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What Hi-Fi?
What Hi-Fi?
Technology
Tom Parsons

The LG C5 is much lighter than its rivals, and that’s good news for the environment as well as your back

The 55-inch LG C5 OLED TV photographed on a wooden stand. In the corner of the photo is a green logo that says 'Sustainability Week'.

LG's C-series OLED TVs are among the best performance-per-pound TVs you can buy. Nothing new there.

But, since 2022, there's been one way in which they trounce their rivals – weight.

The 65-inch version of 2021's LG C1 weighed 32.6kg.

The following year's 65-inch C2, though, was a much fitter 16.5kg.

Weights have crept up a little since then, with this year's 65-inch C5 coming in at 18.8kg, but that's still significantly less than rivals.

The 65-inch Sony Bravia 8, for example, weighs 23.2kg, while the 65-inch Samsung S90F is 22.5kg.

There are obvious practical benefits to this lighter weight – it makes building, moving and wall-mounting the TV much easier – but it's a big deal for sustainability, too.

That's because the lighter a product is, the lower the carbon emissions involved in its transportation.

In fact, LG "expects to lower carbon emissions by 84,000 tons across manufacturing and transportation – equivalent to the CO2 absorbed annually by a 30-year-old pine forest the size of 11,000 football fields".

The lightness of LG's C-series OLEDs is a strong contributing factor to that figure, but so are other initiatives, such as the use of shipping freight over air freight wherever possible.

It's the weight element that really appeals to me, though, because I see it as a real bonus for the buyer as well as one for the environment.

I'd like to see LG's rivals take a similar approach. They all have environmental initiatives of their own, of course, but some weight loss on top would be a bonus for everyone.

Quality has to be maintained, though. The LG C5 is as handsome as it is light, and build quality is very good.

Sound, though, is a weakness, and one wonders how much the thinness and lightness are factors there.

Still, I'd very much likely to see brands such as Sony and Samsung give it a crack.

Here's hoping lightness becomes a TV battleground in the near future.

MORE:

Check out all of our Sustainability Week coverage

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