LG Electronics 65UB9500 65-Inch 4K Ultra HD 120Hz 3D LED TV (2014 Model)

I received this TV almost two weeks ago. Bought it from Amazon at a decent price point, $2.5K with 24 month financing and 15% back in rewards - a fairly good deal when compared to similar sets. The decision hinged on my requirement for passive 3D, newer HDMI technology (including ARC and MHL), and Dual Play.This TV is absolutely amazing! But let's dissect:Picture quality, 4K and up-conversion: The picture quality is truly amazing! It is "Holy crap" amazing! Every time I watch something I cannot stop from being amazed on how good the image looks! The clarity, color, and uniformity is top notch. I see no clouding, ghosting, or any defects in regards to picture quality - we do not have cable, so I cannot comment on how the cable channels look). Not much glare (we have 2 windows on the wall with the TV so nothing from here, but one on the side wall and pretty powerful lights on the ceiling in the center of the room). Up-conversion is very good. We are using WiFi (might cable in the near future - see below for issue) and streaming the usual Netflix, Amazon and Hulu. The detail is so amazing in up-conversion, that I had to change my Netflix account to get 4K just to make a comparison. To be honest, my eye cannot discern with 100% the difference. When initially setup, we were not pleased with how it the picture looked - everything seems way too realistic (I believe they call it the soap opera effect) We changed picture mode to ISF Expert1 and tweaked a few other settings and now we are in awe. (No, really, if you get it, watch on Netflix "The Art of Flight" in 3D - or anything else with good 3D - and you'll be in awe too). Which bring me to:3D: My kids put it best - "I can touch them Daddy!" I have never experienced 3D so good before - it is so realistic! The TV seems like a high tech window to the world, not a screen. The depth and clarity are astonishing. The way the menus float is neat as well. The 3D conversion is good, but not perfect. Again, watch "The Art of Flight", or get your kids to watch "Oscar", and you'll truly be amazed. This is not without quirks though - If you are off axis vertically you'll get ghosting pretty quick, so place your TV directly facing at you (we have it a eye-level siting on the couch, but if you have it over the fireplace or similar, you'd need to tilt it a lot). Also, we have a pretty large couch (about 120") about 9 ft from the TV, and we start seeing some ghosting if we move past the couch horizontally. We got a few extra glasses ( Adult , Child , Adult Dual Play  and  Child Dual Play ), but I bet I need to get more because this will probably turn into a movie theater for friends pretty soon... Talking about movie theaters - the comparison is not fair: this TV puts any theater to shame! The 3D is that good! The Dual Play works nice! I played GT5 with my son and it was perfect - no ghosting at all! I had my kids play and placed a regular pair of glasses, and could see one player with one eye, and the other one with the other eye perfectly (not recommended to keep both eyes open - my brain is still trying to understand what the heck was happening).Audio: The night we got the TV we watched a bit and were impressed with the sound when compared to our old TV. So the next day when I looked a bit more (studying connections and such) I realized that the protective foil that came with the TV was still installed on the speakers! And believed it sound was pretty good! Taking that plastic revealed a pretty good sound. We have a sound bar, but if we don't have the need for a sub-woofer, the TV speakers are more than enough. The Info Eye review hit the nail - The sound is very balanced and you can hear the voices in movies very clear even at lower levels. Raising the volume can provide a nice sound (the speakers are not Harman Kardon but done in collaboration with them it seems and it shows.)Magic remote: I don't know, we'll get used to it eventually, but it is still a bit awkward. The darn thing should have had backlit buttons! I will probably invest in a regular remote if in a couple of weeks will still feel awkward. The pointing is pretty OK - the size can be changed to smaller or larger (not by a lot though) and the speed can be modified as well. Nonetheless, even though you can make these changes, you'll still have a pink droplet on your screen, as there are no other serious or more mature options!Menus and WebOS: I have mixed feeling about this. The color scheme feels childish (just as the pointer droplet). And I wish I could access certain components easier (such as a submenu specific to the HDMI inputs). What I hate here is that not having cable, this TV defaults info a "No input" screen all the time. I don't know, give me a blank screen or a nice painting or something, stop asking me if I want to change the input as this one is not working (we only have a Playstation and a PC hooked to it). So about a third of a star deducted here. Other than that the WebOS functions pretty good, you can install additional apps, browse the web (a bit cumbersome to type