The LG SM8600 is a good 4k IPS TV with decent picture quality, a very low input lag, and excellent response time. The LG SM8600 can get decently bright and is better-suited for an average lit room where blacks don’t matter that much. The TV can handle reflections well, and you won’t be distracted if your room has a few lights or some small windows. Thanks to its IPS panel, the image remains accurate for wide viewing angles, and you can comfortably place it in a large room with a wide seating arrangement. Unfortunately, the native contrast ratio is not good, as expected from IPS TVs, and this hurts dark room performance. HDR is not that good either, as the TV can’t get bright enough to display HDR with highlights that pop. On the upside, the SM8600 has a very low input lag, feels very responsive when you are gaming, and has a very fast response time that helps motion look crisp.
Pros
+ Excellent low input lag
+ Image remains accurate when viewed from the side
Cons
- Sub-par dark room performance
- HDR doesn’t add much
Design
Type: LED
Sub-Type: IPS
Resolution: 4k
The LG SM8600 has a plastic stand in the shape of an arc that supports the TV well but can’t really prevent the TV from wobbling if you nudge it. The overall design is excellent, and the back of the TV is made of thin metal with a mild brushed texture that makes it look good. There is some nice provision for cable management which is serviced through the stand’s hollow neck. The SM8600 is a thin TV that will look good if you wall-mount it, as it will not stick out much. It feels solid and the overall build quality is decent. The nice border finish also gives it a more premium feel, and we do not expect you to have any issues with it.
Picture Quality
The picture quality of the SM8600 is decent. As expected from an IPS TV, we measured the contrast ratio at only 1176:1 without local dimming and at 1182:1 with local dimming enabled. The local dimming feature, even though the TV is edge lit, can improve the dark room performance slightly, if set to ‘Medium’, but not by much. We measured the SM8600 real scene peak brightness at 253cd/m2, which is okay for an average lit room but not enough for a bright room. HDR isn’t much brighter either, at only 308 cd/m2, and the TV can’t display HDR as well as it should. On the upside, most sports fans will not notice the little dirty screen effect when watching the big game, even if they are watching from with a group of friends. The viewing angles allow for a wide seating arrangement so all will enjoy the same accurate image. Unfortunately, the color accuracy before calibration is only mediocre but becomes excellent if you care to calibrate it. Finally, the TV upscales lower resolution content well and has an excellent gradient handling, which is great if you watch the sky’s colors in a sunset scene.
Motion
The SM8600 has excellent motion handling with a very fast response time of 4.2ms for the 0-80% transition and a 12.4ms for the 0-100%. Fast content looks crisp, with only minimal motion blur. The LG SM8600 uses Pulse Width Modulation to dim its, and the primary flicker frequency is at 240Hz, which should not be an issue for most people. However, when the TV operates in modes like the ‘Standard’ or ‘Sports,’ the flicker is only 120Hz, which might become distracting if you’re sensitive to flicker. Moreover, some duplications might appear in fast motion. On the upside, the TV has a nice Black Frame Insertion feature to make motion look crisper and a motion interpolation feature that can interpolate content up to 120Hz. This is very helpful since the response time is very fast, and you might experience some stutter in movies which can be mitigated with the help of motion interpolation. The SM8600 plays movies-judder free from most sources.
Inputs
The LG SM8600 has a very low input lag of 14.0ms, which is among the lowest ones we have measured so far. At the same time, it supports the most common resolutions and refresh rates including native support for 1440p @ 120Hz. When you enable PC mode, the SM8600 can display proper 4:4:4, so text looks clear in all resolutions except for the 1080p @120Hz which doesn’t. It’s unclear if the SM8600 supports HDMI 2.1 or not. At the moment, we can’t confirm this either way, as we have no way of sending an HDMI 2.1 signal. The SM8600 supports Dolby Digital and DTS passthrough.
Sound Quality
The sound quality is poor as the TV can’t get very loud, and its bass can’t produce any thump or rumble. Unfortunately, it also lacks quite a bit of punch. On the upside, the TV can deliver clear and well-balanced dialog which, however, may lack a bit of airiness.
Features
The SM8600 has very good smart features. It runs the latest version of the well-known LG’s WebOS smart interface that was available last year. The interface has quite a few preinstalled apps and gives you access to LG’s Content store, where you’ll be able to find many more apps. It’s not a very smooth interface, but it has some new nice additions like the Home Dashboard feature that allows it to interact with several IoT devices. Some people that are ad sensitive might be bothered by the ads found on the LG SM8600, which are the same as the ones found on other high-end LG TVs, but on the upside the TV comes with a very nice remote control that allows you to use it as a mouse pointer to navigate through the menus. As with other LG TVs, you can also perform some functions and searches using your voice, which can be very handy at times.
Who Should Buy It?
The LG SM8600 is a good TV that performs very well in certain uses but just mediocre in some others. This is a great TV for watching TV shows, as it can handle reflections well and can offer good upscale of cable content. You will also enjoy watching sports with a group of friends on the SM8600, as the TV has good gray uniformity with minimal dirty screen effect, but also favors a wide seating arrangement. If you’re a gamer, this TV will offer you a remarkable gaming experience as it has a very low input lag and a very fast response time, so motion looks good and the TV feels responsive. Finally, if you plan to use this TV as a PC monitor, you will appreciate that it displays clear text in most common resolutions thanks to the proper chroma subsampling 4:4:4 support. Also, the edges of the screen are more uniform due to the TV’s wide viewing angles. Overall, it’s a TV that will please almost anyone as long as you don’t place in a very bright room or a very dark room.
To see all our measurements and our test results of the LG SM8600, please go here.
