Review: LG Micro RGB Evo

Television Tech is constantly evolving, with micro and mini RGB LEDs as the latest innovation to hit screens. Both micro and mini RGB technologies work by emitting tiny red, green, and blue lights to achieve more color accuracy, better contrast and brightness, and richer blacks than what you’d get from traditional LED and OLED TVs. The new LG Micro RGB Evo might well make you question your OLED purchase from a few years ago.

I tested the 75-inch LG Micro RGB Evo—the smallest model in the flagship line—that retails for $5,000. It's also available in 86-inch ($7,000) and 100-inch ($8,000) sizes. The RGB TV market is quite crowded, making it tough to know which to consider: There’s the Samsung Micro RGB R95H ($3,000 for the 65-inch model), the TCL RGB Mini-LED RM9L ($6,000 for the 85-inch model, the smallest in the line), the Hisense UR9 RGB MiniLED ($2,200 for the 65-inch model), and the Sony Bravia 7 Mark II ($2,600 for the 65-inch model).

The latter two are cheaper because they use mini RGB tech rather than micro. The two terms are not interchangeable: Mini RGB uses slightly larger LEDs than micro, theoretically affording less control over screen display to mini models. But whether the LED cousins yield a notably different visual effect is up for debate.

After testing all of the aforementioned TVs, I can attest that the LG and Samsung Micro RGB models are indeed superior to the rest in terms of picture quality. The question, then, is whether the LG Micro RGB Evo is worth more than both the Hisense and Sony models, which are priced much lower. In my opinion, it depends on the settings you use.

Setting Up and Learning Settings

Photograph: John Brandon

The TV looks fantastic, with dark gray bezels and an otherwise all-black design. If you decide to mount one, the Micro RGB Evo can sit flush against the wall. I opted for the TV stand because, at 88.6 pounds, this is no featherweight TV. In fact, I needed a hand lifting it into place. But setup was a cinch; the pointy legs popped easily into place with two screws. The TV fit nicely on a standard stand I normally use for a 65-inch television.

There are four HDMI 2.1 ports on the back, including one for eARC passthrough audio. There’s also one Ethernet port, one digital optical, a coaxial connection, and two USB 2.0 ports. The television uses Wi-Fi 5, which is highly compatible and fast but isn’t as advanced as Wi-Fi 6 or Wi-Fi 6E. For comparison, the Hisense UR9 uses Wi-Fi 6E.

Unlike recent Sony, Hisense, and TCL models, LG hasn’t switched to Google TV; instead, it uses its own WebOS, now in version 26. It’s an acquired taste, and one I’m not sure I’ve acquired. There are way too many default apps installed, and you’re probably only going to need the usual suspects like Apple TV, Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+, and perhaps a few others. I also didn’t need multiple free channel apps or a webcam app.

It took me a few days to get comfortable using the remote, which is not backlit. The cursor tends to jump around the screen until you hit another button, which allows you to adjust the speed. The Home button is situated off-center, making it tough to find in the dark. There’s no obvious input button; instead, you have to press and hold a button in the upper left to select inputs. And to mute, you have to hold down the volume button, which doesn’t actually mute the connected speakers.

Photograph: John Brandon

LG offers quite a few nice picture enhancements and extra settings that I would expect on a flagship model at this price. For example, you can set the TV to turn on when you enter the room and turn off when you leave, and both features worked perfectly for me. You can disable something called Live Plus as a security perk—it means the TV won’t know what you watch and won’t make recommendations. Voice control using the LG bot was mostly helpful, allowing me to change settings such as contrast or brightness. When I searched for an older movie called Malice, however, I was surprised the bot didn’t suggest Tubi or Plex as free options and instead stuck with paid rentals.

The TV supports 100 percent of the color gamut specs for BT.2020, DCI-P3, and Adobe RGB. Very few movies actually meet the BT.2020 spec, but I tested a few that do, such as Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and Inside Out, both on Disney+. Each looked amazingly colorful.

Micro RGB, Macro Picture Quality

Photograph: John Brandon

As a first test of the new micro RGB tech, I ran through the usual Spears & Munsil Benchmark tests. Skin tones looked phenomenal, easily beating out the Hisense UR9, the Sony Bravia 7 II, and the TCL RM9L in terms of tonal variation. Lighter skin tones didn’t look washed out, and there was a nice differentiation in color.