with the Magic Remote, although it is easier to point to a letter than it is with a 4-way controller), etc.Connections: Plenty connections here. 4 HDMIs, one with ARC - Audio Return Channel, optical sound and so on. I believe the WiFi is a little quirky though. I have good WiFi in the house. Never had any issues streaming over our PC, our Playstation, or our Fire TV stick, or our laptop. Well, this one drops the WiFi sometimes. Netflix told me a couple of times to wait... I don't want to wait. So I restarted the TV a few times - it takes a fairly short amount of time to restart (but it restarts in that "No Input" mode) and then it worked, but if the problem persists I will have to either call LG, or wire the darn thing. A couple of times it didn;t want to play 4K on Netflix as well ("connection not fast for 4K, do you want to watch in regular?" type of problem). So I don't know, TV issue, or connection issue, that is the question. The second connection issue is the Miracast. I gave a Surface and wanted to connect to this TV, and it gives me the "Device not supported" on the Surface, It seems that this is an issue with LG not certifying this TV with Microsoft and vice-versa. Nonetheless, about a third of a star deducted here, as these two issues are bugging me.Wall mount: it can be easily mounted on a wall, just pay attention that the bottom is wider (in the back), so wall mounts that place the TV very close to the wall might be an issue. I ordered one as we wanted to streamline the look ( Kanto T6090 ), but I didn't remove it from the box just yet as I am still on the fence with whether or not I will be able to use it with this TV.Manual: ARE YOU KIDDING ME LG? No really, are you? I have never seen such a pathetic piece of paper called manual, ever. Even the badly translated manuals from Chinese crap bought on ebay are better (and funnier). This is unbelievable! All they give you is now to install the TV. That's it! This should have been called "Installation Manual", not "User Manual", as there is NOTHING in it on how to actually USE this TV! No menu structure, no setting explanations, no instructions on how to access anything on the menu, no info on how to setup each HDMI connection and what it does when you assign a connection to something (for example, I plugged my PC though HDMI, and the picture did not include the entire screen - as soon as I assigned the type of connection to PC, the image was perfectly clear and fit great). Nothing!!!!!!!!!!! I am almost ready to downgrade this TV one extra star because of this (very frustrating trying to figure out how to use this TV), but I will deduct only half a star because just looking at the picture makes me smile and forget about this stupidity they call manual.EDIT: It seems that I skipped over the most important part in that "Installation Manual" : page 35 (last before specifications - I probably got frustrated that I reached the end and there was nothing in it) shows that you can select from the menu the "User Guide" which shows how to use this TV. This guide is not extremely comprehensive, and while I appreciate having it handy, using it is a bit cumbersome to use: it is a little slow to bring up the instructions, and while reading a specific instruction it gives me the option to "Take me there" in the menu, it does not replace a piece of paper that I can have in front of me to quickly reference various steps or settings (you constantly have to bounce back and forward from the user guide to the actual menu option). Still about a third of a star deducted here.In conclusion: The picture quality blows me away! The 3D is absolutely amazing! Menus are childish, and the manual a joke (but who cares) Regret - just one: it could have been bigger, but the next up size would have been more than double in price. So for the next 5-6 years (hopefully the technology will not change too drastically) this will suffice. Only 4 stars feels unjust to this picture quality, but that's what it seems fair to me for the whole package. I might revisit this though as I get used to this TV and sort the connection issues. Almost perfect!EDIT:These are some setting I found to be pretty good:*Picture Modes Picture Mode : Expert 1 Color Temperature : Warm Aspect Ratio : Just Scan*Picture Settings Backlight : 47 Contrast : 80 Brightness : 54 H Sharpness : 10 V Sharpness : 10 Color : 50 Tint : 0*Expert Control Dynamic Contrast : Off Super Resolution : Off Color Gamut : Standard Edge Enhancer : Off Color Filter : Off Gamma : 2.4 White Balance : Factory Color Management : Factory*Picture Options Noise Reduction : Off MPEG Noise Reduction : Off Black Level : Low Real Cinema : On LED Local Dimming : Medium TruMotion : OffI keep playing with them though, so still work in progress, The WiFi keep drives me nuts sometimes: it seems to "wake up" only when I go in the settings/connections. It works fine afterwards. Sometimes the YouTube app takes forever to start. Also, the LG store keeps giving me a "try later" message. I have to try another router - I know wired connection would be best, but my setup does not allow for wired connection yet...

