and whether it ultimately harms them – when the M5, G5, C5 and B5 OLEDs hit stores in a few months. By then we will also know how much they will cost.