A scene with a fence had bright green grass in the background, something that is often less obvious with an older LED or QLED television. A yellow flower looked more vibrant to me than just about any art television I’ve tested recently. Sunset scenes looked incredibly vibrant, proof positive that the micro RGB tech is working overtime. However, OLED still has the upper hand on contrast, more crisply displaying black trees in the foreground of a dark mountain.

With this TV, the picture modes impact what you see in terms of contrast and brightness. Filmmaker mode was more accurate, but Vivid and CinemaHome modes worked better to make browns, purples, and other darker colors pop. Only in those modes did a white mist on a snowy mountain look distinct and clear.

To test movies for contrast, I watched Awake on Netflix and The Creator on the Fandango at Home app, because each has dark scenes that turn normal LED displays into mush. Interestingly, in Vivid mode on this LG, a bicycle scene in Awake looked better than what I’ve seen on an OLED television in terms of contrast, with perhaps a bit too much saturation. LG has dozens of color temperature, tint, and white-balance settings, so I was able to scale back the saturation. In The Creator, a predawn scene looked nicely blue and visible by the ocean. Tron: Ares on Disney+ beat out the Hisense UR9 in terms of deep blacks and reds, but only in Vivid picture mode.

For vibrancy, you might be just as well served on the Hisense UR9, which will save you a lot of money. On the Hisense, a moody scene in The Last Duel on Disney+ looked more realistic and vivid, as did a scene in Project Hail Mary that showed rings around a planet. The movie Hoppers was more colorful and vivid on the LG Micro RGB Evo—but this generally bright film would look great on an iPhone.

I used Google Cast to stream the first Dune movie through the HBO Max app, and it worked perfectly, providing Dolby Atmos surround. The movie Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die didn’t stream correctly using Hulu via AirPlay on an Apple iPad 12.9, though. LG is looking into why.

Older movies on Tubi and Plex often don’t look great on newer televisions, but I found some clarity settings that helped; a psychological thriller from the ’90s called Blink had a crisper look than I’ve seen on even some recent art televisions that use LED.

Making Colors Pop for Games, Sports, and News

Photograph: John Brandon

To test games, sports, and news, I started with Subnautica 2 on the Xbox Series X. The TV recognized the Xbox and automatically enabled Game Optimizer mode, cranking up the refresh rate to 120 Hz for better latency and performance. The colors looked absolutely amazing in this game, showing rocks flecked with green and blue under the ocean, but only when I switched to Vivid or CinemaHome picture modes.

The Game Optimizer mode looked better on Senua's Saga: Hellblade II because it improved contrast during a shipwreck level late in the game. The water on the main character’s arms looked super realistic; on less advanced televisions, the same scene had looked washed out and gray. Forza Horizon 6 on Xbox also looked vivid and bright, but it was only when I switched to a gaming laptop that I noticed some performance improvements: The LG Micro RGB Evo supports a native 165-Hz refresh rate and low latency for gaming. One 007 First Light speedboat scene was jaw-droppingly colorful, with low-latency control and exceptional clarity.

The Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) mode should support 330 Hz for gaming, something LG calls Motion Booster. But with that mode enabled, I kept seeing weird flickering and rainbow effects in Crimson Desert and every other PC game I tried. The setting for that is buried in a menu, and while disabling it solved the issue, it bumped me back to the 165-Hz refresh rate. LG representatives told me they are looking into the issue.

For sports, I watched several World Cup 2026 matches using the YouTube TV app and was impressed by the color accuracy of the jerseys and the ball movements, which had hardly any blur. A live CNN broadcast looked a bit too vivid until I ramped down some settings. Ironically, the mode that helped the most was Game Optimizer, giving the overly bold colors a flatter look.

I also tested the screensaver mode, which is like the budget version of viewing artwork. The LG Micro RGB Evo doesn’t have a matte finish, and LG Gallery+ requires a subscription that’s $5 per month for about 4,500 curated paintings and other images. I loaded some shipwreck paintings, and they lacked texture and realism but did look vibrant and colorful.

Ultimately, the LG Micro RGB Evo is on par with an OLED television as long as you tweak the settings, but it’s not quite as impressive. It also costs twice as much as the Hisense 65-inch UR9, but I don’t think you’ll get double the quality. The LG’s colors are vibrant and bold, but to achieve a home cinema look, you have to scale back some of the settings for better contrast and brightness. Once you tweak those, the LG Micro RGB Evo really starts to shine. If the goal is to upgrade to one of the best Micro RGB models around, you can’t go wrong with this LG—just be ready to pay a lot more for what you’ll get in a competitor model.

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