I spent months researching ultra HD TVs before making this purchase. I've always owned plasma TVs and had held back on buying an LCD TV because of concerns about contrast ratio, refresh rate, and various visual artifacts seemingly inherent to LCD technology. Needless to say, I have high standards and knew exactly what to look for when doing my research. In the end, it came down to this TV and the similar Sony 65” class 4K Ultra HD.As with anything that appeals to your senses, you can't rely upon specifications alone because the numbers rarely provide a complete picture. A TV, like a car, needs to be experienced and what one person may consider the best may not be another's top choice. In addition to looking at TVs in person, I scoured online for information from multiple sources to help with making this decision. Hopefully, I can save someone else a little effort by compiling here some of the key differentiators which factored into my decision to buy this TV over the other, similar TVs on the market at the time of this writing.PROS:• The 3D is amazing and rivals, if not surpasses, the quality of 3D offered in theaters. While it seems a lot of people don't care about 3D and consider it a gimmick, this was one of my major decision criteria. I suspect 3D hasn't really caught because of the lack of availability and price of 3D movies for home viewing. Another reason could be the prevalence of stereoblindness (the inability to perceive 3D), which is estimated at around 10% of the population. Furthermore not everyone who can perceive 3D sees it equally. This next part will get a little technical, so if you’re not interested in 3D or why ultra HD with passive 3D is the way to go, then skip ahead to the next bullet.In the theater, the left and right image are superimposed using two separate projectors. To create this effect at home, 3D TVs use one of two technologies, active or passive 3D. Active 3D works by alternately displaying the left and right images and allowing only one eye to see each image at a time using electronic glasses synchronized with the TV that block your left eye when the right image is being displayed and block your right eye when the left image is being displayed. While this method allows you to see the image in full resolution, it effectively cuts the refresh rate in half; if the TV has a native refresh rate of 120 Hz (120 times per second) then both the left and right image refresh at a rate of only 60 Hz, which can make fast motion look choppy. This tends to be a problem for 3D LCD TVs because they have about one fifth the refresh rate as plasma TVs. The flickering which is caused by the active 3D glasses is also perceptible to some people and can be annoying (I am one of them). Cross-talk, which is when one eye sees part of the image meant for the other eye, is another common problem. Lastly, active 3D glasses are more expensive and bulkier than their passive 3D counterparts and require batteries to function.Passive 3D works by using the odd horizontal lines of resolution, which are only visible to one eye, to display one image while displaying the other using only the even horizontal lines, which are only visible to the other eye, with passive 3D glasses. This method displays both the left and right images at the same time, but since each image requires half of the horizontal lines of resolution the resolution of the TV is cut in half. Thus, if watching a 1080p movie on a 1080p TV in passive 3D, the movie will be effectively displayed in only 540p resolution. This is where ultra HD comes in. 4K ultra HD has twice the lines of resolution, so even if half the lines of resolution are lost with passive 3D a 1080p movie is still displayed in 1080p since there are 2160 horizontal lines per inch to start with. This provides for a smooth, high-resolution experience with little to no cross-talk (depending upon your viewing position) that matches the 3D experience you get in a theater. While there isn't much ultra HD content available yet, this advantage of 4K over 1080p HD alone makes it worth the cost.• The smart TV is simple and intuitive to use. I've been using Roku for years, which has a very clean interface and lots of channels from which to choose. While the LG store does not have as many channel offerings at Roku, it does have most of the channels/apps I want and comes pre-loaded with Amazon instant video, YouTube, Hulu, Netflix, etc. The remote also works as a built-in air mouse that controls a cursor on the screen making selection faster, particularly when entering text.• The picture quality is excellent, once you've dialed it in correctly to your taste. More on this later in the CONS section. The blacks are really dark (on par with plasma), the color accuracy is excellent, and there’s little to no visible backlight artifacting (though there is some flashlighting when first turned on, which appears to be addressed by software once the system has fully booted up).CONS:• Some initial adjustment to the picture settings is required to get a more natural looking picture. I found the default settings to produce a very artificial, plastic-like picture which was unappealing. I imagine that these settings help showcase the properties of ultra HD in a well-lit showroom, but at home it’s too bright and crisp and the color too cool. There are several sites where people have posted setting recommendations. I like the settings recommended by one of the other Amazon reviewers, found here:http://www.amazon.com/LG-Electronics-65UB9500-65-Inch-Ultra/product-reviews/B00KH7NBI4One of the greatest improvements in image quality was realized by turning off Trumotion, which is a motion-smoothing filter intended to reduce the motion blur inherent to LCD TVs. While Trumotion might be useful while watching sports, it’s very annoying while watch movies recorded at 24 fps and is apparently one of the biggest complaints about this TV, and LG TVs in general.What looks good to one person doesn't necessarily look good to the next, so there are no correct settings - it’s just a matter of taste. Personally, I prefer a balanced to slightly warm picture without any noise reduction or edge enhancement filters turned on. To get the best black levels and contrast I recommend setting the power savings setting to low or off.• The remote has very limited universal capabilities. LG employs a system to control peripheral devices such as a receiver or DVD player which requires programming the remote on-screen. While it probably works well with other LG or ARC compatible devices, the remote cannot learn IR commands from other remotes. This ultimately limits its utility for many people like myself who aren't using other LG devices or an ARC compatible receiver as part of their setup. My receiver, through which I route all audio, uses a separate command to turn it on and off (standby). The LG remote will turn the receiver on, but cannot turn it back off again. The remote will also not control my PS3, which I use as my Blu-Ray player. Ultimately, as much as I really liked the built-in mouse function, I decided to go back to using my Logitech Harmony remote to consolidate control of my entire system using just one remote.Overall, this is excellent TV with a few small drawbacks. If you’re in the market for a 3D or an ultra HD TV, this one definitely deserves to be on your short list.